TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I've never seen the inside of the office when you first walk in on the right? There's a bunch of people waiting in there. So I have an office now.

THERAPIST: It's official?

CLIENT: It's official.

THERAPIST: Congratulations.

CLIENT: Thank you. Yeah, it's crazy, man. So it's really cool. I was relieved, because I was going to meet the woman, the real in-charge woman. Her name's Eva? I don't know if you...

THERAPIST: I know the name sounds familiar. I don't know her.

CLIENT: Yeah. So I was like, I hope... the woman I met was cool. (Chuckling) I was like, I hope this woman's cool. She was awesome. We had such a great conversation. And she was like, I'm so happy. Laney (sp?) spoke very highly of you. And she's like, we try to be really picky about who we have here, because, she's like, everyone loves it here. [0:00:56] So we really try to make sure it's someone who's going to... I don't know. She was really great, a really cool person. And I just felt immediately right, just felt really good. And... yeah. So it's crazy, yeah. So then I was thinking about it. So I was like, all right, so I'm excited. I was like, I think the two main things that are happening now are... two of the main things are that I've got to fight through or manage some of the hypochondria that comes up or existential-type hypochondria that comes up (chuckling) when I'm trying to do something, A. And B is, I do feel a little... and I think that's just going to happen no matter what I do.

I think I have to now accept that, no matter what kind of job I have, always feel this kind of, but you're not being a real artist. [0:02:04] You're not... what do you do? So now you're doing this other thing. Are you a writer? Are you a musician? Now you're starting this business. What...? So that means you're not really a true artist. You're... and I know that's completely an antiquated definition of what an artist is (chuckling). But I can't help it. It's a kind of... I do feel it. I'd feel like [that's kind of] (ph)... so I almost feel like the system won. I couldn't... I just couldn't suck it up and find another...

THERAPIST: Yeah, suck it up and what, though? Starve?

CLIENT: That's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing. Those days... I know. This isn't 1952. Yeah.

THERAPIST: But even then, when you say those days, people had to somehow make money.

CLIENT: No, I do think there's a difference. I think there was a time, not that long ago, where you could... you would not be living comfortably at all. [0:03:01] But there were ways. You could... and I don't even mean in a romanticized way. I mean, it was just shitty. But it could be done.

THERAPIST: How? [What do you mean, that they could have a job where they make money] (ph)?

CLIENT: I just think... I think that either they would get jobs (pause) that could kind of get them through enough. See, the problem now is that... for example, let's say working somewhere a few hours a week. That's not enough anymore. I think the dollar... the power of a dollar... you know what I mean? Things have changed. Also I think there was less competition to some extent back in the day. And also there was more of a bohemian... a true bohemian way of life where people crashed somewhere. [0:03:56] They lived in bookstores, for Christ's sake. That's... who's going to live in a bookstore? That's... but those things did happen, you know what I mean? Real things happened.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it does sound very romanticized, though (chuckling).

CLIENT: I don't think... I mean, I don't think it's... I think it's shitty. But I'm just saying there were ways to... people would just somehow jump on an ocean liner and make it to Europe and somehow they'd be a reporter (chuckling) during the Spanish Civil War. They were able to make some kind of living as a... you can't just do that now. I'm not saying that that's.... that's pretty shitty. I'm just saying that...

THERAPIST: Maybe that's that piece, picking up a side job is not very easy these days.

CLIENT: There was just... yeah, there was just a way to just exist. I'm not saying it was a great existence. But there was a way to just somehow exist outside a kind of systematized... now there... I don't see a way. If you're going to live in the west, I don't see... you have to plug in directly. [0:04:57] Not... you can't be on the outside somewhere unless you really are going to live in Wisconsin and chop your own wood and build a cabin. You have to be part of some kind of mainstream, kind of conventional way of life to make any kind of decent living. (Pause) I don't think that part's that... I mean, I think I can handle that, because this is my own business. So... (Pause) But it is there, that piece is kind of there. Or at least that piece is there where it's like, okay, now you can't make excuses anymore. You can't say, I work for a shitty boss. I don't like my job, I don't like my schedule, I don't like this. So now...

THERAPIST: It's on (ph) you.

CLIENT: Yeah. But I think the first piece is the more important piece. I think that's the one that can get me down and get me all... this kind of... what we were talking about yesterday. [0:06:00] It's like this existential... there's hypochondria thrown in. There's... especially right now. I feel like everyone around me's kind of ill or something. So that doesn't help, but... (Pause) And that's a tough one, because like we said, I mean, there's no... that's never going to go away. I mean, people get sick, and we all get old. So I don't... (Pause) So I don't know. I think the answer is that the more... if I was producing... if I get more into that head space of just working on my books and [I see] (ph) production, that's... I think that's the way to deal with that. (Pause) [0:06:57]

THERAPIST: Making the most of every day you have.

CLIENT: Yeah, and seeing some kind of... yeah, I mean, just a product. Seeing that you're channeling that stuff, and then here's something you've made with all that stuff that you channeled.

THERAPIST: Even focusing on the product though can sometimes get overwhelming. I think each day, do you feel, at the end of the day, good about how you spent that day? Do you feel proud about (crosstalk)?

CLIENT: Yeah, oh yeah. I don't mean proud of the actual book in the store. I just mean, every day, oh shit, I wrote 20 pages today.

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah, (crosstalk) product.

CLIENT: Yeah, and being into the process. Like, wow, man. Every day I'm, wow. Here's some poems. Here's a chunk of the novel. Here's this, here's that. Or with music or whatever. Just feeling like, all right, I'm (pause) doing...

THERAPIST: Living your life. Living...

CLIENT: Yeah. Instead of being caught up here, yeah. [0:07:56] That really is the hardest piece, I'm realizing. And it's not going to get easier, because this is what happens. Your friends get older, you get older, people start having aches and pains and illness things, or their family members do, or their spouses do, or their whatever they do. It's just... or you... grandmother, mom, whatever. So, just that's a tough one. If you've had years and years and years of living in terror and intense anxiety and stuff, it's like... (Pause) The other thing that was cool about yesterday, talking to Eva, was again I felt totally there. You know what I mean? [0:08:54] I didn't feel intimidated. I didn't feel weird. I didn't feel... I wasn't so self-conscious of what I was saying or how I was sitting or how... I felt very articulate and focused and... (Pause) And I was very... I liked how I was very honest with her.

I articulated certain things that... (Pause) I was like, oh, well, that's good, I'm glad... I was saying things like, I've... I was like, I feel a certain... I don't know how I said it exactly. But I basically was saying, it was important to me to be somewhere where I'm not going to feel weird being the life coach. I don't know how certain therapists look at that or not or whatever. And I was like, I didn't want to be somewhere where I'm kind of looked down on or kind of feel like the outsider or feel... because otherwise what's the point of renting a... and she was like, no, not at all. We're... she's like... oh, that's when she said... she's like, first of all, we're very picky about who we allow to rent here. [0:10:01] So she's like, right there, that should tell you something. But she's like, also... they all do psychodynamic therapy? I don't know how that's different from psychoanalysis, but...

THERAPIST: They're the same thing.

CLIENT: Oh, okay.

THERAPIST: [I mean] (ph), psychodynamic and psychoanalytic are interchangeable. Psychodynamic psychotherapy means kind of doing this more like once a week or twice a week.

CLIENT: Psychodynamic is more like... oh, so that's...

THERAPIST: It's more just a matter of frequency. Psychoanalysis is more like three, four, five times a week.

CLIENT: More often. Oh, okay. So that's what I've been doing this whole time.

THERAPIST: Yes. Even when we were once a week it was psychodynamic.

CLIENT: Okay. So yeah, she was like, that's what we do here. So we kind of understand... I don't know. She was just saying, we get it, that piece, that there are people that... they don't need mental health therapy anymore. They need some other piece. And also she was funny. She was like, and also... she's like, trust me. We've all thought about life coaching. [0:10:55] She's like, I mean, there's an overlap whether you want there to be or not.

THERAPIST: Of course.

CLIENT: She's like, there's no way around that. So she's like, I've had... she said... she told me a funny story. She had a patient who was so skeptical about seeing a therapist that they just started calling it life coaching.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: Because she was like, I think maybe I should just see a life... she was trying... it was a denial, defensive thing. She was like, maybe I should just see a life coach. That's what I need. So she was like, it's... but anyway... so that felt really good. It was a very... I just felt very comfortable. And she just... she was just so genuine and nice and... yeah, that's just great. Yeah, and she knows of you, too. She's like, yeah, we... she's like, I know about Claire (sp?), and it's a similar type of approach. And... see, I told her that, too. I was like, I kind of like that when I come here, I kind of feel like the way I feel when I go to see Claire. [0:11:57] And I said, not just as a patient. That's... I mean, when I just go to her office, I feel good. It's clean and nice, and there's something pleasant about it. And I said, people are trying to better themselves. They don't want to go to some hippy dippy shack in wherever, Shrewsbury, whatever. And so that... she was like, believe me, I get that. She's like, I've done... I've had kind of more corporate-type offices. And I've had to... have sometimes that kind of shabby, frumpy Baltimore. And she's like, neither of those things work, so... yeah, so it's cool. It's like, she totally... I don't know. (Pause)

THERAPIST: You're describing a feeling (inaudible at 0:12:45) and feeling mutuality and fitting in (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah. I feel... yeah, and I think that comes from me, not... she's being herself. [0:12:59] But I don't have to feel like, well, these are all PhDs and therapists. So I'm just... I don't feel that way. I'm doing something different. And it's not my fault that it's not regulated and I don't need a fucking credential. Deal with it. It's not my fucking problem. I know that... and I even told her, I was... because she asked me about... and that was the thing. She was really cool about that. She didn't make me feel weird. And I just told her honestly, I was like, I'm getting my... I'm in the process of thinking about how I'm going to do the credentialing thing. And I was like, I'm just skeptical, because I was like, if it's not regulated, then in a way why should I be spending $7,000, $10,000 for things that I... everybody and their brother can have a coaching school.

I don't... yeah, there's an international thing, but I don't know. I was like, I'm just skeptical of that. I feel like, if I'm going to do that, why don't I just do what I've been doing all these years and just get one more fucking master's degree? [0:13:57] And that's that. And I said... because we talked a lot. I talked about my background. And I was like, it's something I'm really interested in, I've always been interested in. It fed into my PhD research and reading, and so why not do the real thing that I'm actually really interested in, rather than this kind of coaching school that I'm not quite certain about? But yeah, so I didn't feel... I just felt like, hey, I'm doing this thing. And everyone's different. We're not... (Pause) So... (Pause)

THERAPIST: It's so not what you felt as a kid. (Crosstalk)

CLIENT: Yeah, no, it's... yeah. I think that's... and it's what I said yesterday. It's... I think it's just going to take... I don't know how long these things take generally. [0:14:56] But I think that's what it is. I feel really good, but then I have moments where I'm thinking about how good I... not in a bad way. But I'm just like... I just... it really is like you just got out of a coma. And I'm like, whoa. (Chuckling) I don't know how to explain it. You know what I mean? It's almost like you're tingly or you're like, wow. You're... yeah, that's the only way I can explain it. It's like you just wake up from a long slumber. So everything's vibrant and colors. (Pause) And I think that is going to take time. There's no way around not having these moments where you're kind of like, well, this is so different. (Pause)

THERAPIST: It's like watching the videos with little kids who've been... who were born deaf, who find that they can... [0:15:59]

CLIENT: Those are amazing, yeah. Those are amazing.

THERAPIST: (Crosstalk) watching their faces when they hear sound for the first time.

CLIENT: Yeah. Did you see the one of the mom?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: This one... oh, that's so amazing. Yeah, that's so... yeah.

THERAPIST: You can see how overwhelming this ordinary thing that should have been there to begin with, and how overwhelming it is to have it all at once so overstimulating and exciting, but anxiety, because it takes... it does take time to get used to new parts of you becoming alive.

CLIENT: Yeah. Right. (Pause) [0:16:59]

THERAPIST: Where are you?

CLIENT: Hmm?

THERAPIST: Where are you?

CLIENT: I was just thinking about how... yeah, and the trick is that (pause), when I sit with that feeling of, oh, that feels good, that, then again it's that... what comes up immediately to balance that is that existential, well, but so what? Then you're just going to get used to this, your life being good or normal or just being what it is. And then what? So that's what I'm saying. That part is that part that's going to take a lot longer to manage or whatever.

THERAPIST: Well, because that part is part of the symptom, too. (Crosstalk)

CLIENT: Is part of the what?

THERAPIST: It's a symptom...

CLIENT: Of what?

THERAPIST: The, well then what? I don't think you'd be as preoccupied with [the end] (ph) if you felt more loveable and loved, [in love with yourself] (ph) truly, from the beginning. [0:18:03] And I think that is something that can change. I don't think it means... it's not only just people who are dense and don't think about the meaning of life that aren't concerned with that. I think actually it can be something that's like, it's a fleeting thought. But it's not preoccupying anymore when you get to be more in the joy of the current moment and just having... and feeling good about now, that I think has not been there.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: And still... it's starting a little bit.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's there a lot more now. But yeah, it's not... yeah.

THERAPIST: This, it's like the voice of anxious doom [in a sense] (ph) that you are haunted by it.

CLIENT: Right. Yeah, really in some ways it's a very simplistic... it's basically just saying, matters, kind of. That's really what it's saying.

THERAPIST: Right. [0:18:58] I don't think Nietzsche was very loved as a child. And that's part of why this became a preoccupation with nihilism and nothing mattering and (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Right. Is that really what he said, though? You think?

THERAPIST: What he says is complicated, obviously.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know if he said nothing matters. But yeah, I know what you mean, though. I know what you mean.

THERAPIST: Beyond Good and Evil. There are things that sort of (pause) feels like an unloved child (crosstalk)...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Moving past reality and...

CLIENT: Actually that's funny, because ... in that clip he mentions that. He's like, Nietzsche... he's like, of course I love Nietzsche, whatever, I like a lot of his ideas. But he's like, he had the whole eternal return thing completely wrong. He's like, he wants that to be the case. He's like, that's a deep... he kind of psychologized it. He's like, that's someone who wants to... because he doesn't want to let go of these... his life basically, so that, oh, well, it just happens again (chuckling). [0:20:03] It just happens over and over again. He's like, no it doesn't. So those particulars are particulars. They're... and then other particulars take their place. (Pause) But then it's weird because he had the whole thing about active forgetting. So there's kind of a...

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: Yeah, he had troubles. He had contradictory problems. But (pause) yeah. (Pause)

THERAPIST: I mean, I know it's another theory, but there are ways that the theories of the existentialists are... from this perspective people who actually were haunted as children by the meaningless of their lives.

CLIENT: Yeah, when you look at their backgrounds, yeah, of course. [0:21:03]

THERAPIST: Right. And it's not that... maybe they're right.

CLIENT: Right (chuckling).

THERAPIST: But becoming haunted by it I think isn't... it doesn't... it's not helpful.

CLIENT: Yeah, well, it's kind of like what you said next, and?

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Right? Let's say that's all true.

THERAPIST: What do you do about it?

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean, you then... which is kind of what they said. They were like, so you're either going to kill yourself or you're not.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: But I know what you mean. Their level of... because, I mean, that's not that difficult of a conclusion. I don't need to write ten books to get to the point of... I don't need to write Being and Nothingness to realize you either kill yourself or you don't (laughing). But yeah. It's like, once you get... once you realize that that's what there is, then you're clearly not going to do one of those things. [0:21:54] So why not make the most of your life and... which is, again, kind of what they said. They were like, all you can do in life is act. But yeah, you've got to take out the kind of nihilistic part, or just know that, yeah, that's there. But... I mean, and? So what?

THERAPIST: The fact that most humans don't kill themselves, so why?

CLIENT: Right, that's true.

THERAPIST: A lot of people ask this question, and they decide not to kill themselves (chuckling).

CLIENT: Yeah. The vast majority of people, yeah. So what is...? Yeah.

THERAPIST: Right, it's extremely rare, actually. So...

CLIENT: Because they have a death drive or death... right.

THERAPIST: It's like... so, if you're going to live it, what are you going to do with it?

CLIENT: That's actually a good point. What did they say? Because didn't Freud say that everyone wants to die or something?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: The death drive.

THERAPIST: He's wrong.

CLIENT: So he's wrong. Yeah, so he's totally wrong. Fucking idiot.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) That came about World War II. He was preoccupied with...

CLIENT: Oh, right. Yeah, that would have made sense back then.

THERAPIST: But it was a real shift in the theory (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah. You know what book you should read? [0:22:54] Have you read... oh fuck, what the hell's it called? He wrote a book called 1910: The Year of Dissonance or something. It's a... he's a literary guy. But he wrote this amazing book about, why was suicide so out of control between 1890 and 1914. It's an amazing book, amazing book.

THERAPIST: Interesting.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's really fascinating. But anyway, yeah. (Pause) Yeah, but the... yeah, that's a good point. Think of all the... I mean, look at what's going on in the Middle East and all over the world. North Korea. Why aren't people just hanging themselves left and right? Yeah, it is about coming to a place of... it's not going to make you happy, but just to a place of contentment with what is, yeah.

THERAPIST: Or, if you're going to choose to live this day, what do you want to do with the day?

CLIENT: Right. [0:24:06] Yeah.

THERAPIST: It becomes more your choice then, too.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: That's Erich Fromm.

CLIENT: What's that?

THERAPIST: Free will and...

CLIENT: Erich... yeah. He's... dude, that guy has... I feel like he's underrated now or something. He's kind of fallen... do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Pretty amazing guy.

THERAPIST: He was brilliant.

CLIENT: Yeah. I watched a thing about Foucault yesterday? I finally found a great documentary about Foucault (chuckling). You know that director chick?

THERAPIST: I don't know her.

CLIENT: Just look her up for entertainment's sake. She's a crazy American...

THERAPIST: Philosopher?

CLIENT: She speaks in a very manic way, very fast and jumpy.

THERAPIST: She's a writer? A philosopher?

CLIENT: Big time. Big time writer of... she's like the American Roland Barthes kind of.

THERAPIST: Okay. [0:24:58]

CLIENT: Pop culture kind of thing. (Chuckling) And they just cut to her. And she just... she's like, Foucault's a sham. Every sentence he writes is completely baseless.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: If he wanted to write all those things, he should have gotten a PhD in history, he should have gotten a PhD in psychology, he should have... he has no sense of what he's talking... (laughing) she's just going off on this guy.

THERAPIST: Pretty arrogant (laughing). That's true.

CLIENT: What's that?

THERAPIST: He's arrogant.

CLIENT: Yeah, he's very arrogant, yeah. But anyway... but yeah, just that... I think you're right. There's something, maybe, of this European World War II or World War I... I never thought about that as much, yeah, that maybe these people were so... I mean, anybody would be. So... and they were also so brilliant, that that seeped into the rest of mainstream...

THERAPIST: Yeah. And they didn't have yet the equipment or language to deal with understanding what trauma was, what PTSD was, why people identify with the aggressor and become fighters and kill people. [0:26:00]

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: It's not because they're driven to kill people (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah, why Sartre said we have to ignore what Stalin's doing.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: We have to ignore the gulags and all that, yeah.

THERAPIST: They were grappling with trying to understand what was happening to their world in, I think, ways we understand differently now.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I'm sure 50 years from now we'll understand it differently [than now] (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah, no, that's a good point. Yeah, I think we tend to romanticize them and think they were so kind of something, stoic and brilliant. And they just faced things, I mean...

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: But really they were all fucked up. They all had a lot of issues that they'd... you're right.

THERAPIST: Nihilism I think is a great defense. It's...

CLIENT: Yeah. There's a guy in that documentary, who wrote a bio of Foucault, says, one of the things about Foucault is he acted out all these things that he wrote about. He had a lot of deviant behaviors, and so... [0:27:04] (Pause) I think the other thing that will be good, too, is... as I get more together, is I think travel, you know what I mean? I think travel is big for certain people. Some people don't need it as much. I think for me it's a pretty big deal.

THERAPIST: What's making you think of that right now? (inaudible at 0:27:30) how are you picturing it?

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 0:27:33)

CLIENT: I was just thinking, there's something about... (Pause)

THERAPIST: Getting perspective?

CLIENT: Getting perspective, meeting new people, just... to me it's comforting in a way because, holy shit, there's a world. And it's full of people...

THERAPIST: Struggling with the same things as you. [0:27:57]

CLIENT: That's it, that's it. But it's also energizing. I mean, it just... I don't know. I just find that... because I think what happens with me is, when (ph) I'm from here and I do get into... I like my routines? And that's a wonderful thing. But I think that's only wonderful if you can get away from it and come back to it, to be like, oh, back to my Dunkin Donuts, like I felt when I got back from the UK. It felt so good to be back. And it's still... I mean, I'm still... I'm happy I'm here. But I think there's something to be said for... (Pause)

THERAPIST: Routine can become a rut.

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly.

THERAPIST: (Crosstalk)

CLIENT: Especially when you're an artist. For me traveling is never one of those all-inclusive beach resort... travel is always, I'm writing, I'm thinking about things and taking mental notes, and so I think it's important. [0:28:57] As a matter of fact that's the first... I'm not a big person, like, I'm going to reward myself with this or that? But I've already decided that, when my credit score gets to the next level...

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Mm-hmm?

CLIENT: And if I get a credit card or whatever with a real... an actual... (chuckling) over $1000 or $2000 or $3000 or whatever, then I think I am going to treat myself. I don't know, go to Iceland or something like that. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Something to look forward to.

CLIENT: Yeah, I'm psyched. (Pause) Yeah, or I need to... I think I need to apply... I'm getting back to now writer's residencies, visiting professor. I need to... I haven't done one of those things, not... well, I was going to do one years ago that I decided not to do (laughing). [0:29:59] But it's time to... even those would be huge re-energizers.

THERAPIST: Abroad, you mean, or (crosstalk?

CLIENT: Doesn't even matter.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: I don't even care if it's the Provincetown writers' colony. There's something... I think I need to start... it's not just the, every day writing five pages. I need to feel like, all right. I am living a writer's...

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 0:30:24)

CLIENT: Yeah. It would be like doing all this music and then never doing a show, not actually making... just recording it and leaving it somewhere. That's kind of what I'm doing with my writing. I'm not... I don't do readings. I don't get involved. And that's fine. (Chuckling) I don't really want to do that shit. But I do want to do more formal... a colony or a college or whatever the fuck. I think that's important...

THERAPIST: Yeah, it makes sense.

CLIENT: Because then, okay, I am a writer. And this is what writers do. [0:30:57] You're meeting new people, you're changing your environment, your... (Pause) And everybody needs validation.

THERAPIST: Of course.

CLIENT: At some point you need to know that, okay. (Pause)

THERAPIST: How's your book (inaudible at 0:31:26) of poems coming?

CLIENT: Good. That... I think I might shift... I think it's time for that to be done. I have more than enough pages, manuscript pages, more than enough. But it's not... I think I'm going to scrap a lot of it or something. But yeah, it's... I mean, I have the title, I have the working themes. I know what this book is about. So...

THERAPIST: So you're close then. [0:32:00] It's editing. No?

CLIENT: No, because I think, as I edit, I'm going to be like, eh (sp?).

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: Because there are only a few poems in there that I feel reflect right now, you know what I mean? I feel like I've already outgrown... or I'm going to take them and rewrite around them, you know what I mean? This bit is nice, this bit is nice, and now here's a whole new something around it. But yeah, it's got to get done.

THERAPIST: You think that before your novel then.

CLIENT: Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: For sure.

CLIENT: Yeah. This novel's going to be big. It's not going to be a little novel.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I figured as much, but (crosstalk) poems for a while.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's going to be big. And also you figure, even if I... let's say I had three really good chapters done. Well, then you're still talking about... it's not like poetry. You've got to find an agent, and you've got to shop the book around if you're lucky and... it's a much longer process. [0:33:02] So yeah. (Pause) See, it happens again. You see that? I'm thinking... instead of now just thinking, yeah, it's cool (ph), the minute I stopped, that voice comes up. It's like, yeah, but so what?

THERAPIST: So what? So what, about publishing the poems?

CLIENT: Just all of it, does any of that matter?

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah, it sucks, man. I mean, I ignore it, and I move on. But it's...

THERAPIST: It's mean to you, that voice.

CLIENT: Yeah, it is.

THERAPIST: These are things that are really important to you, you're talented at. Why would that be so (crosstalk)?

CLIENT: Yeah, I know. [0:33:58]

THERAPIST: It's like the kid playing the piano [and someone yelling] (ph), shut up. (Crosstalk)

CLIENT: Exactly. Or saying, so how many pages is this book (chuckling)? Just publish the book. How many pages is it? Yeah. Yep. (Pause)

THERAPIST: That's a moment as a kid when your heart breaks.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, and that's what happens when that voice comes up. It's like...

THERAPIST: Your heart hurts.

CLIENT: Yeah, it breaks your own heart, you know what I mean? It's like, ah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (Pause)

CLIENT: I don't know, I mean, the thing that... luckily it's gotten so much better that that makes me feel better, at least to be like, all right, yes, that voice is there. But when I leave here I'm going to go back to the coffee shop or to some caf�, and I'm going to try to get some pages done. [0:34:56] So that's real major improvement.

THERAPIST: Even that you're able to recognize it right now sort of in the moment, that's huge.

CLIENT: Yeah, no, I've gotten really good at... yeah.

THERAPIST: That you can hear it now, so to be... rather than taking it as fact immediately...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Maybe be interested in, wow, why is that voice so loud right now? Or... because it actually doesn't make sense that it doesn't matter. If you feel like it really matters to your mom and your dad, it starts to just matter, because you feel like...

CLIENT: Wait, what?

THERAPIST: The feelings that you didn't get to have when you were little, that it mattered that you were in there playing piano, that you were talented, and they really care about that. It would matter to you.

CLIENT: Oh, right. Oh yeah, of course. This would never be an issue. Yeah, no, of course. Yeah. [0:35:56]

THERAPIST: I'm saying that, in other words, because I think for a long time you've taken that voice as fact. And that voice is comfort...

CLIENT: Oh, I see what you're saying, yeah.

THERAPIST: (Crosstalk) the existentialists for example. They're the ones who are right, because it doesn't really matter. That's a sort of borrowing from them because they're in agreement with your mother.

CLIENT: Right. I see what you're saying, yeah. I never was able to be like, that's silly.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: That (chuckling)...

THERAPIST: To start to get some distance. I mean, whose voice is that, because...

CLIENT: Yeah, I thought it was mine, kind of. You just, oh, I'm thinking that. So I'm this smart guy that knows it's all bullshit or something, or whatever people think. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Right (chuckling). (Pause) [0:37:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I'll see you tomorrow.

CLIENT: Right. 3:10? Okay, Claire, thank you.

THERAPIST: Bye.

CLIENT: See you.

END TRANSCRIPT