TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Did you see that article or that blog in the New York Times about how psychiatrists and therapists, in general, don't use science and the evidence behind the science in their practice? You know, like CBT and DBT? They mentioned anxiety but I don't think they mentioned depression. They talked about PTSD and some exposure therapy and eating disorders, and that a lot of therapists or psychiatrists take the artsy approach. I'm like what is my doctor? He's mentioned studies, so he obviously reads something or he learned something. But am I in the artsy approach? I kind of figured out that CBT is a bunch of bunk, if you ask me. At least it doesn't work for me because I operate on logic most of the time except when it comes to women. Did you read that? [00:01:39]

THERAPIST: I did.

CLIENT: So are you a science guy? Are you an artsy guy? A little artsy, a little science? They mentioned younger practitioners were more likely to be science.

THERAPIST: I thought it was a very problematic article for two main reasons.

CLIENT: Oh, you're one of them.

THERAPIST: One is that...

CLIENT: It was a blog post, by the way, so there's like no validity to it. But go ahead.

THERAPIST: One of which is that there is actually considerable empirical support for psycho-dynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, although they mentioned none of it. Hundreds of studies, analytic reviews, pretty well known in the field. [00:02:36]

CLIENT: What's interesting – not to cut you off because that's what I do – but they would cite a quote from some professor or whatever supporting the artsy approach or whatever it is. Then they'd go to the next paragraph and, not in the quote, but would simply dismiss it. But that's not the case. What's the second part?

THERAPIST: The second part is that, although I have not actually read this literature recently, but the last time I looked at it, literature on empirically-based treatments is really problematic in that sort of... Let's say, for the moment, there are two types of studies of effectiveness of psychotherapy, one of which calls out empirically-based treatment and the other, which we could say is more of an outcome study. In the outcome study you might do something like randomly assigning patients to various types of therapy or control conditions and see how they do; and you check on the clinician's backgrounds, approaches. [00:04:11] Maybe you find some way of validating that they're doing more or less the approach that they say they're doing. In the sort of empirically-validated treatment, it's kind of a buzz phrase which the person does something a little different involving treatments that are highly manualized, where the therapist very much has a kind of play book that says "this happens to this". It's really quite restrictive.

CLIENT: Is there an asshole playbook?

THERAPIST: (laughs) It really limits what the therapist can do, in part because that sort of approach is easier to study – which is a little silly. Like limiting yourself to the sorts of treatments that are easy to study because they're easy to study and throwing out anything else. So a lot of what falls under "empirically-valid treatments" is of that sort. Those are the two problems I found with the article. One is with the sort of movement to empirically-valid treatments because it greatly reduces the types of therapy that can be studied because it only studies ones that can be studied fairly easily or cleanly. The other problem is that there was no mention made of the many studies or reviews of psycho-dynamics of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. Instead it just reduced an entire field of thousands of people working in it and tons of studies done over the... [00:05:53]

CLIENT: The vast majority of therapy...

THERAPIST: Well, a lot of therapists around here anyway. With the hand-wave to the kind of artsy approach which is not just critical, but terribly uninformed.

CLIENT: Yeah, I didn't even look at who the person was that was reading it. Once they start talking about CBT and DBT I'm like blow the crap out...

THERAPIST: And that's the thing. You can say that due to the fact it's CBT, none of the things we know work well because we can study them and see that they help some people, but a lot of people say, "It didn't really help me." And they'd say, "Well, then there's nothing we can study that will help you."

CLIENT: I mean now we know, looking back, why didn't mindfulness not work for me? It's because I have trouble focusing, apparently, so these geniuses at Dominion and at the other place I went to never picked any of that up. They just slammed more drugs down my throat and turned me into a fucking zombie. Anyway, okay. I accept your answer and I'll keep seeing you. [00:07:10] There were a bunch of questions at the end that you're supposed to ask your therapist. I meant to bring those in. When I left on Friday I finally sobered up. I was thinking about the whole drama queen thing and I'm like you know, maybe for once he's right. Maybe I am taking all of these things and kind of blowing them out of proportion. One example was Olivia giving me her cell phone number. She said that I was over-analyzing and I asked Paige about it and Paige said that I was over-analyzing. [00:08:01]

Then I started – I don't know – there was just something uneasy in my gut about this whole thing. She did say that she usually likes to meet people early right off the bat, even though in her questions she had a comment about three weeks. And then the first excuse for the weekend we spoke on the phone was that she had friends coming into town, and she never mentioned it that weekend. In fact, it seems like she didn't do a whole lot that weekend. She went to see her dad. She seemed as though she was tired and stayed home. And then there is the four-guy thing and Paige was really concerned about that. I started thinking about it that she's just an honest person. And I'm like why would someone keep saying how honest they are, that they're honest? [00:09:06] Don't people... I'm not a liar. I would never lie. Like in interviews when they do an interview and, at some point in the interview they go, "Well in all honesty..." Like all the other times you weren't being honest? I couldn't fit the pieces together, but something was uncomfortable there. I know she was traveling down to Pennsylvania and she had busy things to do and whatever. We texted all Thursday during the concert. In the morning I didn't really hear much from her until late in the day. Clearly she left in the afternoon and was stuck in traffic. I don't know. Things were just unsettling and uneasy. I didn't hear a lot from her over the weekend and it seemed like she was running around doing wedding stuff. [00:10:05] I went to the tournament on Sunday and had a blast. I played well. I think I hurt myself a little bit, but it's surprising how much I can run and how well I play. I don't know what it was. I can't put my finger on it, but it just...

THERAPIST: [...] (inaudible at 00:10:24)

CLIENT: Yeah. But once again, I'm like she's just out of town. She's at a wedding. Blah, blah, blah. She sent me a text about how everything went and that she was going to see family and she's going to catch up on her friends, blah, blah, blah. I texted her something and I didn't hear back. Then Monday morning I get a text from her that the happy couple had sat her next to a guy she dated 15 years ago in hopes that there may be something there. [00:11:12] And guess what? There was a spark. She wanted to call me late Sunday night, but she got in too late. She didn't want to text me, but she felt that she had to tell me ASAP. But she still wanted to remain friends. I was kind of surprised at how well I took it. Yeah, I was disappointed. Actually kind of all morning long was trying. Once again, I was like pay attention. Pay attention, whatever that is. I was trying to pay attention to my emotions and, really, the one thing I said is that I'm disappointed, maybe sad. I felt like, had it happened last week, I would have been a lot worse. [00:12:07] I went straight and did my workout. I did my push-ups. I did squats. I did my leg lifts. I probably wouldn't have done that. I probably would have blown off work. It would have incapacitated me in some fashion. One of the things that I found odd, but it came in the dare category; and she's always kind of dared me to do thing like send creepy messages to these women. I think she never really thought I'd do stuff like that. She was daring me to do little things. I can't remember if it was like bump into women's boobs or stuff like that. She dared me to get a woman's phone number. Did I mention that to you? [00:13:04]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And that wasn't so odd to me, but what was odd to me was that when I sent her a picture of the woman (laughs) holding up her phone number, I got no response. And all this stuff I really can't piece it all together. So I'm driving home and all of a sudden I get a text. It's from the woman with the phone number. (chuckling) I had thought about whether I should call this woman. I was like ehh, you know... I accept that it was probably more chicken-shit than anything else, to call her and talk to her. Part of it was Kerry, of Mosby and Kerry, Kerry was clearly uncomfortable with her talking to me.

THERAPIST: Right, and you thought that was because Kerry is friendly with Jess.

CLIENT: Right. And Mosby had made some comment. "Kerry's – whatever. Just ignore her." So what happened is I had texted – her name is Marcia – I texted Marcia Thursday night with a joke and I never heard back from her. [00:14:18] She started texting me jokes. Of course, this is on Monday. As soon as I got the text I started laughing. I felt like Seinfeld. He always comes out, you know? A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Why the long face?" Then John Kerry walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Why the long face?" (both chuckle) So I was in the car. I got back home. I had texted her some jokes so – back and forth. I'm like wow. Obviously she's texting me for a reason so I asked her out, and tomorrow night we have a date.

THERAPIST: Oh, nice. [00:15:00]

CLIENT: And I was chit-chatting back and forth with the farm woman, Trish, on Sunday who, for some reason, initially I just wasn't... I was kind of – you know. But the more I chatted with her and thought about it, I was at the farm yesterday and I asked Sharon, the executive director, if she knew her and she said no. So I was like, "You know, we're still trying to come up with a time. I was doing some recon on you and I came up empty." She was like, "Dana knows me." I was like okay, well. I had a meeting in the morning at the farm and we had the board meeting that night, so I said, "Hey, Dana. (laughs) Do you know someone named Trish?" She was like, "Trish Z." She was like, "Trish Z-something?" I go, "Yeah, that's her." She was like, "Oh, she's very kind," but she wouldn't... I think she didn't want to say, "Oh, yeah. She's great and wonderful," and then something didn't work out. [00:16:08] She was trying to say nice things about her without being too... So I'm looking a little bit forward to that. I still don't' know what to think about "R". I haven't heard from her and I'm wondering if she's even going to show up on Friday. But things started clicking about Olivia because one of the things that I had thought about that Paige had suggested is that there are people who just want to be pen pals and they never actually meet you. At first I was like why would she make up this ruse about meeting with this guy or connecting with this guy and then leave it at "if you want to still be friends, that's fine. If not, best of luck," type of thing. Just out of my natural networking I was like yeah, let's still be friends or whatever. [00:17:14] Then I was, "Ah, you stupid fuck. Why did you do that?" Then I was like, "Let's see what she means by this. I guess I'm never going to learn what the "B" stands for in that response." Okay, maybe she thinks maybe if we have coffee – because she had suggested with the separation thing that we meet and still have coffee.

THERAPIST: Right. I thought there was a time, actually.

CLIENT: No, and that was the thing. Last week we had set up Saturday. She was like, "But we'll talk about it next week." So I was like how hard is it to open up your calendar – we're talking on your fucking iPad. Open up your calendar. Because even Trish said, "Yeah, Sunday is good, but I maybe leaving town. Let me get back to you earlier in the week." We didn't pick a time, but we had a place. It wasn't totally firm, but it was much more firm. [00:18:21] I texted Olivia, "I still want to have a cup of coffee and meet you." She came up with something to blow it off. I had said the ball is in your court and she came up with "we'll talk about that". I don't know. I think she might be one of these people because it's hard to believe. Some of it seems really genuine and then there are parts of it that just don't add up. I don't know what would have happened if Marcia hadn't texted me. That totally changed my whole world view. It's kind of freaky. Marcia friended me on Facebook the next day. She was a Facebook friend with Booty. Of course I looked her up. She [...] (inaudible at 00:19:18). I remember she just didn't seem that smart to me. She was a real-estate paralegal and now she's walking dogs and I'm Facebook friends with her. I'm like, "Find out more about her." She's 39. It doesn't appear that she went to college or, at least, graduated from college. I was like, "What the fuck?" [00:19:44]

One of the things I said to Olivia was, "This is a nice early birthday present." Then I paired that with, "I'm not saying this to be an asshole, I just think it's funny." Of course, I'm saying this to be an asshole. Bright and early yesterday morning – happy birthday, which reminded me of, and I think I showed you the video of Lucille singing Happy Birthday.

THERAPIST: Just recently?

CLIENT: On Lucille's birthday, which was in February. I always held back on sending her pictures of the kids because I thought she'd think that's some boundary you don't cross. "I've got this cute video. You remind me of Stella singing Happy Birthday." She said, "Oh, I'd love to see it." I sent her the video and she's like, "Oh, she's a doll." I quoted some John Butler song called Peaches and Cream. The line goes, "She filled my half-empty cup," which is kind of the truth. [00:21:05] I always think, "Why was I thinking about suicide, but never took any furtive gesture." We talked about this. (chuckles) The only thing I could come up with was the kids. I don't really know. And the, of course, I said she's Peaches and Cream to me, because I always think about Lucille when I hear that song. The one part of that song that I don't like and that is "your mom and you". So it's like, "God, why does he have to put mom in there? Is there some way I can edit that out?" [00:21:40]

THERAPIST: Dad.

CLIENT: I still love that song. Who knows what the future holds for psycho Olivia. I'm interested in meeting this woman. I know it will never happen, but the funny thing is that when I first met Olivia I told her one of my most favorite songs – and this is true – is by Ted Leo. It's a song I haven't really listened to a lot lately because it's just not in my playlist. The funny thing was that I was completely overwhelmed. S fate Friday night, Saturday, Trish Sunday. I've got to wear the same outfit to all three. (laughs) [00:22:47] It's like I'm not going to be able to see Ian. The whole thing was very overwhelming. What do I do? Okay, I have these dates. Let's say one of them goes well, two of them go well – what if three of them go well? What the fuck do I do? Even if one of them goes well, what do I do? I hadn't even thought about that. It didn't even cross my mind that there might be something beyond the first date. So I felt a little relieved because I've already met Marcia. We've already chatted and flirted. [00:23:26]

THERAPIST: Right. I guess there's something to be said for the whole real-life thing.

CLIENT: Yeah. And actually she was like, "Where are you going?" as she was leaving with her friends. That kind of thing. I texted Paige, "You know, when I had hair, why were women not attracted to me? Now they seem to..." because Trish seems really excited about this date. She wished me a nice weekend. It ends up with a great date on Sunday. That's pressure. So I don't know. I have less anxiety now about the dates this weekend. I have no anxiety about meeting with Marcia. She's kind of a party girl so I'll probably just drink to excess. Who knows what happens after that. I had no clue about "R". Will I even recognize this woman if she walks in the bar? That's where it's at. And I used the whole "pay attention" thing to evaluate where I was with it all. I'm not sure, I couldn't figure it out. [00:24:58]

THERAPIST: Where you were with it all?

CLIENT: Like with Olivia. I would like to know. Am I disappointed or sad? I felt a little empty, a sense of loss, but it was very controlled and minor. I was able to do my work. I did my workout. I didn't obsess about it.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it didn't bathe you in the way... It didn't really shake you.

CLIENT: Yeah it definitely affected me; and I don't know if it's because I got a grip with the drama queen thing. This was all before Marcia texted me. (pause) [00:25:55] And then I'm broke. I forgot about estimated taxes. I've got excise taxes. I told Jess that I don't have the money to pay for the outback camp. She starts giving me, "Well, we're going to lose our deposit. He's not going to be able to go. He's only going to go for a week." Da-da-da-da. It's like, "I'll talk to my dad, but I don't have the money." And I know she's put money away for the move and everything like that, so if push comes to shove I'll be like, "Let's use that and then I'll pay you back," if money ever comes in. I'm starting to get a few refi's popping up. Yeah. (sighs) So the money thing has got me concerned. What I've got to do is realistically look at how much money I need. I'm now four months that I haven't paid my landlord and my dad sent me $100. I've got this money sitting in my [...] (inaudible at 00:27:03) account that I'm supposed to pay out for [...]. Do I use that or do I don't use that? That's just going to put you in a bigger hole so I'm going to try and send that out today. (sighs) I've got my car payment and you're probably going to hit me up for $200 this weekend.

THERAPIST: [...] (inaudible at 00:27:38)

CLIENT: It may not be there, but try. See if it goes through. I have no clue if I'm ever going to see a dime from the condo that owes me $4,000. The one in charge of the books now is the crazy woman. The trustee who got thrown under the bus wanted to hire me. There's nothing that's come up, but she's like there have been threats and whatnot and she wanted to be prepared and hire me. I'm like, "That's a conflict of interest. You can't hire me." Even if there was no conflict of interest, fuck you guys. You owe me $4,000. I'm not going deeper into the hole. (pause) I think I probably should break down and buy some condoms. Is that a good idea? [00:28:47]

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: Just in case. I don't know what to do with them, but I've got a client that's coming in and I have to get some glass cleaners. For my glass table I use a Clorox wipe on it and it's just really horribly streaky. So I figure I'll see if CVS has the Windex products and pick up some prophylactics. Who knows when I'll need them? It could be Thursday night; it could be never. Well, never say never but... I don't know. I could sell them on e-Bay if I need to, right? Along with Buddy's cage. It is this weird thing. I guess I'm dealing with a sub-set of women who are desperate because they're in their midto late-30's to early 40's and they're settling for the fat, bald guy. [00:29:58]

THERAPIST: Way to build yourself up.

CLIENT: Yeah. Everyone says I've lost a lot of weight. I kind of see it in my face. I think I was in a good mood because of the tournament. I think the exercise and exercising – I did my workout Saturday. I did a Saturday, I played in the tournament, and this is the big thing – I had a very good excuse not to do my workout Monday morning because I played four fucking games of Frisbee the day before and I was in pain. I did it anyway, so I think that helped. I think getting in shape is going to make a big difference. I went and played Frisbee Monday night. And even though I kind of hit a wall in the second half, I still went out and played a point or two, but I really was running hard in the beginning of the game. I caught a long pass and I did another long run. I was open and did a shooting pass. So for the pain I was in and having played four games and then the workout, I thought I played pretty well on Monday night. [00:31:16]

I went out. I even posted on Facebook, "My birthday is at midnight. I'm going to be at the bar. Come buy me Guinness." I get to the bar. It's before 11:00 and there are a couple of Toads there and they bought me a Guinness. Greg bought me a shot of Jameson. And at midnight there was like four people there; none of them who I really knew, other than just meeting them within the last couple of weeks. I wasn't going to ride home with someone who I just met. I was kind of left in the bar. I told the guy, "We're not leaving until 12:15 and I'm going to have another drink," and then I never had another drink. I was going to go to a fundraiser tonight, but I have to give my liver a rest. I had a couple of beers and some whiskey last night. We had a pot luck after the board meeting and I signed up very quickly for the beer to make sure it was going to be there. Of course, I tend towards the higher alcohol beer. I literally had like a beer and a half. I even ate at the pot luck. I was buzzed. I was buzzed. [00:32:35]

Paige was having an issue with her beau. I thought they broke up and then they got back together. She was just asking me questions about paying for stuff and, apparently, he invited her to meet his parents in Wisconsin. He was like, "Yeah, the plane ticket is like $500." At first she thought that that's how it should be and I'm like, "No, no, no, no. I would either just buy the ticket when you got the ticket you would see how much it cost and we'd have kinky sex in the master bedroom of his parents; or I wouldn't have invited you. I wouldn't ask you to pay for it." Like when Jess and I – we had already joined bank accounts – and he makes twice as much money as her. These guys went to New York and she paid for it. So she's like, "I'm really ticked off." I was like, "You should be." [00:33:44] And then at midnight, she had a birthday so I told her, "There is something about this guy that you're attracted to. Just focus on that." And then I said, "Drink to excess." She said she has a double work. She must be teaching as well as her regular work. So there it is. I'm still very interested in – I mean I haven't let go of this whole Olivia thing, you know? Don't friends still meet and give their last name? I'm still not so convinced that I'm overanalyzing the cell phone number thing. I don't know how it fits in, but it still seems very awkward to me. I don't doubt that she didn't connect with an old flame. I don't doubt that part. [00:35:00] The detail she went through – oh, you know, I just connected with an old flame at the wedding and it just happened – the detail she went into was a little... (pause) I'll be anxious to see her later in the year. I guess at some point I'm going to call her on it, too, and ask if she's one of these creepy people that never meet people online. And what does this guy think of her texting some guy, looking at videos of his daughter? I wouldn't have a problem with that stuff, but I think a lot of guys would. [00:35:59]

THERAPIST: I mean you certainly sound more confident.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? I was very anxious last week. Even with the weekend I felt overwhelmed. I was excited to meet Olivia, but with the other two I was like, "I don't know." This was a woman who I knew nothing about, who was the first one I ever messaged and is attractive and smart and then – I don't want to say Trish is trying hard, but she's definitely putting more effort into it than I would put into it, where I'm sort of playing back a little bit, you know? You know what really bothers me about Trish? She's Jewish. She's seriously Jewish. Is she going to call me a bad Jew? I think for most Jewish women it's just all right, he's Jewish. My mom will be happy. Then that brings up a whole thing I struggle with, whether Ian should have a bar mitzvah or not. One, I look at it as just an ungodly expense. And then the other thing, the only thing that even made me start thinking about it more is that my cousin out in Oregon is not having his daughter – his wife is just not Jewish – but his daughter is not having a bat mitzvah. [00:38:02] He's his own guy and it's really for him. He doesn't want the whole religion thing. And when we were baby-naming for Lucille, I really wanted this stuff. I really wanted it, but I'm questioning it. (pause) I go to a client meeting with clients I need to help them get their security deposit back. They have some new problem. They didn't tell me why. Some woman e-mailed me yesterday talking about it. She wants a will and I know nothing about you. I can do a will for you. [00:39:04]

I have to somehow make several thousand dollars magically appear. I kind of prepared my dad. He knows the number. I was thinking to myself that, worst case, maybe I shouldn't make my estimated payment until I can afford it. That's what I did last year. You pay a little bit of interest in penalties, but it's not going to affect Jess. We're going to be filing separately. I threw a little party for him. They made me cards for Ian. They made two cards but they both seemed to work on both of them. Then Lucille wanted to keep one of the cards. Jess said, "You made that for dad. You should be able to..." Ian had made me this magnet for the frig and Lucille wanted to put it on her frig. So when she wasn't looking Ian grabbed it and put it in my pocket. What was really weird was that Jess went inside to fix dinner and didn't say anything to Lucille. Lucille got very upset and cried, "Mama, mama, mama." But then later, this bug just kind of flew in front of her face and she freaked out. I'm like, "Oh, the bug was just coming to say ‘hi'." But she came over and hugged me and let me comfort her, which was like the first time that's ever happened. [00:40:57] I had a cake at the board meeting. I had to take it home. I got a cupcake which the kids and Jess had gotten me. Normally I think I would have eaten it all last night, but I haven't eaten any of it. I'm trying to watch my girlish figure. (pause) [00:41:59]

I got my workout today at the studio. We'll see how that goes, if I can do a little more than I did last week. I'm meeting with the divorce attorney. [...] (inaudible at 00:42:11) A woman called asking for Jess. I e-mailed Jess that so-and-so called and here's her number. Jess immediately responded, "I'm not taking contested cases." I didn't even tell her what the case was about. It was a child custody case. So I said, "Okay." So I referred it to Barbara, the divorce attorney. I called the woman back and she hung up. She'll never call her, but... So I'm going to have lunch with her today.

THERAPIST: Well we should stop for now.

CLIENT: I'll see you Friday.

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