Client "CRT" Therapy Session Audio Recording, December 31, 2012: Client discusses a recent altercation with her boyfriend and how she needs to work through issues from a previous relationship before she can continue on with her current one. trial
TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
THERAPIST: There are two entrances. You came in the back door?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You can get in the side as well.
CLIENT: Oh, okay.
THERAPIST: Or through the side. Well, welcome.
CLIENT: Hi.
THERAPIST: I'm glad we found a time that worked.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: So where would you like to start?
CLIENT: I don't know. It's been a very long like 12 hours I guess, but originally I was coming in because it's probably it's a really long story, but so I moved here a year and a half ago and I was living in Pennsylvania and my boyfriend at the time was moving here for school. He was in the military and he was being he was going to Yale for a fellowship. And basically right after I got here we broke up and I found out that he was seeing someone else and it really kind of ended very poorly and in the time that it probably ended I moved out in October and I moved here the end of June and I was living with him in New Haven and I am nannying for a family and I was a live-out nanny and I told them like I had to move back to Pennsylvania because I can't stay here and so they basically said, 'well, you can just come live with us because see how it goes and we really need you to stay.' So I agreed and have been living with them ever since.
I guess I just really haven't gotten over a lot of the stuff and I met through a mutual friend who was living on, like it was like a triplex or something in New Haven and he was living downstairs and I met his friend just by chance and randomly started talking and we were both getting out of relationships so we really didn't want to take it very fast and were like we'll just chat and that's it. And now we have been dating for quite a while but it's been a really bad struggle and I feel like I haven't gotten over everything and last night we were out and it sort of escalated and we got into a fight and the police were called and it was really terrible and he had to go to court this morning and so my original reason for coming has now just sort of turned into the last 12 hours have been not so good and I really just, I wanted to come because I think I need to work on like my communication skills and my feelings and my actions and how I express them. And sort of not just having like diarrhea of the mouth sometimes and just talking and saying things that I don't mean or talking completely out of emotion and not thinking first so that has really caused some tension between him and I. [00:04:09]
At first it was great and then it just started sort of it was little things and then I just feel like I haven't, I wasn't able to fully get over the last thing and I probably wasn't ready to go into another relationship and we didn't really plan it to actually be an actual relationship. We just happened to meet and like exchanged phone numbers and then it kind of went from there, but now I don't know what to do and I don't like it I can't say I don't like it here, but I'm really lonely here. I don't have any friends. All of my friends are in Pennsylvania. My whole family is in Pennsylvania. He doesn't even live around here. He was living in Maine, and he just recently moved to Columbus, Ohio because he's in the military as well and got a new job. So now our plan at one point was for me to stay here until the end of the school year and then to move to Ohio but I don't really know if that's happening anymore but I still wanted to come as much as I could to kind of figure out what's wrong or what I need to do and -
THERAPIST: What's wrong in terms of how you feel or -?
CLIENT: I guess I just have a hard time expressing my emotions or how I feel and it's hard for me to talk and try to convey stuff you know, if something's bothering me it's easier for me to just be angry and to go instead of sit down and say like, 'this is bothering me, can we please talk about it.' And I know I tend to over-react and I just really need to figure out how to better communicate with not only my boyfriend, but other people in my life as well. I've always sort of just shut people out and it was just easier and it would go away, but if I you know, I feel if I want to keep having a relationship with him then I really need to do something about myself and so that's sort of why I'm here.
THERAPIST: What kinds of things are you angry about? [00:06:47]
CLIENT: I think I'm angry about how everything happened with my previous boyfriend. There was a lot of trust issues. In the beginning of our relationship he was still married and he was supposed to be getting divorced and it kept going on and on and on and then he went to Alaska and then come to find out, like basically everything was just a lie. Everything that he told me was a lie and I began a completely different person who was paranoid and just I guess I lost all trust and so I had no I wasn't myself and I knew that and now I feel like I haven't really gotten myself back and I'm not sure how to go back and so I'm just so angry that I left everything in Pennsylvania and I picked up and I moved here and a week later he said, 'oh, we can't be together anymore,' after I quit my fulltime job and just left everything and then he just basically was trying to throw me out and leave me with nothing after I had made all these sacrifices and did all of these things and I just felt really betrayed and then once I found out all of the lies and the things that he was telling people about why I was there and that he that I was stalking him and he just met me and I randomly moved there and it was very silly things but so hurtful and I just didn't understand why someone could do that to somebody else and just watch them over a period of time completely be manipulated and that's all he did. And lie and be okay with it, so it just it hurts and I sort of feel like I could go back to Pennsylvania but then I'm fine getting another job but at one point it was going back to Pennsylvania and I would be further away from my boyfriend now, which now he's really far but, so I was like well stay and not necessarily be completely miserable but, I mean, when all you do is live and work in the same place and there's no real separation and you don't have a whole lot of time to yourself and it just takes a toll on me I guess and I'm just tired and I don't want to be there anymore. Like I'm trying to hide it very well but [00:10:00]
THERAPIST: It doesn't feel like there's much privacy.
CLIENT: No. I have the whole third floor to myself but still like from the time I get up in the morning at 7 until the time the kids go to bed at 8:30 I am doing stuff. So I'm working all the time and you know, whereas before, their parents would come home at 6 because I had to leave and I was going back to my own house. Well now, they may come home at 6, they may come home at 8, 10. They have all these late work functions now and so I feel a little taken advantage of. I mean we did work it out. I don't have to pay rent or anything, but I grocery shop and do other stuff during the day while the kids are at school, however, I don't get a whole lot of my own time and I took on another job for a few hours during the day just to kind of supplement some money and it happened that I ended up with two so now I literally work all day, too, while the kids are at school somewhere else and I mean, that just started in the last few months and it's just exhausting and I've had the last two weeks off because they're in Rome but they come back tomorrow and I don't want to be here. Like I want to leave today, but I can't.
THERAPIST: Is there something it sounds like this is kind of in your arrangement for what? You've been living with them for a little over a year?
CLIENT: Yes. Since last October, yeah, I moved in.
THERAPIST: And is there are you, is your dissatisfaction there increasing? Or is there something that's changed?
CLIENT: I feel like it's increasing and I just feel like as time goes on and the longer I'm there the more they're taking advantage of the fact that I am there. Now the idea is for me to be there on the weekends more. I used to leave on weekends and go to Maine and now I'll be there on the weekends and the first weekend I was back which was before Christmas they were already bugging me to watch the kids. And that's supposed to be my own time. And I'm like, 'well, I'm home, but I'm not home. You have to think that I'm not here sort of thing.' But they don't care. [00:12:40]
So it's like, it's exhausting and it's tiring and I think it makes me very edgy and then I take out my emotions on my boyfriend and it's not his fault and he's just trying to be nice and do things for me and I don't feel like I have trust issues with him at all. I've never once had any sort of feelings like I did before so I don't feel like I can't trust him, but just I think the way that my emotions come out, it's hurting him and I don't want to do that because now it's hurting our relationship and I sort of don't want that to continue and to keep happening. [00:13:32]
THERAPIST: Well it sounds like last night was pretty bad. What happened?
CLIENT: Yes. So I haven't slept. We were at his sister's and we came back to the house and we had talked the other day because he was texting on his phone and I had glanced over and it was some girl's name that I didn't recognize so I was sort of curious and I didn't get mad and I tried to kind of like think about it like, 'this has never happened, he has never done anything before. No reason to be upset about it.' And I just talked to him and he was like, 'oh, I'm sorry. I was just saying Merry Christmas to an old friend. It's fine. No big deal.' And I believed him and I trust him and I don't think that he would do anything remotely like that. So I said okay and then yesterday in the morning I get these like rush of I guess bad memories from my previous relationship that just flood me and I can't get rid of them and sometimes so that was happening yesterday of just lies and other things. And I was getting really upset about it so I talked to Kevin and we were okay and I just said like, 'I'm sorry,' and it was probably one of the first times since we've been dating that we actually had a good conversation about something that was bothering me without me flying off the handle and being angry about it.
So then we went out yesterday and then we came back and we had been drinking a little bit but not much by the time we got back. And something, I can't remember like everything happened so fast that it's still sort of like a blur and I said something that triggered a past emotion because he had dated a girl like six years ago who completely just destroyed him I guess, sort of, in a way. And he had thought he had gotten over it and whatever I said when I talked to him today he said, 'it just put me into a place that I always thought I had gotten rid of, and I didn't have those feelings anymore.' And he sort of just went into this anger/scared bit of rage and he was yelling and trying to leave and I was trying to keep him from leaving and for whatever reason he dialed 911 on the phone thinking that the police were going to come and like let him tell me that I needed to let him leave and that it wasn't going to be an angry sort of thing. And he kept trying to leave and he kind of grabbed me to like move me out of the way and I fell down and then I got back up and he was trying to leave and he said I guess I was hitting him because I was trying to get him to stop, like it was almost like he was going through the house like a tornado and I didn't know what to do and I was like kind of punching him and so then he picked up one of the chairs in the kitchen and just like completely smashed it. [00:17:18]
I don't even think that he realized what was happening and he kind of like this morning he said that he couldn't see, he couldn't feel, like he was having such a fit of anxiety and rage that he just he didn't know what was happening and dialed 911 and hung up. They called back and then they have to come. So the dog, my dog had gotten out and we couldn't get her back in the house so we were down the street trying to get her and that's when the police pulled up and they had seen like my robe had ripped and then they were questioning me and they took him away and I called his sister and she came and then she picked him up from the Wallingford Police Department and he had to go to court this morning to kind of figure out what was happening. They were charging him with assault and malicious destruction of property for breaking the chair so he has a lawyer and we were talking before I got here about how to go forward with it because I said I didn't want to press any charges. It was the police didn't need to be called and he was not hurting me or abusing me or anything like that and he wouldn't and they kind of kept like pushing at me, like, 'did he hurt you? I think I see a red mark on your arm.' And I'm like, 'I don't have a red mark on my arm. He didn't hurt me. I don't want to press charges. I don't want a restraining order.'
But even though I didn't want to, they still had to do it by law so that's why they had to take him down and then he got booked and everything and then it was just $50 or $40 or something bail and then he went with his sister, but so now we're kind of stuck in this whole crazy like, 'what do we do now?' sort of thing and last night we were kind of texting back and forth after the incident and then at like 4 o'clock this morning because neither of us was sleeping and then it was just like, 'please don't leave. Like I don't want this to end.' And he kept saying, like, 'it's too late. This is ridiculous. We can't act like this. This is not a normal relationship. This doesn't happen. I went to jail. That's not okay.' I think he was just angry and scared and didn't understand what was going on. And then when I talked to him this afternoon he was sort of just bawling in tears and it was like, 'I didn't think I had that kind of rage or anger inside of me. I thought I had gotten rid of some of that stuff and I guess I didn't.' So he said that he's going to go talk to somebody in Ohio to try to figure that out. But he's like, 'I don't know what's going to happen between us.' But they got his arraignment postponed until January 18th so this weekend him and I are going to talk to his lawyer to try and figure out what has to be done because as I said, 'well I'll do anything to get the charges dropped because I don't, you don't need to have that on your record.' And you know, he has a very long career in the military and I don't want that to be ruined for some incident that should have never occurred and was not as huge and it was just blown out of proportion or became more than it should have. [00:21:25]
So we're going to talk to the lawyer and try to figure out how to go about doing things but have to talk to the family that I nanny for when they get back from Rome tomorrow about not pressing charges because he broke their chair. So I'm really nervous about that. I have to tell them what happened and they know him and I think my mom was in shock and I called my best friend and they're actually flying up here right now for a few days just because I didn't want to be alone and I can't see him and he's going back to Ohio tomorrow anyway until Friday so now I'm sort of in this like I don't know what to do, I have so much going on (unclear). I didn't I don't even know. I'm lost.
THERAPIST: Kind of just this whole thing is kind of disorienting.
CLIENT: I don't remember a lot of stuff that was going on because it all was just happening so fast and talking to him he was like well this happened and then this happened and I said I remember that and we were trying not to talk about last night but it just came into the conversation and he just kept crying and saying he was so sorry and like my dog was running outside and she was scared because she didn't know what was going on and the police officers weren't really actually helping very much to get her inside and she didn't have a collar on and she was just kind of like al over the place and I was freaking out about that and the neighbors seeing and the whole embarrassment of the situation as it is. So. I don't really now I'm kind of like I don't know what to do.
THERAPIST: You seem kind of exposed. [00:23:20]
CLIENT: And now I'm forced to kind of bring my personal life into my so-called professional life and to tell them what is going on and I was trying to keep those separate because it was the only thing I could at least keep separate but now I'm forced to have to tell them and it's embarrassing and I take care of their children, I don't want them to think that I'm not okay to or anything like that. I mean part of me feels emotionally unstable at times but it doesn't really, I don't think it interferes with how I'm with the kids. I don't they don't really see any more of my emotions than they need to.
THERAPIST: How do you feel emotionally unstable?
CLIENT: I don't know. I just feel like sometimes I don't know whether I should cry and then one second I'll be angry and the next second I'll be fine. You know, I'll over-react with something and then once I have a few minutes to kind of think about it I'm like why did I even say that, or why did I even think that. Or why did that come out of my mouth like that's not something that I would say or normally do and it just sometimes I floor myself when I realize like what I've said and what I've done and I'm like I can't take it back and it's hard for me to just not say something. If I'm feeling a certain way and I just need to get it out right then and there and then it's never the right time or I don't say it the right way or I'm angry when I could just talk about it and not be so I guess overly emotional and just have a conversation with whomever. But it never happens that way so I just feel all over the place and I guess I just don't feel settled here. So part of that is part of the problem, too, like I don't have my own house, I don't have my own space and am just unhappy. [00:25:58]
THERAPIST: And it sounds like you're not sure if you want to stay.
CLIENT: I don't really want to stay but you know I need to, like I just can't up and leave but at the same time like I don't know if I can do six more months. It doesn't seem like a long time but when you're unhappy it seems like forever.
THERAPIST: And when you're unhappy 24 hours it can seem like forever.
CLIENT: It does. Sometimes I wonder how I'm going to get through the next day and so it's hard and I don't know what the right answer is.
THERAPIST: Do you feel like this unhappiness is mostly since you've been here?
CLIENT: Yeah. I would say. I mean, before I moved here things were crazy and my boyfriend he just completely made me a basket case and I think it just came to the point where I was like well I'm in this and now I'm just determined to see it through and he keeps saying he's going to get divorced and he keeps saying this and keeps saying that and so I even think I never even wanted to move here and I just did because I felt like I needed to or had to and I don't really regret it because I met some really great people being here like my boyfriend now, but a part of a lot of me is just very angry. And I blame myself for just making a bad decision and I feel like sometimes I'm just making a series of bad decisions. And I don't know how to stop doing that. I don't know. Mostly the unhappiness has been since I've moved here.
THERAPIST: But given how much trust you had in your previous boyfriend do you know what kept you in a relationship? It sounds like you had significant doubts. [00:28:16]
CLIENT: I did and you know he always said the right thing and it was and I really feel like in the end and at some point it just became like a, 'well I finally got him to do this, or do that,' and I didn't really even want to be with him anymore and I knew that I needed to leave and it was a bad situation and my whole family said so and my friends and I just didn't listen and I continued to do what I wanted to do and then as soon as it all came tumbling down within a week of me moving here I just I was embarrassed and ashamed and sad and couldn't have apologized more to all of the people who have still stuck by me and never once said, 'I told you so,' and have been there, but there's a very big element of embarrassment when something like that happens you've made such a big move and then a week into it it doesn't work out and you're like, 'well I guess I have to move back home after I quit my job and I didn't want that to happen.'
THERAPIST: You've used "embarrassed" several times today.
CLIENT: Yeah. I guess that sometimes I feel I'm, I don't know, I give other people's opinions too much consideration and then I feel like well I've made this bad decision and now I have to face people and what are they going to think of me and are they going to think I'm a bad person because I'm really not? And immediately when I was talking to my boyfriend today like does your family hate me? You know. He was like, 'No, of course they don't.' And I'm just sometimes overly concerned about other people's feelings who've helped me and how they see me. But I feel like I can't seem to stop making such terrible decisions and doing things that I don't want to do especially in my relationship and we've had so many just fights over silly things and I don't want that to happen anymore. If we're even going to be able to pursue having a relationship after last night and what's happened, but I just want to be able to express my feelings and not just be so angry or overly emotional. [00:31:10]
THERAPIST: Do you feel like the problem, well the struggle to express your feelings do you feel like that existed before your previous boyfriend or that sort of developed within that relationship?
CLIENT: Yeah, because I feel like he always kind of pushed me down and I never really wanted to kind of say what the problem was because it always ended up it being in a big fight and he would just tell me how ridiculous I was and that I'm just being stupid and why am I over-reacting? And so I sort of stopped wanting to say things but then it would just build up inside of me and I would explode at the wrong time and I would say everything that I did never really wanted to say from the beginning just out of complete emotion.
And I mean I guess I've always been a little like that but not that bad. So, I feel like a lot of stuff has come out because of him and now I'm paying for it and my boyfriend now is paying for it and that's not fair to him.
THERAPIST: It sounds like you feel really guilty about this.
CLIENT: I do. I feel guilty about I don't know. About moving here and being so hurtful and looking back on things that we've fought about and just thinking to myself, 'what was I thinking at that time?' Like why would I say anything like that, or why would I do that? It's so silly and I do the whole self-loathing thing I guess and feel bad for myself and beat myself up and never really have felt that it would change and that it would get better and that I didn't need to come here or to ask for help or anything like that because I just thought, well it will be fine. It will change. I'll try and change, but then it just never happened and it keeps getting worse and worse and worse and I think last night was really the like the icing on the cake. It just put him and me over the edge of thinking like this is not okay. Like we can't have a relationship like this. You don't love someone and act like this. So, yeah, I feel guilty for being that way.
(Pause): [00:34:11 00:34:19]
CLIENT: It's just that I don't know how to express anything. I feel like I'm so -
THERAPIST: Well it seems like you're expressing yourself now.
CLIENT: Yeah, I guess, because I feel like I'm just telling you a story and I'm not sometimes doing the normal interaction where on a day to day basis something will bother me and I just, I mean like that, my mood just completely changes and it can be something so insignificant, so insignificant and like my mood will change and then I'm just angry and I snap and I just, I'm not nice, you know? And I've never been a mean person. And there have been times in the last eight, nine months that I'm like I'm becoming some mean, angry person saying things that I don't want to say and I don't really feel but just, they're there and out they come. I don't like it. I don't like myself right how and I would like to. I would like to get back to liking myself again.
THERAPIST: Where do you think those mean, angry things are coming from?
CLIENT: Sometimes I don't even know. They just they're just there. Like sometimes I try to think of why would I say that? Or why where is all of this anger coming from? And I don't know if it's just anger that I've sort of kept in for so long but I am expressing it in just the wrong way and saying things I shouldn't say without thinking. Sometimes I just don't even know. And that's not even a really good answer but I feel like I don't know.
THERAPIST: Are there like your parents, or do you have any brothers and sisters?
CLIENT: No, I'm an only child and my parents are divorced. So it's just my mom and then she has a boyfriend.
THERAPIST: Are they kind of even-keeled or do you feel like they tend toward anger or difficulty expressing their emotions?
CLIENT: I don't really talk to my dad very much. He's sort of out of the picture. But my mom has her moments but not quite as bad as mine. You know, she can be a little over-reactive but she's a fairly rational person and I don't feel rational sometimes, a lot of the time until it's bothersome.
THERAPIST: How does she over-react?
CLIENT: I guess she, too, will get angry at silly things or maybe I just think she's being over-reactive and she's really not. But she gets mad and yells and whatnot, but then I think like when she has a problem she talks to whomever about it and like her boyfriend if she has a problem with him they end up talking about it and she does sort of yell but not a whole lot I would say. I don't know if it's coming from her or what, but [00:38:22]
THERAPIST: Yeah, one reason I ask about people's family is just people try to figure out what the norm is according to what they grew up with and so there's a lot of reasons I like to know about people's family but that's one of them. When someone feels themselves to be bad at expressing feelings well what was the norm in the family or what did you see?
CLIENT: Yeah, I mean when my boyfriend now has met my mom he quite often says the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
THERAPIST: (Laughs)
CLIENT: He uses that expression a lot and he uses it to my mom. So he must see it more because he's sort of from the outside looking in and my mom and I are right on the inside there. So it could be more of that's how I was used to being brought up and expressing myself a lot.
THERAPIST: So he sees similarities where you don't necessarily see similarities. Is it especially around this issue or just in general?
CLIENT: I think it's a little bit in general and especially around this issue sort of thing. General similarities but it's more I guess this issue than anything else.
THERAPIST: Just kind of getting angry or kind of being very emotionally like "out there?"
CLIENT: Um hmm [yes]. And now I feel like, too, I opened myself up with my previous boyfriend and just sort of let him in and now because I was hurt so bad I'm sort of closed off and my boyfriend doesn't feel like he says that he doesn't feel like I let him in or I'm giving him a whole lot and I'm just closed off and not emotionally available but only when it's inappropriate and I'm yelling. And I could feel that. You know, I feel a little like I don't want to give all of me because the last time I did it didn't work out.
But now I want to keep him close but I feel like I'm doing everything I can to make him run away. And trying to keep him close to me and wanting to be with him all the time and whatever, but then we fight and he just doesn't want anything to do with me and then I freak out more and it sort of becomes a vicious cycle. [00:41:06]
THERAPIST: Yeah, I was going to ask you because it sounds like one of the things that escalated the fight was him wanting to leave.
CLIENT: Yes, and he kept saying you know, 'I just wanted to leave and you were making me feel like a caged animal and you wouldn't let me leave.' He said, 'you couldn't put your own feelings aside for just a second and realize that I just wanted to leave. And if you had just let me leave it probably would not have escalated so much.' And you know, I see that now, but in my head I'm like, 'well, if I let him leave then maybe he's never going to come back.' So then I'm scared that if I do let him go he's not going to come back and maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't but I'm very afraid of that and now it's making me more anxious and upset because I keep doing things wrong and I can't stop and he's running away but I'm trying to keep him closer and I don't know what to do.
THERAPIST: Well it sounds like you're feeling this internal struggle about wanting to keep him close but not too close. Too close he could hurt you, but not close enough and he can leave and you're feeling that and so what's going on around you is kind of irritating those feelings.
CLIENT: Yes. It is. Yeah, I do feel like I want him to stay and I want him to be here but almost it's almost like a convenience thing for me sometimes, like okay, well it's good that you're here now, but then you know when I don't have time for you, I don't have time for you and I'm like angry and I don't want to let you in and just what I'm feeling and I need to be a certain way all the time and let him in and not be so closed off, but still wanting to hold him on too tight because he's definitely he's well beyond the limits of I would say any normal person. He should have left a long time ago and if things work out after everything that happened last night I will be very surprised. So I don't know. He said this morning he wasn't sure. He didn't know how things were going to go between him and I but we did need to stick together in figuring out what to do about the whole court charges thing. [00:43:49]
THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean this is so new. I can see why it would put you in a tizzy for a lot of reasons, but it seems like in a week or so at least some things will be clearer.
CLIENT: Hopefully, by hopefully on Saturday we're going to talk to the lawyer and maybe he'll have a little bit better of an idea. Just pray that between now and his next arraignment date, everything sort of gets dropped and that he doesn't get charged and then go from there and he said, you know, the judge could put on a no contact order and then we wouldn't be able to have any kind of contact even with not living in the same state except that would sort of, like that is one of the things that's starting to really freak me out, too, is, 'oh, no, what if this happens?' I sort of do that often and just sort of think something, you know, if there's even a speck of possibility that something bad is going to happen I take it and run and then I'm like, 'oh, no, I'm never going to see you again, I'm never going to talk to you again,' or something like that.
THERAPIST: Like if he leaves to get some fresh air, he's never going to come back.
CLIENT: Yes. And I couldn't just let him go outside or let him call his sister or go there for the night and then we could have talked today but I think sort of after he went to he was very angry earlier but when I talked to him before I came in here he seemed a little bit more even-keeled like he'd had some time for everything to sink in and he wasn't so angry about it and he did want to talk. Before, he didn't want to talk and then that's when I'm like, 'we need to talk now now, now, now.' And that just makes it worse because I'm like please don't leave. I'm begging you and then that's bothering him because I'm doing that and he's trying to think about other things and sometimes I'm too I need to do this now, or I'm not okay. [00:46:07]
THERAPIST: And you feel so anxious a lot of the time.
CLIENT: Yeah, like I need to get this out now. I need to get this done now and when we could easily wait or we just had a little bit of time to kind of think about it then we would be better off later talking instead of talking while we're still an emotional wreak I guess.
THERAPIST: We need to stop for today.
CLIENT: That's okay.
THERAPIST: I wanted to know first if you had any questions for me.
CLIENT: I don't think so. Just when can I come next?
THERAPIST: Whenever you'd like.
CLIENT: I know your time here is very limited and -
THERAPIST: I know we talked about that. Unfortunately I'm only here basically half a day a week. I'm mostly in New Haven.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: So how would you like to work and obviously if you're here, if you're living and working in Wallingford it's a lot more convenient -
CLIENT: It is, so. Unfortunately I don't know what are your times?
THERAPIST: Here? So yeah, basically I'm here Monday afternoon and evening.
CLIENT: Okay. What's the latest appointment that you have?
THERAPIST: It depends on the day. So like for next week for example I could meet at 5 or 5:15.
CLIENT: Okay. Usually so their parents don't get home which is -
THERAPIST: You've said this.
CLIENT: How early are you here?
THERAPIST: So usually I start around like 3:15 or 3:20. Basically I'm here from 3 o'clock on.
CLIENT: Oh, okay. I'd have to be able to try and get someone to get the kids from school because they get out of school at 3 o'clock.
THERAPIST: I see. So -
CLIENT: And their parents don't get home until like six so the earliest my issue would be I could not do something. It would have to be after six or before Three to six is when I have the kids.
THERAPIST: Let's do this. And so how I don't think, you really need some because I usually do 45-minute sessions so you'd need something at 2 or earlier. Like 2 would be probably the latest you could come in order to get the kids on time.
CLIENT: I mean I could always have someone grab them and then pick them up later and I can make arrangements with somebody to have that as sort of a standing thing but I don't know what your schedule is like.
THERAPIST: Yeah, let me see. I just need to think what I could would you be able to do 2:30 next week? Would that be would that help at all?
CLIENT: Yeah. And then I can probably figure out a way to have them picked up from school and then get them after I leave here and around 3:30 I guess it would be.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Let me see what I could do. I need to my schedule's changing a little bit here anyway and I had one or two people recently entering so I have some flexibility. I just need to sort of figure it out. So do you want to do 2:30 for next week and then I'll keep all this in mind and we can see what we can do?
CLIENT: Yeah, that would be great.
THERAPIST: Let's do that. I mean the other option it sounds like there's a lot going on right now so it's up to you but if you did want to try to see me later this week in New Haven I'd be happy to see what I can do just because it sounds like there is so much going on. But, you know it's up to you if you want to wait until next Monday. [00:49:46]
CLIENT: Do you have maybe on Friday?
THERAPIST: I do actually have some flexibility. What are you looking for morning, afternoon?
CLIENT: Anytime is fine really. Maybe morning?
THERAPIST: Yeah, I could do a 9:15.on Friday.
CLIENT: And that's in New Haven.
THERAPIST: Do you have a car?
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: It's actually well traffic at that time can be a little tricky but it's actually I do the Wallingford to New Haven commute all the time. It's pretty easy to get to. It's just a matter of traffic can be kind of bad but I'm right off the highway so it's a pretty fast shot.
CLIENT: All right so I can jump on the highway to like sometimes I can get on at Cheshire and then shoot down that way not coming through Wallingford, which is where all the traffic usually winds up being.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: And that would take me the longest. So I could go out and then down.
THERAPIST: Yeah, just to let you because I sometimes do this and at that time traffic cannot be great.
CLIENT: Do you have anything later that (unclear)?
THERAPIST: You know what? The other thing I can do is 11:45. Would you be able to do that?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I can do 11:45 and you shouldn't hit as much traffic at that time.
CLIENT: What I found is the witching hour is anytime between 7:30 and 10 and then it calms down a lot until 3:30 to 6:30.
THERAPIST: Exactly. Exactly. So I'll put you in for 11:45 and that's in New Haven and my address is right on the bottom of my e-mail. But it's right across from food store. There's a food store right across the street from my office.
CLIENT: Oh, good.
THERAPIST: Just to find that way.
CLIENT: And in terms of I don't think I gave you sort of a fee range. I don't think we talked specifically about.
THERAPIST: I think I've given you a -
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: So usually for the subsidized fee I usually do between $75 and $100. I like to keep the lower range for students who aren't working, but usually for people who are working but don't have insurance I usually ask for more like $85 to $100 but -
CLIENT: I can do $85 to $100 or something. You know? That's fine. My boyfriend and I talked about it and he was going to pay for some of it, but so I can probably work it out.
THERAPIST: Okay. Usually people pay me for the first session at the time of the session.
CLIENT: Okay. I did bring money because I wasn't sure how you worked.
THERAPIST: What we'll do my assistant will send you a treatment contract. Usually the first session or so the people pay me at the time of the session and then I just bill monthly. It makes things easier.
CLIENT: Yeah, that's fine.
THERAPIST: So, $85, or?
CLIENT: $85 to $100 is usually the range I ask for people who are working so you know you can let me know whatever is in that range, what you -
THERAPIST: Can I do $85 today and then if I can change is that okay?
CLIENT: That's fine.
(Pause): [00:53:02 00:53:17]
CLIENT: I think that's all I actually have. And is it only cash?
THERAPIST: Oh no. Not at all. I do people pay me with check. People pay with credit cards, too, although I don't really like my credit card company but if that's easier I can do credit card.
CLIENT: I think I actually have $85 in cash.
THERAPIST: That makes it easy.
(Pause): [00:53:32 00:53:41]
THERAPIST: I mean generally, you can do check and again, if you -
CLIENT: I'll try and bring cash because I would just be paying with my debit card so I can always just go to the bank and grab cash.
THERAPIST: Okay. Great. So I look forward to seeing you at 11:45 in New Haven this Friday.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: Okay, great.
CLIENT: Thank you very much.
THERAPIST: And good luck with the weekend.
CLIENT: Thank you. Hopefully, my boyfriend will have a little bit more information or something.
THERAPIST: Okay. Well, it was very nice meeting you.
CLIENT: You too. Thank you.
THERAPIST: Take care.
CLIENT: And I can go -
THERAPIST: Yeah, it's just right yeah, you can go here and if you make a left down the hall it takes you right out.
CLIENT: Okay, thank you.
THERAPIST: Take care.
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