TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: (yawns) I'm really sleepy. Sorry I'm late, traffic was bad.

THERAPIST: That happens. So, what's on your mind?

CLIENT: Hmm?

THERAPIST: What's on your mind?

CLIENT: Not a whole lot actually. It's a contrast to the last two weeks. Yeah, I don't know.

THERAPIST: Well, anything you feel that pops into your head. [0:01:06.9]

CLIENT: (laughs) The work stuff is frustrating, that I fear I'm going to end up sounding like a broken record, if I always go straight to talking about work stuff when I can't think of anything else. (yawns)

THERAPIST: Are you concerned about my reaction or your own?

CLIENT: Maybe more of what it says about it me but you know, in the absence of something else to talk about, my default go to is work. I don't know, it's funny, I'll finish a sentence, I said and, and then trailed off. I really didn't have anything to go after the end.

[Pause: 0:02:02.0 to 0:03:44.2]

CLIENT: I was at lunch with a friend yesterday, who this friend of mine is a psychotherapist. The last time I threw a party, she came over, she came in, was there for about 30 seconds and told me, you know I'm really sorry, I just thought I'd stop by on my way home but you know, my wife isn't feeling well and I can't stay. I thought that was a little weird but whatever. At lunch yesterday...

THERAPIST: She's a therapist, what are you going to do?

CLIENT: Hmm?

THERAPIST: I said, she's a therapist, what are you going to do?

CLIENT: Well, so yesterday at lunch I told her you know, I'm having another party in a couple weeks. I was wondering if you and Tracey could come, and she said can you get me on the guest list before the party, because I usually BCC the guest list because people don't like their e-mails being out there.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I was like sure but you know, if there's someone who comes to my parties who makes you uncomfortable, that's you know, something that would be useful for me to know, like if someone has been behaving badly.

THERAPIST: Right, you want to know. [0:04:45.9]

CLIENT: Or has been homophobic or transphobic or whatever, like I don't want them in my house.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And it just caused this huge kind of awkwardness. So she was like no that's not it, more professional reasons that there are some people I shouldn't be attending parties with, and I can't say any more. I realized that oh, one of my friends is one of her clients. Oops. It was very awkward and embarrassing for me at least. I don't know about Stacen.

[Pause: 0:05:17.9 to 0:06:06.6]

THERAPIST: So do you think that's what happened the other time?

CLIENT: Yeah.

[Pause: 0:06:10.7 to 0:06:41.1]

CLIENT: And I realize that I couldn't possibly have known that, this isn't my fault, but I still feel very embarrassed that I like created this awkward situation for both of my friends, although I don't know who the client is, but I have guesses based on what my friends have told me.

THERAPIST: Right. I think I would have handled it a little differently.

CLIENT: Mm-hmm.

THERAPIST: And taken it up with the patient. I know that it gets a little awkward, because you don't want to mention a party that they're not invited to, but found some way to bring it up. [0:07:50.8]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You know? Like having a patient mention that they get invited to a party like that or I mean, I don't know what kind of party it was. It's really not the end of the world, on the therapist's side anyway.

CLIENT: I mean, I don't have any problem with giving her a guest list ahead of time, when I kind of make final decisions.

THERAPIST: Sure. No, the thing is like that makes it a little weird because then you know, if she's coming, you know why she is coming.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Yeah, whatever. I wonder what it would be like if we wound up at the same party?

CLIENT: Very strange. I would be very uncomfortable. [0:08:55.0]

THERAPIST: Why do you say that?

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: What comes to mind?

CLIENT: I'm drawing a blank actually and I think I'd rather not push.

THERAPIST: Sure.

[Pause: 0:09:22.4 to 0:09:58.0]

THERAPIST: I'm smiling because the first thing that then crossed my mind is a bunch of self-deprecating jokes. (inaudible)

CLIENT: Let's see, what else has happened since Thursday? Edson invited me to a party at his house, so I guess we're not over, I don't know. I tried calling him and he said that he was very busy and stressed and could we please talk later and then ended the conversation, so I don't know, whatever.

THERAPIST: I looked over the previous thing and were there like are there things that you sort of thought or had feelings about, like between us, that are difficult to talk about, like things to do with our relationship that have happened or that you thought? [0:11:31.4]

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: Do you see how it got there?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Yeah, okay.

CLIENT: I was thinking about the last party that I had was the one where there was all kinds of awkward PDA and people being uncomfortable and the weirdness. The thought of putting you in that context was really weird and was quirky to me and I wanted to stop that line of thought.

THERAPIST: Ah, okay.

CLIENT: Sorry. (chuckles)

THERAPIST: That's fine. That helps to clarify, so I mean it's not just a matter of like people standing around eating hors d'oeuvres and talking or something, but like some people are kind of being all over each other.

CLIENT: Yup. [0:12:32.8]

THERAPIST: And whatever weirdness there is around, you don't want a therapist in that setting.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean that's not how all of my parties go. It's not like I'm throwing orgies or anything. The next big social thing on my calendar is a group of us going hot tubbing together, which is also a kind of sexually charged environment.

THERAPIST: Sure. You probably won't want to talk about this but I'll ask it anyway. What is it about thinking about therapists in general or me in particular, in that kind of setting, that weird, awkward whatever? [0:13:50.3]

CLIENT: That's a good question. It's forcing me to think because on one hand, there's the kind of belief that's common among a certain set of nerdy engineers, that I find very attractive and appealing, that you know, sexual relationships should be no different from any other kind of relationship. Our culture puts entirely too much value on sexual relationships and sexuality, and it's overrated and over weighted, and that culturally we're all just neurotic about sex in ways that are unhealthy and we should all just chill. And you know that's I don't know, I find there is some merit to that. I don't think it's entirely true. On the other hand I don't know. In reality, sexual relationships actually are different from plutonic relationships.

THERAPIST: Sure. [0:15:03.2]

CLIENT: And bring up a whole host of emotions that cloud judgment and yeah. And so I get really uncomfortable thinking about for example, co-workers are people who I interact with professionally in sexual or romantic terms, because... I don't know why, I just it's very uncomfortable for me and maybe I should probe further why, why that is.

THERAPIST: I mean you certainly could, I think that's an interesting question, but it's really up to you.

[Pause: 0:16:07.5 to 0:17:10.0]

THERAPIST: I would imagine that talking about sexuality in general and probably more personal things related to it even more so, involve some of the same risks for you that some of the other things that we've talked about do. I guess I imagine, although maybe I'm off base, that you might be worried, maybe among other things, about either my judgments or a finding that we have some kind of a disconnect about it, that I sort of adopt some very different views or have some kind of strong and surprising opinions, in a kind of hurtful or just distancing sort of way.

CLIENT: Possibly. I don't think that's very off base. [0:18:26.5]

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: That might not be the whole story.

THERAPIST: Sure. I'm asking about stuff that was said, other stuff.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That you know, you had mentioned that kind of word when we were, I think on the topic of sex, but other things.

[Pause: 0:18:45.1 to 0:19:31.7]

CLIENT: That's the other complex.

THERAPIST: Does that sort of awkwardness remind you of anything?

CLIENT: I guess it's a lot easier for me to talk about stuff in here, when I can pretend that we're having an abstract conversation about you know, something external to each of us, and this conversation has kind of made it impossible to maintain that illusion, because there actually is personal interaction here that makes it more difficult. [0:20:41.8]

THERAPIST: I can imagine very scary, because there could be some kind of problem but I'm not sure. Maybe also, hopeful or positive in the sense that there could also be you know, some sort of engagement or connection or something as well, so that feels less feeling intimate and scary for you, I don't know.

[Pause: 0:21:31.1 to 0:24:54.7]

THERAPIST: Is this pretty uncomfortable or are you just thinking?

CLIENT: A little bit of both.

[Pause: 0:25:03.5 to 0:25:23.0]

CLIENT: Some various thoughts that flitted through my mind. Menu planning for the next party. I wanted to do a southern style dinner with brisket but several people who are coming over are vegetarian, so. I'm just trying to work my head around that and there's an issue at work that requires a ridiculous contortion of writing code in Tcl to solve, like this code was bugging, so reviewing that, and I haven't found it. There's a list of things to test when I get home. The other thing that flitted through my mind is this ridiculous drama at my church over choir robes, this whole thing.

THERAPIST: Choir robes?

CLIENT: Yes. So I sing in the choir and three times already this season, someone has stolen my choir folder, taken my music out, and taken like the nice black folder to put their music in. [0:26:28.2]

THERAPIST: Oh my gosh.

CLIENT: So I now have a crappy folder whose pockets are too small to actually hold the size of music that we usually sing, because people keep stealing my fucking folder.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Even though it has my name in it. And so Sunday, when I got to church, -

THERAPIST: That's really some sort of scene.

CLIENT: So everyone in the choir keeps their robes in the church and we write our names on the tags, and because of a whole long story and a sequence of events of the last two years, we don't have enough robes.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Or rather we have more robes than people but we don't enough sizes, so some people have trouble finding robes that fit. And so I wasn't in the choir for two years while I was in grad school and I came back.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I had a really hard time finding a robe that fit and I tried on every robe, and like I finally found one that fit and I put my name in the tag, and I put my name on a piece of paper that I stuck around the hanger, and I pinned my nametag to the robe, and it's been living in the vesting room at the church and I put it on every Sunday. I got in this Sunday and someone had crossed my name out and written in her name on top of it. [0:27:35.4]

THERAPIST: Oh my gosh.

CLIENT: I was like seriously, come on?

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: And so I told the person who was in charge of robes and she was like, well I don't know how that happened. I was like you're in charge of the robes, no one gets a robe unless you give it to them, like how (sighs). And so any one of these things would be minor but all of it put together, I don't know.

THERAPIST: You mean all the choir stuff.

CLIENT: Yeah, like it I almost feel like I'm being pushed out, which is ridiculous because it's probably different people doing this every time. I mean I don't know who it was who kept taking my folder, but...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But the woman who took my robe, in particular she has a habit of whenever I'm talking to anyone during breaks during rehearsal or before the service, she'll come up and start dominating the conversation and drawing the other person's attention away. [0:28:35.5]

THERAPIST: Oh gosh.

CLIENT: And she has made a point to flirt, especially if I'm talking to men, including Dave, who she knows is my husband and yes, we're polyamorous and if he actually wanted to date her that would be okay, but we're not out as poly at church.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So as far as she knows, we're a monogamous married couple, and she's flirting with Dave.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and in keeping with everything else you're saying, yeah.

CLIENT: And it's just, it's really irritating. And so there's a part of me that wants to overreact and say well, clearly there are people in the choir who don't want me around and are being dicks to me, and I should just take my vow and go home and let them sing without me, but that wouldn't really hurt anyone except me. I know I kind of have this tendency to cut of my nose to spite my face and have had it since I was a very small child. It's been remarked upon by many of my teachers in elementary school and middle school. It still took a phenomenal exercise of effort not to just storm out of the church and leave Sunday morning. I don't know. I'm overreacting and I know I'm overreacting, but that doesn't make the emotions go away.

THERAPIST: You're still overreacting. [0:30:09.5]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You're still reacting to it.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's really unfortunate.

THERAPIST: Let me get this straight. So the fantasy is there are people in the choir who don't want you in the choir and are doing these mean things, and it's pissing you off, and the reaction is it's sort of like I'm taking my toys and I'm going home. And... I guess the thing I'm sort of struggling to understand in a way is like I wonder why your sort of reaction, sort of the anger and being treated badly is to want to leave. I mean it could be other things like wanting to confront them or wanting to you know, do something back to them or wanting to get somebody's help. I'm not -

CLIENT: Right. [0:31:57.7]

THERAPIST: My point isn't to sort of try to steer you towards one of those. I'm just sort of -

CLIENT: No, I see what you're asking. Well part of it is because that's what my dad does.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: You know, inclined then. Like one of my dad's favorite sayings and he says this all the time and it drives me up the wall every time he says it is, "If Moses can't go to the mountain, the mountain needs to come to Moses." And then he'll like sit there and expect people to kowtow to his whims.

THERAPIST: He would be Moses?

CLIENT: Yeah. I'm sorry, Mohammed, not Moses.

THERAPIST: I thought it was Mohammed, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. Shows how much I know, yeah.

THERAPIST: With him, I always get the sense that there's a strong element of feeling terribly humiliated, that makes a situation intolerable, encumbers him to leave.

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:33:04.8]

THERAPIST: And I don't know if that's part of what it is for you in that situation as well, but it's sort of not obvious it's not as obvious, at least to me, that what's being done to you is humiliating, but maybe it is. Maybe you view it that way.

CLIENT: Well it does feel a little bit humiliating but also I think, the fantasy then goes that you know, I go to the choir director or to you know, one of the older members and say you know, this is intolerable, I'm being pushed out, I quit, and then they ask me to stay and tell me how important I am.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Which of course it never actually happens that way in reality because yeah.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: But it's definitely part of the imagined what might happened thing.

THERAPIST: Yeah, sure. Is it the whole thing seem geared around wanting to feel really wanted. I think, starting from the struggle between your knowledge on one hand that it's probably just a couple of people who are being dicks, to like they don't want they somebody just doesn't want me here. [0:34:31.8]

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: It's just like you want to feel like they really want you there.

CLIENT: Yup. And there's problems in one-on-one relationships too, like if I'm the one who always calls the friend to say you know, let's get brunch, let's get coffee, it starts to get really anxiety provoking for me. I've started just explicitly saying this to my friends, like I know this isn't your problem, but I get really upset if I'm the one who's always calling. If you want to maintain this friendship, I need you to call me.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And some people think that's ridiculous and then those friendships kind of fade away. But then the people who I'm still close to are willing to work around my issues, as long as I give them a concrete thing to do and don't try to make them deal with all of the underlying emotional ick that's causing it. [0:35:42.1]

THERAPIST: We should stop for now.

CLIENT: I'm not going to be here on Thursday or Monday.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: I know I told you about Monday and then I realized, I'm getting on a plane at 4:00 Thursday. I can't be here.

THERAPIST: Right, I can see that, okay.

CLIENT: So.

THERAPIST: Have a good trip.

CLIENT: Yeah, and I'll see you next week.

THERAPIST: Next Thursday.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Good night.

THERAPIST: Good night.

END TRANSCRIPT