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CLIENT: January 24th I have class at 2:15.

THERAPIST: 1:25, okay.

CLIENT: So. Yeah.

THERAPIST: And does that mean that any other time is free that you’d want to try to maneuver, or what? What do you – yeah, what are your thoughts?

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean. Out of class at 10:50. Conceivably, if there is something outside of that period.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Maybe, even then.

THERAPIST: You’ve got to be back at school –

CLIENT: I’ve got to be back at school.

THERAPIST: And what time’s your class?

CLIENT: I get out of class at 10:50 and I have to be back for 2:15.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: I think it just might be a little tight to be honest with you.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah. That would mean you’d come back here for – and then go – yeah, okay. I think the earliest I could probably due would be 1:15 which probably would be too tight for you to do.

CLIENT: Yeah. There’s not much I can do other than – so maybe we’ll just say for the time being that unless something else happens (unclear). Actually that’s the thing. So that week is also Martin Luther King Day and also means I will be quite free on Wednesday, alternatively. That’s when I would have the class. So I’ll be out of class on Wednesday at like 1 – from 2 o’clock, I’ll be out of class for the rest of that day.

THERAPIST: Okay. I might know more – I’ll know more next week.

CLIENT: Yeah, I just wanted to get that under your radar as soon as possible.

THERAPIST: Yeah, there might be a way I can do it. So it would be the 22nd?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay, there’s a chance I’ll have a 3 o’clock free.

CLIENT: Yeah, that would probably work.

THERAPIST: Or even 3:15.

CLIENT: Yeah, okay. (Cross talk). Oh man. Had my first classes this week. Started on Tuesday.

THERAPIST: You’re back.

CLIENT: I’m back. I’m back in school. This break was really nice. It was sad to see break end. (Unclear) all the time, which was really nice. It just sort of happened that her schedule – saw her not working a whole bunch of days in a week so I wasn’t even expecting it. We ended up having like a nice little week together which was a lot of fun. And then snow days and stuff cancelled her work. So by the time class started in was definitely in vacation mode. But it was good. I started off – my classes, I have a bunch of new professors. I have two classes added to my schedule this semester. Which is good because those are like the two only real classes of the year which I’m like genuinely interested in in terms of the subject matter. So that’s good. It’s been fun. But yeah, right back into it.

THERAPIST: Right back into it, yeah.

CLIENT: I’m already feeling extended thin and –

THERAPIST: What did you say?

CLIENT: Just like I already feel like –

THERAPIST: Extended thin?

CLIENT: Yeah, like stretched thin, you know?

THERAPIST: I thought you said “extended fin”.

CLIENT: Oh right.

THERAPIST: Sort of a nick name.

CLIENT: No. Just – that’s funny. No I just already feel like it’s going to be super, super, super busy and I already feel a little distracted in terms of – just in going from being able to spend so much time with Laney and talking with her so much and stuff to having to re-shift my focus. It’s just a little frustrating.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: But it is what it is.

THERAPIST: Like kind of like student mode. I think the way you depicted it is kind of like a very stark contrast to what it might be outside of school, you know?

CLIENT: Yeah, I just kind of feel like in a way it makes it – you know I want to be in school and I want to be a student and I want to do this and I don’t have any regrets about doing it but in some way makes it hard. I feel like it’s very difficult if not ultimately impossible for me to do a really good job of being a student, but also being the type of person that I want to be you know, in terms of my relationship with Laney or something, you know? I just feel like those two things are constantly pulling at me from different directions and giving to one is taking away the other or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: I could talk about that for a long time. So I just feel like coming from the period where I was able to just spend lots of time at home and everything, you know.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It’s really only with Laney, though. It really doesn’t play out in any other aspect, any of the relationships I have right now. Even in just little things, you know, like just really busy and really rushed and I wouldn’t clean up the kitchen before I go to bed. And I feel bad because then Laney has a messy kitchen to wake up to or – you know, these are all things that I did a lot of when I was on break. Keeping the house really clean. You know, there’s a way to try to make it more pleasant for her when she came home and saw it. I feel like my kind of hectic-ness is kind of spilling over into her life.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it impacts her.

CLIENT: I don’t know how it impacts. I know the ways I think about it might be impacting.

THERAPIST: That’s a better way of putting it. [0:08:02]

CLIENT: So there’s that.

THERAPIST: But other than that, it’s right back into school. This will be a busier semester than last semester.

THERAPIST: You added to your classes. Do you lose any?

CLIENT: So it will be like one extra class.

THERAPIST: One extra class. But how many is it? Is it four then?

CLIENT: Five or six.

THERAPIST: Oh wow, five or six, yeah.

CLIENT: And one of them is well I’ve just not ever had assigned so much nightly. I never had a class where I had to spend as much time preparing for class. So that’s effectively like two classes in a sense, I mean the time I spend on it. A really difficult professor. Everyone’s very scared of him. But it’ll work out.

THERAPIST: But why? What does he do?

CLIENT: He – like did you like the Socratic Method cold calling? He’s considered to be a bit more kind of aggressive and abrasive with his questioning in terms of if people seem unprepared or like they’re not getting something right. People have the impression of him being like a blow hard, aggressive with his questioning. Some people I think that have a hard time speaking in public find it extremely scary and stuff. You know, like the way my professors have been? He reads, he reads stuff like this and people feel like he’s a pretty terrifying person. He’s very demanding and whatnot. Which is good and I’m glad that I have that type of workload and a class I’m interested in. It’s just a lot of work. So in general this semester is going to be a lot of work – a lot more work than last semester. But I think it will be fine. I got the last paper that we did in writing. We got that paper back in our first class of this semester on Wednesday and I got an A on that.

THERAPIST: You did.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Which was really nice to see.

CLIENT: Yeah. I got an A minus on the last one. So this one actually I did a little bit better on. Which was very reassuring in a sense.

THERAPIST: Yeah, sure.

CLIENT: Although I can’t really tell if my professor hates me or not.

THERAPIST: What do you mean? What did he say?

CLIENT: I just don’t know if he likes me. I have no idea really. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: You don’t know –

CLIENT: I guess I feel like when I do well in a class there should be some kind of reward that comes with it or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Approval that she likes me or something.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: There doesn’t seem to be any of that I guess.

THERAPIST: Even if you get the A it doesn’t mean that she likes you.

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Do you have any sense of how she feels about you? How does she come across?

CLIENT: She’s very stern. Very, very stern. Very (unclear) Although last semester when I had trouble – I don’t know if I talked to you about it but I had trouble – it was actually this paper, the first draft – I didn’t hand it in on time. And I sent her just like a kind of a roughish draft and then I resent it to her and then we had the meeting and she was extremely understanding about it. We had a really helpful conversation and whatnot which was really nice. Yeah. It just was kind of like I’m coming back this semester it just feels kind of, it still feels kind of vacuous in terms of – I went through this semester but I still feel kind of just floating around in there, you know. [0:12:02]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: just like some of those things like that I would suspect would come with like being somewhere for a while. Those things that make you feel comfortable with a place like that you felt a rapport with your professors. And you know, all that seems to be just this kind of – it doesn’t seem to be much different than when I started school, you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: But in a sense it’s kind of like a developing kind of –

CLIENT: It still feels like it’s kind like a cold place in that sense. And I kind of noticed that a little bit this week.

THERAPIST: How many students are in your – they count up the total 2013-14 incoming class and how many –

CLIENT: There’s three divisions of 60 students approximately.

THERAPIST: And do all divisions of those 60 students take class together?

CLIENT: Yeah. So each division, like my division is D2. There’s three of them. Last semester we had all of our classes together with the exception of legal research writing which like because it meets in groups of six or really 12 students. That’s the only one like that. But all the other classes, same students, same room, same seat. Oh yeah.

THERAPIST: That’s a pretty common thing in school, from what I understand.

CLIENT: Is that right?

THERAPIST: Yeah, I’m not really sure why.

CLIENT: In a sense at this point, I don’t know what their reasoning is behind it, but there’s definitely some benefits to it in terms of like you know it helps you kind of just connect with people – get three classes with 60 people in it. You feel you’d be lucky to like make a connection with anybody.

THERAPIST: That makes sense, right. You see the same person next to you every day.

CLIENT: I have to imagine on some level there’s a benefit to that, but I also think it helps with the grading, to control for certain things. I don’t know. [0:15:27]

THERAPIST: I asked maybe just to get a sense of how well one can get to know the class as a whole feels like and then also the professor. That’s a pretty big class.

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s a big class. It’s a big class.

THERAPIST: So it feels a bit impersonal.

CLIENT: It feels impersonal in that sense but like socially and it’s also just like I haven’t even gotten any grades back yet. And I’m already starting my second semester. You know, there’s also this like – it’s also structurally set up to just really facilitate a feeling that you have no idea what the hell is going on. I could have failed all of my exams. I (unclear) feel like dropping out, you know what I mean? I have no idea.

THERAPIST: You’re in the dark.

CLIENT: Yeah. So that’s, I don’t know. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Most likely there is along with this professor, there is a kind of way you’ll know what the place really, how it feels about you.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think I was just, I liked spending that time at home with Laney. And I think that I’ve been thinking about this so much against the backdrop of that, you know? The way it didn’t really feel like that when I was at home with Laney so much spending so much time with her and you know with our cat which has been a lot of fun.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I just really like, I would like to have more time like that. It made me happy, you know? It made me feel good to be able to put my energy in that direction, you know? And I was able to be like a better partner and companion for Laney for the last couple of weeks than I am, that I feel like I can be right now. You know? And that made me feel better about myself, you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. What did you feel about it when you have that time to devout energy to be there? More available.

CLIENT: It seems more right. It seems like – I don’t know how to say it. I just feel better. I feel more confident. I feel happier. I don’t know. I guess it’s also just like – plus it’s demanding. Whatever. It’s not surprise or anything, but I guess sometimes it feels even weird to me that I get a little frustrated when I know I have to make this decision to like have to focus my energy in this one sphere and just want to see her because it just requires that. But I’m also noticing how little I feel I get back from it. Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: I don’t know.

CLIENT: Like I have to focus energy on this thing and I feel lost in it. In a way like a formula in my head that just works out like it just seems to make more sense if I put it somewhere else. Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Is it kind of captured by that feeling with the teacher, with the professor that you know you worked hard, you got the A and at the end of it you really don’t even know where you stand with it?

CLIENT: Yeah. Why would someone need to focus their energy on that? You know? Wouldn’t it just make more sense to invest yourself more in doing things that you get something back from?

THERAPIST: You get a return.

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:20:18]

THERAPIST: Yeah. No I see it. Yeah. I mean it’s interesting. I guess the way you put it. Just thinking about how much you have invested into this past semester and how impersonal it still feels to you. I mean maybe partially there’s something that feels like you’ve gotten something that degrades – if you get good grades it’s something like a reflection of hey I invested this and I got this in return.

CLIENT: No, I think that’s right. I think if I had my grades from last semester right now and I got really good grades in all of them I think I would probably feel a little bit different about it. You know? But I almost feel like if I got really bad grades like this wouldn’t be the first thing I’d think of but I’m so (unclear) that I would even feel worse about how I used all that time and energy, you know, with respect to Laney or something. (Pause) I guess it just takes a lot of time and energy and I’d like to be able to use that for other things. Like one thing I’d really love to be able to do would be to be able to work that divide more effectively, be able to do both of those things better.

THERAPIST: Oh, I know, yeah.

CLIENT: I don’t know, I feel like I hear about people being able to do that really well and stuff and for some reason I just shouldn’t do that. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Do you have a sense of what’s complicated about that, how it’s challenging for you?

CLIENT: I don’t even know if I would like want to do that.

THERAPIST: Yeah. What about it doesn’t seem right to you?

CLIENT: I guess I just feel like that’s something I couldn’t do or something. Sometimes I think about things that way, you know? Like I have this like assumption in my head that it doesn’t seem possible that other people can do things like they, this is not something that I would be capable of doing, you know? And I don’t even know where that comes from but I think about that kind of stuff sometimes.

THERAPIST: Yeah, there is some way that it does seem like you know there’s a very strong divide between schoolwork and being at home or schoolwork and being in kind of work mode and off work. Almost like it’s two different worlds that you’re in. One is a world with Laney and the other being school and I mean I will say that it does seem to be that somehow the line seems to get a little more fluid as opposed to it felt like even a stronger divide in the past, I think when you were at Providence College.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, like at Providence College Laney was hyped about it. They were both the same. My school responsibilities and my concern about keeping a connection together were both achieved through my schoolwork. The way I see it now is like now they’ve been kind of disaggregated now they’re in two different places that require different things.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I see.

CLIENT: And it’s interesting, too, that in saying all of this I still don’t freak out too much at all about my schoolwork. I get anxious about this stuff but I’m not like anxious about how I’m doing in school which is worth noting. [0:25:27]

THERAPIST: Yeah, that’s definitely changed as we’ve been saying. But you know just to say how kind of, I don’t know, like an enduring characteristic of the way work and not work, outside of work structures, I just remember it makes me think a little bit about what it was like meeting or talking while you were working at camp for instance. Your description of like being not only talking to me but before that over the years how separated you felt like your existence at camp was from everywhere else. You know, some of that is kind of like it comes with the territory of camp. It’s kind of the idea of camp anyway is to get away, but there was something kind of striking like you noting like, ‘wow, I can’t believe I’m talking to you on the phone while I’m here at camp.’ And the thought of doing it before that seemed like really unimaginable in the sense that you maybe never even imagined it, if that makes sense.

CLIENT: No, absolutely. I can remember that too.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and so it’s almost like there’s this way that it’s not like a really interwoven kind of experience that you feel or that you go from one world to another world and I think that’s something that’s part of the territory but I also hear you say that maybe for other people it’s maybe a little bit more. You know, the transition isn’t as stark or something.

CLIENT: It’s a possibility to wear both hats or something. Like if this is something like if I wasn’t talking to you, you know, if I was talking to Eric or something, I would preface it by saying, never repeat this but I won’t say that to you obviously I don’t have to, but sometimes like a lot of times the way my schedule works a lot of time when Laney is working at the grocery store which is not too far away from my school, you know, when she’s getting out I like 7 or 8, I’ll just stay at school and study until then, and we’ll go home together and I’ll carry groceries and stuff. There’s times when I have a lot of work to do and I’m not done and I know I’m not going to be done by the time Laney gets there, and I’m wanting to be working on it because I want to get my work done at night to be prepared for class – I want to do it, I want to get it done. I mean I want to meet that goal of this assignment and finish it. I think in my head sometimes like kind of like in an abstract way like a feeling in these terms I almost kind of like wish I wasn’t with Laney in moments like that. I think about like imagine if like I wasn’t with Laney and all the time I would have for school.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: It’s not that I don’t want to be with Laney, you know what I mean? But I think that. [0:29:27]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And it feels like a treasonous thought. You know what I mean? It feels, I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Disloyal or something?

CLIENT: It surprises me sometimes that I think that.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. Right.

CLIENT: Because I know that I don’t literally want that but I do at those moments. I don’t know. I guess it’s the point at which I see those things conflicting.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: At times with Laney I don’t want to be in school.

THERAPIST: Yeah, right. Right. Right.

CLIENT: But it seems more, I’m personally scared the more I think about it in terms of not wanting to be with Laney when I kind of like fantasize what I –

THERAPIST: It’s kind of more acceptable to you to deal with.

CLIENT: (Unclear) the relationship for school. Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Right. What – is it that it’s more acceptable to think that about school rather than say, Laney, for yourself?

CLIENT: Like if someone came up to me right now and put a gun to my head and said you can have school or you can have Laney. I would say I would still stay with Laney. You know what I mean. Obviously.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, but I think that I do that calculation in my head sometimes.

THERAPIST: What, if you can kind of get into that mindset that t you’re in in those moments, what’s kind of going on for you? How does that enter your mind?

CLIENT: I mean I feel like it’s a big secret on the one hand that I even think it. It’s like a secret conversation that I’m having with myself. That’s one big thing that I feel. But there are times when I’ve thought that a little bit and then I’ve even got a sense of myself like if what you really need tonight is another two hours to study, I mean, the alternatives aren’t be with Laney and don’t study for two more hours tonight or study for two more hours tonight and don’t have your relationship with Laney. I mean I think that sometimes. Maybe your finishing your studying tonight is not possible only if you aren’t in a relationship with Laney. You know what I mean? Like I’ll study at the library tonight to finish my work and I’ll see you at home. That’s obviously a possibility.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: But I don’t think about it that way.

THERAPIST: Yeah, no. What is it instead? What does it kind of set up?

CLIENT: I guess in some sense I kind of feel like if I take those extra two hours and I don’t have a relationship with Laney or something, I’m hurting my relationship. What if I didn’t have this thing I have to protect?

THERAPIST: Yes. Yes. Why –

CLIENT: Maybe I wouldn’t have to keep alive, you know what I mean? And then all the other things I could do. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yes. Yeah, it would be that kind of like I have this feeling of wanting and needing to protect this other relationship with Laney but I don’t want it.

CLIENT: I kind of don’t. I kind of wish I didn’t.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Maybe I’m thinking about what if I never met Laney. You know? What if I didn’t want to do that? Like how good would that be in a way?

THERAPIST: Well, it’s interesting you know, I’ve got to just share with you that I certainly can’t imagine this is all – I’m not trying to suggest that this is all it is to you because I can’t imagine that it would be. But it’s interesting when you describe the time with Laney, what was most salient to you at least in your description earlier today, what was important about being with her was the sense that you were really able to take good care of the relationship and really tend to her and have a relationship. It was almost like some sort of feeling of you were able to be responsible in the way you wanted to be. It was a particular – that was the most salient thing you described about it. And I was thinking about how more generally one of the more salient things about the relationship is the responsibility component of it that I don’t know what it’s about. It’s worth unpacking but like that ends up being kind of like, again, reiterating, one of the more salient things was the responsibility you feel towards her.

CLIENT: No, that resonates. Yeah. Yeah, that’s like the currency. [0:35:21]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: How, yeah, yeah. The ability to be available and the ability to prioritize. The ability to do those things. It made me feel really good to be able to do those things.

THERAPIST: Yes, right.

CLIENT: It made me feel really good. Who knows if Laney even noticed? I don’t know. In a way it doesn’t matter, you know? I still felt good in a way that I don’t on a weekend or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s kind of similar I think in terms of how you felt about – and again this has changed since school, like how you’d feel about grades in a way. It was like – or your work. It would be just kind of like – the payoff would be in all that hard work was really you would end up feeling like, okay, I did a good job here and that’s what becomes very salient to you as reflected by the grades and now it seems like the pressure is a little bit more relieved, it’s not as strong. It actually opens up, ‘what am I doing this for?’ And being in a way, opens up other possibilities of what it does mean to you, more clearly in some ways. Is that making sense?

CLIENT: It’s interesting. I thought you were going to – I thought when you started that sentence you were saying something totally different. And actually, I wasn’t really paying attention. I just am saying I’m sorry. I thought that you were initially going to draw an analogy between the way that I used to feel like I have to put everything I have into my school work because that’s the only way I feel like I would be able to handle whatever the consequence, whatever the outcome of it was. If it was a good grade then great! If it was a bad grade then at least I did everything I could, I mean I’m (unclear) you know? At least I can say I did everything I could. At first I thought you were going to draw an analogy between that and like my approach to my relationship with Laney. I feel like I’m opening myself up to the same criticism by not being able to do those things, to uphold all those responsibilities.

THERAPIST: Yes!

CLIENT: Because initially I wanted to say that no I don’t think that’s the same thing at all.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, okay.

CLIENT: Because they don’t feel that way to me but it just was interesting. I never thought of it that way. Do you know what I’m saying?

THERAPIST: Yeah, like if you didn’t put all of yourself into Laney and something went wrong you’d feel like you’d only have yourself to blame kind of thing?

CLIENT: That’s what I thought you were going to be suggesting – like a similarity between those things.

THERAPIST: And you’re sort of saying now that you look at it now they’re not analogous?

CLIENT: That doesn’t really – well I would say that but it’s interesting because you didn’t say that. I didn’t say that I was thinking that. I ended up thinking that.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Ultimately. On my own.

THERAPIST: But that doesn’t really ring true to you.

CLIENT: That wasn’t what I was going to. But I see where you’re going with it. But anyway, yeah. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. What did you mean?

CLIENT: I guess, in a way they seem similar. I don’t know. I guess in some sense they might be similar in that I just, I worry a lot about maybe like me hurting Laney’s feelings or something, hurting her, you know?

THERAPIST: UN huh.

CLIENT: I think I alleviate some of those concerns by doing certain things, you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Which may or may not have anything to do with it but for whatever reason give me a sense of calm, you know?

THERAPIST: And feeling good, I guess, huh?

CLIENT: I mean I’m feeling like feeling good is not feeling (unclear) because like I feel good when I check the oven because it’s (unclear) than the way I feel when I don’t.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: I feel like I’m saying the same things I said last semester in a way. I feel like I’m being repetitive or something.

THERAPIST: What if you are? What about it?

(Pause): [0:41:19 0:41:33]

CLIENT: I don’t know. That would be boring for you or something I guess. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Well, one thing that was coming to mind was that you felt, you’ve expressed kind of concern about that here that what are you bringing in, how much effort are you bringing in and if you don’t, what does it do to the relationship, you know? Yeah, like if you’re not tending to the garden, you know, are things going to rot or something and I think like you’ve even expressed concern about that like when you come here and you feel like I think you mentioned last semester a bit like I haven’t been able to think as much as I would if I wasn’t in school. How does that impact this? How does that impact us? How much does – something starts to emerge in you like a kind of a worry, a danger or something about the –

THERAPIST: It’s funny because I’ve also fantasized about not coming here anymore in those moments, too.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Um hmm.

(Pause): [0:43:08 – 0:43:18]

CLIENT: That generates a conflict between those sets of demands and whatnot. I mean I feel like those are – I feel like that’s a very common kind of way in which things play out amidst different spheres of my life.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think in a lot of ways at least it bothers me a lot of different ways. I think it makes it difficult for me in a lot of ways for me to enjoy things that could be really enjoyable like I mean all the things that we’re talking about right now are incredible things like my relationship with Laney, continuing to do this, being in school. Those are all fantastic things, you know? I guess it would be really nice to be able to enjoy the most fantastic things in my life instead of letting them just turn into these sources of negative energy or something, that make me feel bad about myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: Are more than kind of cursory, service level engagements, you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Like you’re very aware of the kind of like – and one thing that becomes very (unclear) and salient to you is the kind of investment that one has and one must make into things that one really cares about. [0:45:58]

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [0:45:59 – 0:46:17]

THERAPIST: How much – what were you going to say?

CLIENT: Yeah and how much to do that? Like, is it a zero sum game? That’s what it feels like. Sort of what it always comes down to. You know, like I got like 100 units of energy and I feel like all of the things in my life require 75 of them or 100. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: In a sense.

THERAPIST: Yeah, they might be all things that you have in your life because you wanted them, but it still takes a – it doesn’t mean they don’t require energy and work.

CLIENT: I mean yeah, that’s it. Nothing – I feel like the way I think about things is that there isn’t anything good that doesn’t require that from you. They’re all unique in that sense. I would love to be able to find a place where I could be where I could just enjoy those fantastic, awesome opportunities that I have. Which they are. You know what I mean? They’re in many ways – I’m the luckiest person in the world to be able to do these three things the way I am. You know what I mean? It would be great to be able to enjoy them more in some ways.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I was thinking about you talking about your cat and there was a way to really enjoy the cat.

CLIENT; I love my cat, I really do. You’re totally right. That’s a uniquely kind of one dimensional sphere where it’s just great.

THERAPIST: Well, that’ll be it.

CLIENT: That was fantastic.

THERAPIST: So I will –

CLIENT: It’s not next week though, is it?

THERAPIST: No, no, no it’s the following week so I’ll be –

END TRANSCRIPT

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Abstract / Summary: Client discusses spending his school break with his girlfriend and how it's been difficult to get back into his work since the semester began. Client discusses his fantasies about what life would be like if he only had school to worry about and not a relationship, and vice versa.
Field of Interest: Counseling & Therapy
Publisher: Alexander Street Press
Content Type: Counseling session
Format: Text
Original Publication Date: 2014
Page Count: 1
Page Range: 1-1
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Alexander Street
Place Published / Released: Alexandria, VA
Subject: Counseling & Therapy; Psychology & Counseling; Health Sciences; Theoretical Approaches to Counseling; Family and relationships; Teoria do Aconselhamento; Teorías del Asesoramiento; Fantasy; Relationships; Education; Self Psychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology; Frustration; Anxiety; Relational psychoanalysis; Psychotherapy
Presenting Condition: Frustration; Anxiety
Clinician: Anonymous
Keywords and Translated Subjects: Teoria do Aconselhamento; Teorías del Asesoramiento
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