TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Everything went well, the interviews. I did a pretty good job of having a whole weekend entertaining us and chaperoning us around the campus. It was good. It was very easy, in terms of I wasn’t really grilled on research or anything. [00:01:11] The interview was very conversational. I think it went pretty well.
THERAPIST: That’s great.
CLIENT: So she should get back to me soon.
THERAPIST: I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
CLIENT: Thank you. It was nice because it was a very different atmosphere, too, having faculty and students in the program already really interested in what you do or where you’re from, just talking to them for a couple of days. [00:02:11] It was just different from the usual thing I do. It was good. It was a nice break. The interview was Saturday afternoon, so I spent Saturday night with my parents. That was okay. They’re so – I don’t know what the word is – unwilling to do something else other than go along. [00:03:09] They’re so engrained in their way of life or schedule. They just can’t multitask or they can’t do something outside their norm. It’s always very frustrating to see them and they don’t really want to do anything. [00:04:06] (pause) I guess I just don’t know what I can do to make it better between them and myself because I just get so angry at them. They just don’t want to do anything or they don’t want to improve on their situation. [00:04:57] (long pause) It would probably be a pretty big adjustment if I moved back there.
THERAPIST: Is UNC pretty close to where they are?
CLIENT: Yeah. Where they live is like a suburb of Boise, which is (inaudible at 00:05:54), so it’s like a 15-minute drive. [00:06:01] (pause) I guess I just don’t know how I feel about potentially leaving Philadelphia. (long pause) [00:07:23] I guess, other than that, I’m not really looking forward to getting back to work. I feel like there is so much going on. (pause) [00:08:33]
THERAPIST: [I wonder if you’re concerned that] (ph?) I don’t want to hear or talk about stuff that’s different from what we usually talk about, either to do with your parents or thoughts about moving back to Nashville. (pause) [00:09:06]
CLIENT: I don’t know. (pause) I’m just not sure about moving back to Boise, in terms of if I’m going to do it. My parents are just so frustrating, but I don’t want to seem ungrateful. (long pause) [00:11:03]
THERAPIST: So it’s more of a (inaudible at 00:11:06)?
CLIENT: I don’t know. I guess it just feels like moving back would be more problems and so many more things I had to do. I don’t really want that. (pause) [00:12:07] I feel like with all my family stuff, I’m the one always doing something. I’m the one always seeing the bigger picture of something and I don’t want to go and then everything just kind of falls on me. (long pause) [00:13:51]
THERAPIST: It does remind me of the feeling you have here, where I might have feelings about how things are working or maybe the logic of the way you feel about certain things, but I think you still feel very much like I guess I do leave it up to you to figure out what you want to do or how you’re going to handle something. (pause)
CLIENT: I don’t know. (pause) [00:15:10] [My parents worry, try to make a plan or yell at me;] (ph?) but for me it’s just kind of like what’s the point? Deal with crap as it comes later rather than do anything . (pause) [00:16:09]
THERAPIST: So there is something about the way that they are very shut down that really makes it pretty useless for you to try to change anything.
CLIENT: Right. (pause) [00:17:39]
THERAPIST: I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but there is a way in which you kind of show me or, in a small way, kind of put me in the dilemma that you’re in, saying to me, “Hey look, Ethan. There is really no point in getting into it about them or talking about what they’re like because it’s not going to go anywhere or do anything or make anything any better,” which is a bottleneck. There is a lot in your saying that, but one thing is, I think, kind of like “I don’t think there is anything that you can do” or” I don’t think you should bother to try to help me with this because there is nothing I” – I mean you – “can do.” [00:18:44] I’m not saying you’re wrong about that. I’m just saying it sets up, in some way, kind of a parallel here. Obviously, it’s a very small echo of what it’s like for you to deal with them. (pause)
CLIENT: Right. (pause) I guess I just really hate dealing with them (inaudible at 00:19:42), so I just want some way that I don’t have to. [00:19:56] (pause)
THERAPIST: I think it’s pretty clear that it makes you feel horrible.
CLIENT: Right. As much as I say something or as much as I’m angry or as much as I argue with them, [I just feel like it’s worse. Things only just get further and further] (ph?) and I don’t want to deal with it. (long pause) [00:22:36]
THERAPIST: I imagine part of it is how depressing and demoralizing it is for you to see how limited they are in being able to really talk to or connect with you about the things that feel like they really matter in your relationship with them. (long pause) [00:24:00]
CLIENT: There is no desire to connect with them, I just want them to improve their situation so when something bad happens, it doesn’t all fall on me to deal with it or to come up with a solution. I think the boat has already sailed about me being close to them. I don’t want to be. I don’t really care for that, I just don’t want to have to deal with their crap if (scoffs) something happens. I feel bad for them, but it’s their own fault so – whatever. [00:24:51] (pause)
THERAPIST: Do you mean the kind of stuff like Stu, where your mom is sort of trying to force you into being the go between and you also just have to kind of deal with it because she could never have the kind of relationship with him where she could talk to him about it, go out and visit him, anything like that; nor can she deal with her own stuff so that she can keep herself from freaking out.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: So you’ve got to kind of cover all the bases for her.
CLIENT: Right. [00:25:53] (long pause) [00:27:08] I don’t know. (long pause) I just don’t want to deal with it. [I don’t want to think.] (ph?) (pause) She won’t change, as much as I tell her that she’s being ridiculous or as much as I comfort her. She just stresses out and lets everything affect her. Now she doesn’t do anything and I just don’t understand how my mom got in this situation. [00:29:27] (long pause) [00:30:33]
THERAPIST: She seems to have done a very good job of getting you to feel the way she does or seems to – hopeless, anxious, ineffectual.
CLIENT: I guess, but she won’t ever admit to being that way. She would just say “I do the best that I can,” blah, blah, blah, “with what I have.” [00:31:26] But I can’t stand it. I hate being at home. (long pause) [00:33:46]
THERAPIST: [One of the reasons that you] (ph?) hate talking about that here – I have the sense that you feel a similar sense of futility and more like it’s making you miserable and, maybe even in the moment, that I’m kind of dragging you through it in ways that don’t feel like they could lead to your feeling either less burdened or more clear about what’s going on; but rather more mired in it.
CLIENT: Right. (pause) [00:35:02] I don’t know. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. That sucks – my parents – and then work sucks and (voice breaking) it’s just like there’s always something to deal with or get through. (long pause) [00:37:13]
THERAPIST: I think that’s something that you’re feeling, at some level, much of the time – maybe all of the time – and that you don’t have much hope that it could change.
CLIENT: Right. (pause) [00:38:10]
THERAPIST: And I think you probably also imagine that the result of any hope I might have or seem to have or effort that I make or seem to make is kind of going to make things worse, just confronting you with how shitty all of this is.
CLIENT: Right. Or I still have to do something about it. I still have to deal with it. [00:39:10] (long pause) [00:41:33] I think you kind of maintain the fantasy that there is something you can do about things with your mother that will make them better, in the same way that you imagine that there is an answer I could give you or a strategy I could propose that, if you followed it in your life outside of here, it would make things better. [00:42:27] (long pause) [00:43:16]
CLIENT: I don’t know. (pause) I just don’t think there is anything to say to her. I just feel sorry for her. I just don’t see how she can do nothing about her situation.
THERAPIST: We should stop for now.
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