TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Like another secret for that type of stuff.

THERAPIST: That makes sense.

CLIENT: So the next you we meet, I’ll bring a check over here. That’s good?

THERAPIST: Great.

CLIENT: Let me just make a quick note of that.

THERAPIST: And listen, I am going to have to stop at 40. I know I’m cutting off short today. I’m really sorry. It just I’m so backed up.

CLIENT: What… at 40 because we’re only to 12:45 anyways? But…

THERAPIST: Yea, because I started out.

CLIENT: All right. And just to be clear. We’re 11:45.

THERAPIST: No, that’s totally right. We had on… that’s totally right.

CLIENT: I’m not… that’s we had on because I just wasn’t sure. I was looking through my phone to figure it out.

THERAPIST: No, I was… I ran over the other time.

CLIENT: Cool. And just so I make a note know, you said 97.25?

THERAPIST: Yea. And I’d be happy to make up the 5 minutes or whatever another… if you wanted to come earlier next time. [00:01:03]

CLIENT: All right, I appreciate you taking the minutes kind of seriously.

THERAPIST: Let me just make sure I can do that.

CLIENT: And I mean I haven’t even spoken to you about it in a super long time but all the… and the insurance and the money and the reimbursements and all of that has all been… that’s been going fine?

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: Cool. And I was… I’ve been… I was expecting at some point there’s like a deductible, like 50 bucks, right? Did that just never even… that was my understanding when I budgeted out for it. I mean, it was like $1,000 beforehand. But I was expecting to… I think there was 50 bucks that you probably didn’t get at some point.

THERAPIST: I’ll go back and check. Is there a deductible for it?

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:01:58) was $50 deductible for this.

THERAPIST: I never caught it.

CLIENT: Cool. It’s been nice, actually, being able… I mean, it’s really an incredible situation I have at this point. I mean, I come for free. It’s not only like just fantastic in terms of having any kind of healthcare for free. But particularly how much money I used to spend on it.

THERAPIST: What is that all… how does it all shake out for you?

CLIENT: It’s interesting. It’s really bizarre. Just logistically it’s bizarre that when I stop working and I go back to school, then things… this thing became free or something because beforehand I was paying as much as I was paying for rent. You know what I mean? Granted I was coming more often so I mean, it’s been nice.

It’s been helpful and it’s reduced my thinking about… like I remember at times I was kind of I think one of the factors in the equation of how I felt about all of this was the fact that I was working so much for it to happen. [00:03:15] And I was spending so much money for it. And I think in some ways that at certain times if I felt like I wasn’t getting a great experience out of it, it would kind of compound my frustration or something. Because I mean, I was spending… I spent as much as I was spending on rent almost a month. So in those moments…

THERAPIST: Major expense.

CLIENT: …the money element became something I would think a lot about. You know what I mean? Whereas that’s not something right now obviously. I don’t ever question if I’m spending too much money on this because I’m not spending any money on it.

THERAPIST: Right. And so it removes a certain amount of frustration and with…

CLIENT: Just on my life in general in a sense. It makes things a lot easier money-wise. [00:04:06] But there is like a dynamic whereby I imagine this happens anytime someone pays for something. There’s an aspect of deserving this or quid pro quo. You know what I mean? In a way I kind of felt like I was investing more. I was making a bigger commitment. You know what I mean? In a way I was not only putting in the 50 minutes that I had here every week but also the however many hours of work I had to do a week to pay for it. You know what I mean? And it feels different. I don’t really know how to explain it but…

THERAPIST: With that sense of like concrete financial investment, it can feel differently. [00:05:00]

CLIENT: I think like a while ago when we had that kind of interesting conversation where I kind of said to you like I want to get more out of this. That was much easier to say at the time given the fact that I was working that hard. I mean, it would feel… I wouldn’t feel as kind of justified or qualified in saying that right now.

THERAPIST: I see what you’re saying.

CLIENT: You know what I mean? Does that make sense?

THERAPIST: Yea, it actually can help you feel more entitled to say it. (chuckling)

CLIENT: I mean, I think entitled is a good way to put it. I mean, I felt like it wasn’t a freebie or something. You know what I mean? (pause) And I don’t know. I mean, I wonder maybe if it also led me to take it more seriously almost, too. [00:06:01] Not to… that doesn’t sound the way I wanted it to.

THERAPIST: Well, what do you think?

CLIENT: Well, I mean like the fact, I mean, to suggest that I take it less seriously now or something. But I guess it made me… I don’t know. When you pay so much for something, you take better care of it or it’s more precious or something. You know what I mean? There’s a value that comes with it, I guess.

THERAPIST: Yea, it’s… yea.

CLIENT: So it was a dynamic of our relationship, I guess, that played out in different ways. But… (pause) But altogether, just I mean, at this point in time I just feel extraordinarily fortunate to be in this situation. It would’ve been difficult. I mean, I don’t really… it would’ve been difficult probably even to do once a week at the costs that we were doing in the past. [00:07:03]

THERAPIST: What were you doing in that?

CLIENT: I mean, it was $37 I was paying an appointment and we’re going twice a week. And it’s almost like $400… or I think it was like $375 or something a month and I paid $450 for rent a month. So it was big. I think I talked a lot about also how having that dollar sign to it. Because I’m constantly doing money out and like kind of writing it out and kind of making lists and stuff. And I would constantly see doctor plan kind of right next to rent.

THERAPIST: Right in black and white.

CLIENT: I’d often think like it was… what was the hierarchy of needs like the… was it Malthus?

THERAPIST: Maslow.

CLIENT: Maslow. [00:08:01] I mean, I would think about it that way a lot and it’d be like rent, like shelter, is the most basic, most important need. And then it trickles down to things like art or something maybe or interests or something. And it was just always interesting. I’d always kind of think to myself, wow, I have my therapy and my most basic fundamental level of needs. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yea, there it is in black and white right next to rent.

CLIENT: Right next to food and shelter and safety.

THERAPIST: What is that… what did that kind of mean to you? That it was right there, it was equal with all that. What…

CLIENT: I think it… partially I think kind of put some pressure on it in a way. (pause) I think it made it… simplest way, it made it a big deal just in and of itself. [00:09:14] I think it made it something I thought about a lot more, by extension, probably worried about it a lot more. I worried about this more than I do now. I don’t worry about this so much anymore. I don’t get anxious so much anymore that you don’t look forward to our appointments like I used to. I don’t question if I should be coming. If I actually have the entrenched psychological issues that warrant that kind of investment. [00:10:03]

THERAPIST: Wait. Say that again. What’s that last part?

CLIENT: I used to worry. I’d be like I’m spending $430 a month, say. I don’t know what it was. Like if I was spending $2,000 a month on rent for my apartment, I would say to myself, this isn’t worth $2,000 a month so I shouldn’t be paying $2,000 a month for this. So I should stop paying this.

THERAPIST: Yea, you said that.

CLIENT: And I’d look at the $430 a month and I would say this is a lot of money for someone in my position to be spending on therapy. Do I have a need for that warrants that? Do I actually have $430 worth of issues…

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: …to come here? I didn’t know. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: What did you think? [00:11:00]

CLIENT: I thought something different like 100 times a day sometimes.

THERAPIST: Is that right? (pause)

CLIENT: It was something I grappled with and went back and forth. It became a way that I reflected upon this and made sense of it and stuff in a way that I don’t do now which I think is relaxing particularly because in a way financially it was kind of like a secret. I didn’t really speak to, for example, my dad. Sometimes we would talk about finances. But even when I kind of broke down with him, he’d say, “How much you spent on rent a month?” I’d say, “Oh, 450 hundred bucks here, hundred bucks there.” And then if I ever kind of said to him like, “Dad, like I really need some help financially,” I probably wouldn’t just because like if you’re getting audited by the IRS, it’s like, “Where is this $430 going every month or something?” [00:12:12] You know what I mean? And it became something I felt like I had to justify or I don’t know. (pause)

THERAPIST: Well, what did you…

CLIENT: Because I didn’t tell my dad I was coming here and I couldn’t tell him, “Well, I need extra money because I’m spending $400 a month on therapy.” Then it would be like, “What, really? Oh, why? How long have you been doing that? Why are you spending that much money on it?” I don’t know. It’s just not… it just wasn’t something I would’ve done for the same reasons I don’t talk to my dad about all sorts of things. You know what I mean? So it became this thing that I kind of took on myself that I had to kind of… I couldn’t ask kind of for help for or something. [00:13:09] You know what I mean? It made me very defensive about my finances in a way. I didn’t like to talk about it with my mom. Even sometimes my mom would ask me how much I was spending on it.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: And I would lie to her. I would rather just kind of vaguely give a non-answer or say a number like considerably less or something.

THERAPIST: Why do you suppose you didn’t want them to know?

CLIENT: I just think about I’m talking to my mom on the phone and she says… because she knows I come here. She helped me actually get here for the first time and pay the first $1,000, remember?

THERAPIST: I remember.

CLIENT: And sometimes she’ll ask me, “How’s it going and stuff?” [00:14:01] And usually I just tell her. “If I wanted to talk about this stuff with everybody I wouldn’t be… I need Dennis to come here and talk about it with him.” You know what I mean? I talk about it with you. But I feel like if I told her I pay that much a month, if I told her that sometimes I went without other things, it would seem to quantify the seriousness or something in a way that I don’t like to do with her. It would seem to be doing something very different than saying like, “I’m doing fine.”

THERAPIST: She… because she’d see the need in black and white, too.

CLIENT: Yea. She would be like… I just imagine that if I told her she would be like, “Wow, you pay that much? Why?” As if I’d told her I was paying $1,000 a month the question would be like, “How does that make sense? Why would you do that?” [00:15:08] (pause) Which is just not the kind of… which is the type of thing that I just in different ways I feel like I’m always trying avoid. You know what I mean? In the same way that I don’t like to talk about certain things with my mom about my dad or something, you know what I mean? (pause)

THERAPIST: Yea, they’d ask questions, “Why? Why?”

CLIENT: Yea, my mom said like, “Geoffrey, let’s sit down and have a conversation about the divorce.” I’d probably just leave or something. I would avoid it. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t really know why but I know I don’t want to. And I know that I don’t. I know that I avoid it. So the amount of money I spent became something that I avoided in the same way that made me uncomfortable that I wouldn’t want her to know about. [00:16:09]

I guess because she’d think I was really upset. She’d think I was doing really bad, that I was hurt. She’d think that she hurt me or something. That’s what she would think. That’s what I think she would think and I obviously don’t want to make my mom cry or think she’s a bad mom or something. (pause) But a lot of those things have significantly relaxed, though. I don’t think about those things so much.

THERAPIST: Right. It’s off the table, I guess in that sense. That you’ll lose that aspect of it coming up. Yea, in a way it kind of… it’s this kind of really… it sounds like it’s a complicated thing. [00:17:04] Like you felt that it signified how important it was to you and it made you go, “Is it really this important? And if it is, it’s almost like it’s… it almost revealed to you like how important it actually was from one standpoint. I was just thinking that the level of… the way… one way in which you experienced it was, “God, look how much I’m spending. This means a lot.” And then when exactly at that moment when you become aware of how much it means it has all these ramifications to you.

CLIENT: Yea. And right when I see how much it means I actually wonder, does it actually mean that much?

THERAPIST: Right. Not to say that’s not the element of it, too.

CLIENT: I mean like… but I mean, yea, but it was. It was both of those things bouncing back and forth. And I’m just thinking about it now, too. [00:18:06] When I was spending that much money… recently like over the last couple months or something I feel like I’ve brought up the topic of I’d like to maybe… sometimes I feel like I need to kind of have something that I’m upset about when I come here, right? We’ve talked about this. I feel like it wouldn’t seem appropriate for me to just come here and say I’m in a really great mood and just kind of talk to you about what my day was like or something.

I don’t exactly know why but that just seems like not what I’m supposed to be doing or something. And sometimes I feel like I need to find something like on the way here to be upset about. You know what I mean? That I felt much stronger. [00:19:02] I felt that compulsion a whole lot stronger when I was spending that much money. It would’ve felt even more inappropriate when I was spending $400 a month to come here and not be upset about something. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: It wouldn’t make sense to spend that much money to come and talk to a therapist.

THERAPIST: “What am I doing?”

CLIENT: And just be happy. It almost made it really important for me to find things that I was upset about in a way. I would’ve like almost felt guilty if I didn’t or something. (pause) And that I feel like has relaxed a lot now that I don’t pay anything. It seems like it’s a little easier just to kind of not be upset about things. [00:20:03] (pause)

THERAPIST: What… because if you were coming in and didn’t have anything to… if you didn’t bring anything in, what do you feel irresponsible about?

CLIENT: Well, at $400 is the amount that I invested in, $400 that I don’t just have lying around. If that’s the number of units that I invest in this that I could be doing something else with and if that’s the importance, $400 worth of importance, it’s important. And it’s justified if there’s actually like a corresponding amount of need which is me having issues you know what I mean to deal with. [00:21:07]

It would be… if I said to my mom, “Mom, I spend $2,000 a month on therapy,” and she said, “Man, what kind of issues do you talk about?” And I said, “Nothing. We actually just kind of… I just kind of just shoot the shit with him. I have conversations with him that I could have with Eric.” That would be flagrantly irresponsible. You know what I mean? That would not be a justifiable use of that money. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: You’ve got to use it in a certain way that doesn’t feel the right way.

CLIENT: Does that make sense to you?

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: Would you keep going to the doctor to have tests done if you know there’s nothing wrong, spending hundreds of dollars every time when you’re on a fixed budget? That’s just not appropriate. [00:22:07] (pause) So in a way like my ability to kind of have…

THERAPIST: Is it kind of wasteful?

CLIENT: Yea, absolutely.

THERAPIST: It also feeling wasteful and kind of…

CLIENT: Totally wasteful. (pause)

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And I felt better about it…

THERAPIST: That’s serious.

CLIENT: …the more… sometimes I felt like I… and when I leave sometimes and I feel like we really kind of grasped onto something. And feel like that really might be something. Then I would feel like this is worth it. I should be doing this. Maybe I could imagine if this got put on the front page of the New York Times and my dad asked me about it I could have a more confident conversation with him about it. [00:23:03] Because there’s this connection between things or whatever.

THERAPIST: What’s the… if it was on the Times?

CLIENT: If my dad found out, if he asked me, “Why do you do that then?” Because it seems to me like it would be an insinuation like, “Did we mess up as parents that much…”

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: “…for $400 a month?” I don’t know. I’m very unconfident about that as we’ve spoken about.

THERAPIST: And just to raise… I mean it sounds there’s two… I don’t know if they’re interrelated or not but there’s almost on one level there’s this feeling like to be spending this money is an indictment. It can feel like a potential indictment about the parents.

CLIENT: Well, absolutely.

THERAPIST: And boy, does that raise all sorts of stuff. [00:24:01]

CLIENT: Yea, it’s an indictment of a certain level of seriousness that I almost feel like I’m coming here to try to figure out if it even exists. You know what I mean? Am I…

THERAPIST: Is it justifiable that this is worth this much to me?

CLIENT: Yea. I mean, it seems to presume like an answer to the question. Or presume like a level of confidence that there are actually these issues that I have. And partially I feel like I came here because I just wanted to figure that out. And at times when I felt really unsure about it, would feel guilty about thinking it, the money kind of compounded that. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yea. No, I see that.

CLIENT: And I wouldn’t feel confident kind of justifying it to my dad or something unless I could spell it out the way I like to be able to do in class. [00:25:09] A and B, therefore C. You know what I mean? That’s the type of clarity I rarely have in this field.

THERAPIST: Well, yea. In my mind, it kind of goes back to the whole kind of notion of the good divorce. And as if you… there was no… that you weren’t… it would mean a lot if you didn’t play by that book. And almost like, “What are saying it’s not a good divorce? What are you saying?” That wait, there’s all this level of angst inside of you. “What does all this mean? What are you saying about us? What are saying about me as a parent? What are you saying about how you really feel? Why you’re changing the story? You’re changing the…”

CLIENT: Yea, look what happened. [00:26:07] I mean, that narrative, the good divorce. We used to talk a lot about that. Like that would be the counter narrative that seems to sort of hold the level of clarity that I’m kind of referring to. It’s like because that is there, like that seems to be the presumption now. You know what I mean? “What do you mean? What about… kind of like didn’t we all kind of agree on this or something?”

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: There’s a presumption that that’s the reality.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And it requires a good defense or something which I feel really anxious about.

THERAPIST: That’s right.

CLIENT: You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. And the money really brings that into the… so it really heightens that conflict or heightens that question. [00:27:05] Like the… (snaps fingers) It’s kind of like you’re putting something very concretely out there that, “I’m paying for this. This means something.” It’s like it’s…

CLIENT: And it calls that into question very seriously.

THERAPIST: That’s right. It really clearly asserts a different kind of story.

CLIENT: It’s planting a flag in a different area. In a way it kind of required me to justify it enough to be confident about keep doing it before I could really just kind of comfortably try to work through it, I guess. And I think it led to a lot of anxiety and I think sometimes like feelings of guilt or something like I was just kind of betraying or something. [00:28:08] Doing something dishonest or…

THERAPIST: That’s right.

CLIENT: …I think it just put a lot of pressure and tension on the process here.

THERAPIST: And it actually in not all negative ways in that… and as much it really brought up… it brought into a lot more focus, this feeling you have of how my… for you, your experience varied from this other story.

CLIENT: Well, that’s the irony of it was despite all of this lack of clarity, as time went on I would look back and be like but I’m doing it. If there were certain things that wouldn’t be clear to me like if I have like a really conflicted relationship with this kind of bookshelf. [00:29:08] It’s no more clear to me that I do have a conflicted relationship with this bookshelf with my parents but I would not spend the amount of money that I did on our relationship with my parents trying to figure that out. You know what I mean? So it seems to sort of suggest something like an answer to me. Why do I keep doing it, if nothing else. (pause)

It’s like that time when I said I was in the grocery store and I made that claim. I said that thing to that woman about my parents, “They argue a lot.” [00:30:03] It’s kind of like… and I had that conversation with my dad. Kind of like an Orwellian way I kind of said… I could tell he was mad. And he was like, “Do your parents argue a lot? Do we argue a lot?” And in my head I was like yea. But evidently he didn’t want me to say that so I was like no. And then I just kind of said, “All right. Listen, you don’t say that unless you have some particularly solid grounding or something.” And this would’ve felt like saying that to my dad. Telling my dad about this or something would’ve been deviating like that again.

THERAPIST: That’s right. Right. That’s exactly it in that sense, exactly. That’s right.

CLIENT: And whenever… and using all this money would feel like I was kind of doing that without telling him. [00:31:04] It made me feel vulnerable. It made me feel kind of…

THERAPIST: Committing a thought crime.

CLIENT: Yea, something taboo or whatever, treasonous or something. (pause)

THERAPIST: I was just thinking about it, too, then in that… if that narrative is flipped then into that… into like well, you’ve got… why are you spending all this money on that something doesn’t matter? It turns into a wasteful exercise. Why are you wasting it then?

CLIENT: Well, I mean, that’s the presumption. Unless there’s another narrative, then it’s being wasted. [00:32:00]

THERAPIST: And it’s being wasted.

CLIENT: And it’s almost it’s not only being wasted. But it’s like if I told my dad this and I just said, “I spent $400 a month on psychotherapy,” it wouldn’t only lead to the obvious conclusion that it’s being wasted, but it would also be suggestive of those kind of betrayal. It wouldn’t just be unexplainable. It would suggest these things that…

THERAPIST: Absolutely. (pause)

CLIENT: And those things aren’t present now in a way. (pause)

THERAPIST: I was thinking about a thought experiment. What would you… well, how would you feel if your parents… if you dad knew you were coming here still? Would that feel different if the money is removed from it?

CLIENT: That’s interesting if the money was removed from it. [00:33:04] I could say off the bat I don’t know that I would be carte blanche comfortable with him knowing. But it would be a completely different beast.

THERAPIST: Interesting.

CLIENT: It would be…

THERAPIST: Yea, oh no, I see.

CLIENT: It would not be the same answer. It might come to the same conclusion but it would not be for the same reasons. If I had to have him learn about one of the two and I could choose, I would definitely choose this.

THERAPIST: No, right. Yea, that’s no question. It’s a lot easier.

CLIENT: Like if I had to. (pause) But I mean it would still be something I would kind of like to avoid. But I can trivialize it. If I had the conversation with him, I would just be like, “I’m not paying for it.” Hell, it’s like geez, and why not? I get an hour a week. It gets me away from school. [00:34:01] You know what I mean? I won’t have this opportunity forever. Hell, if someone said you could have a boat for a year. It’s like I don’t know if I’m going to use it that much. But hell, I might as well just take it when I got it.

THERAPIST: Got it for free.

CLIENT: I could trivialize it. I could. That’s what I would do.

THERAPIST: No, and in some way it must be like… is it psychologically then for you that I can be trivialized to yourself, too, in that same way? Like it could mean that it’s not a sign of something very serious. It’s just more of a sign of, “Wow, I get a good thing and why not? If I got the opportunity, why not use it?” (pause)

CLIENT: It creates that possibility. I feel really compelled to want to tell you that that’s not the way I look at it right now at all.

THERAPIST: It’s not, yea.

CLIENT: Already I can see the issue of like how serious I take it is coming up in my mind right now. [00:35:10] And I feel like I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t take it seriously.

THERAPIST: “Because I need it to be a certain way.” Is that the feeling? “That I’m wanting it to be…”

CLIENT: Why would I not want it to be revealed that I don’t take it seriously? Or rather why would I want you to know that I take it seriously?

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: (pause) That would… I mean, that’s… I expect and hope that you take this seriously. Of course, you would expect that of me and I would expect you to expect that of me. And that’s kind of… that seems like our relationship. You know what I mean? [00:36:07]

THERAPIST: Is it kind of like because if you didn’t, then there might be… that enters the element of, “Well, do I?” But in other words from your standpoint, well, if you aren’t taking it… if you kind of think to yourself, “Well, what about that element of that I might not be taking it serious?” If I… that might mean that I don’t?

CLIENT: Not necessarily. It would mean that you’re taking it seriously and I’m not and that’s a shitty thing to do to you.

THERAPIST: Oh yea, that’s what I mean because I need you to… but that yea, that’s where I get it. I need you to…

CLIENT: I’m confident that you take it seriously.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And that’s… I don’t know. It’s funny. I just thought about it like with my dad. Like my dad’s in relationships with women who take it seriously. He never takes it seriously. [00:37:01] That’s like an emotionally pathological thing to be comfortable with in my opinion. Like this did not see that as problematic. That’s not what healthy, constructive, good people do. I don’t know. (pause) That’s… yea. That seems like… to be comfortable with that would be like what a monster would do. Are we on time? I didn’t realize it.

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: What time did you say?

THERAPIST: Forty.

CLIENT: Oh, 11:40. All right, I was just making sure. Does that make sense?

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: I would never want to be able to do that.

THERAPIST: It sounds frightening to you. It’s like banish the thought, right? [00:38:05] How does that expression go? Perish the thought or thought crime thinking about Orwellian.

CLIENT: I mean, it just… that’s not… that’s what I kind of want to avoid. That type of… I mean, and in so many different ways.

THERAPIST: Monstrous.

CLIENT: That kind of like conscious disregard. And like… and just right back I think you’ve spoken about it. To be consciously disregarding something like that and then be able to fall asleep at night like my dad does, that is… that’s bad. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: That’s bad. That’s right.

CLIENT: To be able to be doing something like that that I see as so contemptible. But see no issue with it yourself such that you could just kind of put your head down at night and just kind of nice, restful sleep and then think about your cholesterol in the morning. [00:39:12] Nowhere in that line of thought does the wellbeing of somebody else come up. That’s a monster to me.

THERAPIST: That’s a monster.

CLIENT: I feel like we’re getting to something else here but…

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: I feel like we’re not talking about what we’re going to talk about before now. But that would be my… that’s why it’s important for you to know that I take it seriously. I mean, not only would I not want to be that way like my dad. But I wouldn’t want to be perceived by you the way I perceive my dad. “Geoffrey doesn’t really take this too seriously. He seems to not care. He seems to not be cognizant of the way that might make me feel.” [00:40:06]

THERAPIST: Yea. I was also thinking that in some way it puts you in the position of if you change the narrative, it’s going to make people feel a different way. And how can you sleep with yourself if you’re making people feel a different way?

CLIENT: Yea. I mean, particularly when I’m really unsure about the narrative. If I was really, really confident about a narrative I can do some of these wacky things I fantasize about telling my dad off, punching him in the head and never talking to him again. You know what I mean? It comes back to that uncertainty. Like being really pressed on like I was on the stand in court. Like really kind of pushed and being incapable of defending. (pause) [00:41:02] Like if I’m justified in hurting somebody because that’s what it would do. (pause)

THERAPIST: Yea, you better be ready to fight.

CLIENT: Being able to justify.

THERAPIST: Justify, justify.

CLIENT: Like yea, I mean that’s one way to think about like the potential for to cause pain, I mean to my dad or to my mom. That’s what it would do. If I told them I’m actually really upset about a lot of this stuff. It’s interesting. I criticize my dad for being able to sleep at night but I feel like it might make it hard for him to sleep at night.

THERAPIST: Yes. “What if I did that and it wasn’t justified.”

CLIENT: Exactly.

THERAPIST: “Then am I the…” What does that mean, that you’re the monster then? You’re doing…

CLIENT: Well, I mean, I just think I clearly did something that could really hurt someone and didn’t really think about it which is kind of just as bad. [00:42:06] (pause) And all of that stuff hanging over, I mean, like sometimes I feel kind of hard to know what to do when I was here. I felt like a lot of these things kind of… that was helpful to think through that, though, actually.

THERAPIST: Yea, no, I think it’s really important.

CLIENT: It was nice.

THERAPIST: Well, listen. I will… I’ll see you in two weeks. I’m looking at my schedule and I realize I wouldn’t be able to make up five...

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