TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Two scheduling things. One I think about tomorrow morning?

CLIENT: Yeah. 7:30?

THERAPIST: Yeah. And the second one is it's uncertain but there's a chance that I start taking a few hours on Saturday mornings? If I do would you want one of those?

CLIENT: I probably wouldn't be able to do Saturday morning because I tutor on Saturday mornings.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: What like what time they be?

THERAPIST: If I do, it would probably be like 8 between 8 and 11.

CLIENT: Okay. If you had availability at like at 8, that would I would definitely be interested in that.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: But I usually, yeah, I leave at like quarter to nine.

THERAPIST: But 8 would work?

CLIENT: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's fine if I do that and then just sort of like get a sense of whether it will work if I'm going to do it. Okay?

CLIENT: Okay. Cool.

THERAPIST: I will keep you posted.

(Pause): [00:01:30 00:01:42]

CLIENT: James's stopped coming to church with me. Which is not really surprising and like I actually don't know whether in some ways like I rather he would come to church with me and in some ways I would sort of rather be at church by myself. You know, it's too bad in the sense that like the things that I need from church are not the things that he needs. He just didn't feel comfortable there. I'm not entirely sure why. I think some combination of like he felt like the singing and the rituals and like the things you do when, were too hard to figure out and were a barrier for him. And I don't think he liked the sermons which I don't usually like the sermons either so I'm (unclear) on that. There are four priests at my church and the like priest in charge, or like rector, he's not officially the rector, but like he's the equivalent there, the guy in charge, basically, usually never comes to the 6 o'clock service which is good because I don't like him very much. (Laughs) But he was there this week and he preached. It was an okay sermon. He talked about healing. It was one of those things like I thought the topic was a really good one but I wanted him to say something more substantive or more interesting than he did. And then also he made like a pretty egregious error of he said that your salvation derived from the world meaning to heal which is right, but then he linked that to Hebrew shalom which is really not right at all. (Laughs) So, oh well.

THERAPIST: The etymology of the word "salvation" to the Hebrew word "shalom"?

CLIENT: Yeah. Not even related at all. No. So that was exciting. Yeah, I think I sort of like going to church by myself. But I don't like being cut off from James in that way.

(Pause): [00:05:12 00:05:43]

CLIENT: He's just not happy and I don't know what to do to help. (inaudible).

(Pause): [00:05:46 00:06:50]

CLIENT: We were out for a walk yesterday. You know, it was a really nice day. We were talking about the dogwood and we were walking by the river, so it's like we're in Ireland or Texas or anywhere but here. James's like, maybe we should pay attention to that feeling. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:07:21 00:07:29]

CLIENT: I've been homesick lately like (unclear) Texas.

(Pause): [00:07:31 00:09:00]

THERAPIST: I'd imagine that (unclear) be upset or offended or something if you turned out not liking it there and had to leave.

(Pause): [00:09:01 00:09:08]

CLIENT: I don't know.

(Pause): [00:09:08 00:09:23]

CLIENT: Maybe. I don't know.

(Pause): [00:09:22 00:09:35]

CLIENT: I feel reluctant to talk about James too much with you. It feels to me as though (Pause) it feels to me as though you are reluctant to engage much with the kind of issues that I'm having with James.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: But I actually, I have no idea whether that's coming from me or from you or from some combination of you know, maybe part of it's like I've been thinking maybe we could go to couples counseling again. I sort of said that to James and he had said that to me earlier but it just hasn't happened yet.

THERAPIST: Right.

(Pause): [00:10:44 00:10:54]

CLIENT: It feels like I'll kind of talk about something that's going on with James and you kind of let that stand and sometimes or a lot of the time you kind of redirect that to something that's going on between me and you. As though that's something that you can actually deal with. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Or like that's something that can be more addressed here.

(Pause): [00:11:22 00:11:34]

THERAPIST: And so to sort of do the same thing again -

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: So that -

CLIENT: Well no, I was actually thinking about -

THERAPIST: So that makes you feel like I kind of don't want to deal with it or I'm leaving you hanging with it somehow when you're talking about stuff about you and James?

CLIENT: I guess I've spent more time thinking about (unclear) like why that would happen from your end than how that makes me feel. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: In other words, like I'm critical of it or something?

CLIENT: Not so much critical of it as like at least in my mind what I attribute to you is that like you only talk to me, you don't talk to James and like you can't fix our problems. Like that's not what you can do here. But like this relationship is something that you do see both sides of, you know, and so that's something that you can deal with.

THERAPIST: I see.

(Pause): [00:12:57 00:13:11]

CLIENT: That's the way I rationalize it.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:13:14 00:13:24]

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess I feel like both a little bit like you're leaving me hanging and a little bit guilty for wanting to talk about James all the time anyway. And also a little bit guilty because like I don't it's not clear to me how much of this I'm making up you know, like it's not clear to me whether or not you are actually redirecting the conversation away from James or whether I just feel like that.

(Pause): [00:14:02 00:14:37]

THERAPIST: So here's a position statement. I think what it (Pause) what's important to cover are the things that matter to you. Whatever those may be. You know, all sorts of, all your thoughts, like free associate, but in a general way, in 45 minutes try to cover all the things that are important to you and that matter, and it is true -

CLIENT: Obviously, like ridiculous. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: (Unclear). And it is true that I sort of often kind of refrain from what you're talking about or when you seem to be going on. My intent here is not to steer the conversation away from what you're talking about. Like sometimes I think that's what's the most emotionally immediate. But it's not because I think it's not worth talking about stuff with James, or something that is more important in some ways like that might be like (unclear) more accessible in a certain way. But anything (unclear) talks about or that you focus on stuff as it occurs to you or as it becomes important to you.

CLIENT: That makes sense.

THERAPIST: Sure.

(Pause): [00:16:53 00:17:13]

CLIENT: And I guess I sort of maintain as an article of faith, sort of confirmed by experience or with evidence as well by experience, but (unclear), I'm sure -

THERAPIST: I've got no problem with that.

CLIENT: Good! But that there's sort of, the things that are kind of between you and I are related to things coming up in other relationships and that like might be from a slightly different angle like might be one role with me and another role with James or there may be some triangles or but, yeah, I sort of assume most of the time that it all works that way, somehow. It's sort of obvious, parallel ways, and some ways sometimes in sort of complementary ways and sometimes that they're (unclear), but in sort of fairly straightforward comprehensible relations.

CLIENT: You had me until the straightforward and comprehensible part.

THERAPIST: Well, like -

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: It's really not that hard to figure out, like, you know, are you "you" as compared to James in this one, or me as compared as you know, like who's (unclear). That's all I meant. It's usually not that -

CLIENT: I mean it's good that it's straightforward and comprehensible to you. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Well, yeah.

CLIENT: (Laughing)

THERAPIST: But it's clearly related -

CLIENT: (Laughing) It's okay if it is. One of the things that I feel like happens over and over and over again here is that like you point out a parallel that's really, really obvious when you think about it, that would not have occurred to me.

(Pause): [00:19:33 00:19:45]

CLIENT: Like the other day Franco was describing the show, "True Blood," -

THERAPIST: I've not seen nor heard of it.

CLIENT: I have not seen it either. Although now I feel like I might have to.

THERAPIST: I've heard of it vampire thing.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's vampires and this episode (unclear) watch it. I don't. It's not something you'd watch, you'd be sort of embarrassed to talk about it. Anyway, that was a long way of saying that he was telling us about the show and he talked about the premise of like vampires used to be had been around forever but were just kind of coming out into public in recent times. And I said, 'oh, so it's the is it like parallel to the gay rights movement? And both he and James were like yes, but that took me like half a season to figure it out. (Laughs) Like that's what I have done, that's what I'm trained to do.

THERAPIST: Right. In here, like (unclear) because I bet nine times out of 10 the things that I see quickly and you haven't seen, I see because I see more easily than you because they make you anxious. You know what I mean? Like what you're describing with you and Franco and James, maybe not, but you could assume that like if it was beyond everyone for each of you, it would make you less anxious to think about in some ways than them. By contrast to things here, which I can often, when I can, figure out easily or more quickly because -

CLIENT: So you're saying that I mean another way of saying it would be like I'm invested in not seeing the parallels? Well, we definitely know that's true. (Laughs).

(Pause): [00:21:43 [00:21:54]

THERAPIST: Yeah, otherwise it would be very difficult to come to work.

(Pause): [00:21:55 00:22:22]

CLIENT: It just drove me nuts because he was like, 'well, there are studies that show that people who go to church regularly have half the risk of heart disease than people who don't. And I was like, 'oh, that's not science.' (Laughs)

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

CLIENT: That doesn't mean anything. (Laughs) And that's not even consistent with the picture that he's trying to paint. We're trying to talk about emotional life and physical life as being interconnected and like I'm sorry, but emotional life and religious life are not the same thing. Like, they just aren't. It's really important that we get that. (Laughs) It's like he's pretty smart and he's pretty thoughtful, but he's neither as smart nor as thoughtful as he thinks he is which I think probably you could say for most of us, but -

(Pause): [00:23:19 00:23:48]

CLIENT: But, you know, the priest's (unclear) in something like that. I actually like to trust that I wouldn't have to deal with that church.

(Pause): [00:23:56 00:24:08]

CLIENT: Yeah, I'm a lot more comfortable being like the snarky person in the pew than the person who actually agrees with everything that's been said.

(Pause): [00:24:15 00:24:29]

CLIENT: So I signed up to be a lay Eucharistic minister, which is like carrying the candles, do some of the silly ritual parts and then you also serve wine at the Eucharist, which is mainly why I signed up for that, because the Eucharist is really important to me. I think that's one of the it's kind of the reason why I go to church and it's nice to be involved in that.

THERAPIST: I think I know, but what is it?

CLIENT: Oh, it's the ritual it's kind of at the center of most church services if you're like Catholic or Episcopalian. The kind of more Protestant that you get, the less often they do it, the less central it becomes, where you the priest stands up and like retells the story of the last supper of Jesus giving the bread passing bread and wine around to his companions and saying, 'this is my body which is given for you; this is my blood which is shed for you. Whenever you eat or drink this, do this in remembrance of me.' And then the priest what happens in the Eucharist really like becomes your theology and I don't really know. My theology is, I don't know. And then the priest says, 'be for us,' he blesses the bread and the wine and says, 'be for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ,' and then distributes them to people.

THERAPIST: (inaudible).

CLIENT: Yeah. And so only the priest can do the blessing, unless there's nobody else there unless there's no priest there, which I think is good and I didn't know until recently -

THERAPIST: That somebody else can.

CLIENT: That somebody else can if there isn't a priest present. And only the priest can distribute the bread, but anybody can distribute the wine.

THERAPIST: I see. And (unclear) the lay Eucharistic minister.

CLIENT: Yeah. So I kind of have to do that and I signed up to like read readings also because I like reading out loud and I'm good at it. I like the Bible. And so now they've started asking me to hold the collection plate, which I always felt really awkward about because they don't like assigning that to anybody before the service. They just say like, 'hmm, who is here that would be willing to do this/"

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Like, 'here you go.' Okay, thanks. Because they like take a collection and actually the collection part of the service goes back to the first account that we have the church service of Justin Martyr like in the second century. So, it's not new but I always like I don't carry cash anymore and I feel really awkward because like I've got no money, so I usually don't put anything in the collection plate. I don't know, I like it's good to be part of the service when you you know you're part of the service when you're in the congregation anyway, but -

THERAPIST: Right.

(Pause): [00:27:56 00:28:06]

CLIENT: I don't think there was a point to that. (Laughs) I thought there might be when I started talking, but no.

(Pause): [00:28:12 00:28:20]

CLIENT: So one of the big problems that James has with the Episcopal Church is this idea that like, of an ordained ministry that sets the priest apart in some ways that only the priest can do certain things. He thinks that's bullshit. And I don't know. I sort of -

(Pause): [00:28:49 00:29:06]

CLIENT: But also like I come from a family of priests. A couple of times in the last couple of weeks we've ended up talking with friends about genealogy and someone says, 'where does your family come from?' And I say, 'well, apparently we've been crazy preachers all the way back to the Mayflower.'

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: (Laughing) Yeah! I'm pretty sure that's accurate, actually. I don't know if there was a Timpleton on the Mayflower but it was one of those like very, very early first ships and he was a preacher and I'm pretty sure he was crazy. (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:29:53 00:30:03]

CLIENT: So I think in some ways I'm invested in that and I'm really comfortable in that role anyway.

(Pause): [00:30:11 00:30:51]

CLIENT: Papa kind of scoffs at the genealogy parts. But -

(Pause): [00:30:55 00:31:02]

CLIENT: I have one uncle who's really into it and like has charts and things and Papa thinks it's (inaudible) which I think is pretty different from the (inaudible).

(Pause): [00:31:27 00:32:37]

CLIENT: I think a lot of the reason that going to an Episcopal Church is important to me is that it's really hard for me to be comfortable in church except insofar as the service is concerned. Like I've been going there for a couple of years and I just feel really awkward whenever I talk to anybody. I just I don't get over feeling awkward, like feeling shy and being clumsy. It didn't help that I had the ECT and forgot everybody's name and forgot how to do everything. I forget that I took an entire six-week inquirer's class which is basically, 'what does it mean to be an Episcopalian?' class. That's gone. But like I know what to do in the service and know that it's going to be the same every time and I know that I'm welcome and I know that I belong there.

(Pause): [00:34:04 00:34:33]

CLIENT: We see in, or I see on my Facebook page because I'm friends with Catholic (unclear) and like every couple of months there's a serious article or article about a Catholic bishop or priest denying communion to somebody that they think is sinful in one way or another and I think that's just terrible. I think that's worst thing you can do.

(Pause): [00:35:09 00:35:25]

THERAPIST: Are you saying that whatever you may think of her you maybe feeling about yourself you feel like you have the right to be there in that part of the service?

CLIENT: Yeah. I was thinking a few weeks ago that pretty much the only thing that whenever I have asked for it, that no one ever told me no.

(Pause): [00:35:57 00:36:24]

CLIENT: Did this (unclear) on the Catholic Church have a different stance (unclear)? I think actually the official stance for this culture is that you're supposed to be baptized before you receive communion, but most churches including mine don't say no to anybody seeking everybody's welcome, always. But like when I'd go to mass at William & Mary I never took it.

(Pause): [00:36:54 00:37:24]

CLIENT: I feel like the longer I sit and think and talk the more I just get sad.

(Pause): [00:37:31 00:38:28]

THERAPIST: Are you sad thinking of places where you feel at home?

CLIENT: I'm sorry?

THERAPIST: Are you sad thinking of places where you feel at home?

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:38:39 00:38:51]

CLIENT: (inaudible) I feel very far away right now.

(Pause): [00:38:54 00:39:07]

CLIENT: Even though I am feeling like I feel when I'm in church, that itself makes me sad because it's so different from the rest of my life.

(Pause): [00:39:25 00:39:41]

CLIENT: James expressed a desire to move to someplace with more than one room. And I think I'm totally with him. (Laughs) Like we're dealing with it pretty well, but we're still dealing with it. It's something to deal with. And I feel like I I'm just afraid he's going to be angry with me so much of the time so I just don't I (unclear) have an anxiety.

(Pause): [00:40:17 00:40:28]

THERAPIST: Is it the main thing you're worried about (unclear)?

CLIENT: I don't know.

(Pause): [00:40:30 00:40:35]

CLIENT: It's something I'm worried about.

THERAPIST: Sure.

(Pause): [00:40:39 00:40:46]

CLIENT: But I don't, like I don't really even notice the anxiety until I leave and until it goes away.

(Pause): [00:40:57 00:41:05]

CLIENT: But I know I feel it all the time.

(Pause): [00:41:12 00:42:07]

CLIENT: I feel like we're in a bad pattern or a series of patterns and I don't know how to fix them.

(Pause): [00:42:11 00:42:16]

CLIENT: Just because I can see myself in the pattern doesn't mean that I can get out of it.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh [yes].

(Pause): [00:42:20 00:42:51]

THERAPIST: (Unclear) I know about is whenever you mentioned that either he's mad at stuff that happened a few months ago or he will be mad about ways you're leaning on him -

CLIENT: Yeah, that's about right.

(Pause): [00:43:16 00:43:23]

THERAPIST: Are there other things that you also have in mind?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean I feel like the things I worry about are things to do with like minor, theoretically minor things about living together. So yeah, like he blew up at me for slamming the door after he's like said, 'please don't slam the bathroom door like three or four, or apparently three or four times. But there are (unclear) things that I forgot. And so now I get anxious every time I close the door. Even though, all I said was, 'can you please not close the door,' like loudly, and then later on he apologized and said he was in a bad mood and -

THERAPIST: That was the explosion.

CLIENT: Yes. That was the explosion.

THERAPIST: Gotcha.

CLIENT: (Laughs) (Pause): [00:44:34 00:44:39]

CLIENT: Or you know, I always say, well I'm going to do the dishes,' in my head I say I'm going to dry the dishes but I'm going to do the dishes after this other thing. And then he does the dishes before I do and I feel like he's going to be angry at me for that.

(Pause): [00:44:53 00:45:03]

THERAPIST: We should stop. See you tomorrow at 7:30.

END TRANSCRIPT