TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:00:05) Yeah. (PAUSE)

CLIENT: Whoa. I’m tired.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. What’s up?

CLIENT: Well, just a long week.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: It was a long week at school.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I felt a little sick earlier this week. It was just kind of a... (PAUSE) It was just kind of a pain not having, just not having like any wiggle room in my schedule to like just kind of slow down.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: Not like I’m able to miss any more classes. I missed a few classes and (inaudible at 00:00:45) a small number of classes and...

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Then you run the risk of like having to retake a course and stuff. I just wish so bad to be able to just like put the brakes on everything and have a vacation for a week. [00:01:01]

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you didn’t take... Did you take time off when you had your Spring Break?

CLIENT: Umm... (PAUSE) I mean, I was studying the whole time.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So, I mean, in a sense I did. But I didn’t really stop doing anything. I just used that as time to kind of catch up with stuff. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And it’s just looking at my schedule... It’s like I get right out of school and I’m going into my internship and it’s just... It’s just going to be kind of fast paced for a while.

THERAPIST: You mean like an internship this summer?

CLIENT: Didn’t I tell you about that?

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. I got an internship with... I got actually like the ideal internship, what I’m interested in doing which is public defense. I got an internship at the Bellevue Public Defense Office (ph) which is basically the SEC (ph) office in Bellevue for public counsel basically. [02:11]

SEC being the agency that does all the hiring and the staffing for kind of public appointed counsel for indigent clients.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: They... Before the group SEC was kind of created in collaboration with the state, they had these kind of like independent offices that would sprout up and would try to give free counsel to indigent clients before the state started doing it really. So this place that I’m going to be at now is one of those places called Bellevue Defenders. And there’s a lot of different organizations that did that kind of before the state kind of took on those roles. Like a really famous one was the Inner Harbor Defenders in Baltimore and stuff. So this office kind of kept that name as it got kind of assumed under that umbrella. [00:03:05]

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: But it’ll be in Bellvue so there’s a lot of indigent kind of clients there. There’s a lot of crime obviously so there’s a lot of stuff going on in those courts. And I’ll be doing it with the group of officers who are primarily in the superior court as opposed to the district court. So higher and greater (ph) fences... Everyone gets arraigned in the district court which is like, for example, where my dad works, you know, kind of more... I think it’s...

THERAPIST: Lower stakes crimes?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely lower stakes crimes. There’s some cut off. I mean, obviously all capital offenses or whatever are in the superior court. But I think it’s... I should know this. It’s either any offense that carries the possibility of over two years in prison, I think. [00:04:01]

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: You get arraigned in the district court and if you get charged or indicted with either or with any offense that is over that threshold, you move to the superior court. So...

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: My dad mostly deals with, you know, like petty thefts and larcenies and DUIs and stuff like that. But a lot of the more serious stuff will move up to the superior court. So those will be the things that I’ll be kind of working with day in and day out. So it’ll be a real education.

THERAPIST: It’s sentence... Not felony grade or something like that as much? Or maybe there is...

CLIENT: No. There will be felonies and misdemeanors in the district court. So that’s not necessarily the cutoff. To the extent that felonies tend to carry more serious penalties... I mean, I’m not sure if it’s misdemeanors carry punishment over that.

THERAPIST: Two years... Yeah. [00:04:59]

CLIENT: I’m not sure actually. A lot of the stuff you learn in school are kind of these general principles that kind of expand over like the course of all the states and stuff.

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: One of the interesting things is you have like... I have like very little practical knowledge of how this stuff applies to Connecticut specifically which is like one of the weird things about legal education.

THERAPIST: That’s what... I guess that’s... Is that the idea of the test, studying for the test?

CLIENT: Yeah. The test is... There’s like a multi-state element to it and then there’s like a Connecticut element to it where you need to know the things specific to the state.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: So a lot of the studying for the test will be learning those specifics more.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Okay.

CLIENT: But it’ll be nice to see how... It’ll be good to get in there and get to know the people in that office only just for the practical experience of it. But it’ll also just be really good because these will be the people that I’m eventually applying for a job with at some point. I mean, working at the Bellevue office would be, you know, an ideal place for a job. [00:06:03]

THERAPIST: Oh. Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean...

THERAPIST: Oh good.

CLIENT: I want to work in a SEC office and it would be great to do it in a place like Bellevue or something. So...

THERAPIST: Oh cool.

CLIENT: And I really got it just through kind of connections that I have with people. Ike (ph) put my in touch with someone...

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: ...that he knew and I kind of knew tangentially and he just put me in touch with someone else and I sent this guy an e-mail. And I didn’t hear back from him for like a month. Then he finally got in touch with me just for like a couple casual conversations online. I think just based on me being referred to him by someone that he kind of knew really well. He took me on as an intern. Whereas otherwise it would have been like (LAUGHTER) a really arduous... Like that was kind of like a back door behind a much more kind of formalized application process that I just didn’t even engage with at all. So I was really, really, really fortunate in that sense. And it worked out really, really, really well. [00:07:01]

THERAPIST: Oh great.

CLIENT: I’m really happy about that. And I may even be able to get the school to pay me a stipend for doing it because it’s an unpaid internship. So that would be really good. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It’s exciting. It’s really nothing else more that I would have wanted to do. Those are kind of competitive positions I think. So...

THERAPIST: Oh good.

CLIENT: But... Yeah. It’s just... I would just like a month off.

THERAPIST: So you’re going to go straight from school into that.

CLIENT: I might have like a week off maybe. Yeah. (PAUSE) But a lot of it’s probably going to be taken up with just like a lot of prep work for going into it, learning a lot of the court rules and stuff for... Most of the stuff I’ll be doing there is like writing (inaudible at 00:07:55) and stuff.

THERAPIST: Oh okay. But you get to know the players and the system and...

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:07:59]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I get to move from like reading about the stuff in textbooks to seeing how the stuff actually plays out which I’m sure is going to be very different.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. And it... Is it kind of like full time? Do you do it full time?

CLIENT: This will be full time (inaudible at 00:08:15) for forty hours week. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: It’ll actually be something to think about with, in terms of scheduling.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right. Okay. When do you start, by the way? Or when is it roughly?

CLIENT: I definitely have at least the full month of June and the full month of July. It may kind of creep into the last week of May and it may creep into August. But... (PAUSE) At a minimum, it’ll be the start of June.

THERAPIST: Okay. Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And it’ll probably be like a nine to five thing. So we’ll... Yeah. We’ll see. We’ll see how that plays out.

THERAPIST: Sure, sure. [00:08:57]

CLIENT: But yeah. Yeah. It’s just exhausting.

THERAPIST: I bet.

CLIENT: Having to think about registering for classes and everything next year... I just want to get away for a while. You know? And just like get like stuff for my parents and all these things I’m trying to (inaudible at 00:09:29).

THERAPIST: Yeah. What do you think...

CLIENT: Just earlier this week I was just getting really agitated. You know, I just wanted to just... I just needed to sleep for a couple of days and even like... Just at home, I just didn’t want to do any cleaning or anything and I could tell it was getting kind of aggravating for Laney (ph), I think. I just felt like I just couldn’t like, just like do something for myself...

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:09:59]

CLIENT: ...for one day without having all these other things start to like, you know, poke their head in. You know?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: I got so aggravated this week. I was just... I felt like really immature but I was just like really cranky and whatnot. But yeah. (PAUSE)

THERAPIST: Yeah. Really immature, yeah?

CLIENT: I don’t know. Because just like I wanted to just like relax and not do anything.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well, yeah. You know, it seems like you’re working pretty damn hard.

CLIENT: I feel like I am.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I feel like that’s a fair, a fair assessment.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tired and... (PAUSE) Yeah. I was thinking about your folks and what they’ve been wanting you to kind of give some times to some things. [00:10:55]

CLIENT: My dad was telling me... Apparently like... My dad was telling me out of nowhere... Apparently my sister is publishing a book that just came out this weekend.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: You know? Like I heard nothing about this.

THERAPIST: What’s the book?

CLIENT: I have no idea. Something about like... I think it was called like []. I had no idea. I mean...

THERAPIST: []? Really?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (LAUGHTER)

CLIENT: I have no clue. Apparently my dad was talking to me about it like he had been telling me this for years or something because apparently my sister has been working on it for like a super long time and I guess you have to...

THERAPIST: What do you think about that name?

CLIENT: (LAUGHTER) I mean, I was talking to my dad about it. I was like (inaudible at 00:11:39) or something.

THERAPIST: (LAUGHTER)

CLIENT: You know?

THERAPIST: Is it fiction?

CLIENT: I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Oh. You don’t know.

(CROSSTALK)

CLIENT: Yeah. And my dad was all excited about it and he was telling me about it. And I was like, “What are you talking about? She’s coming out with a book?” You know? And he’s like, “Oh, get in touch with her. Tell her this, tell her that.” I don’t know. It’s just... [00:12:01]

THERAPIST: Was it that that was aggravating?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Get in touch with her.

CLIENT: Yeah. Get in touch with her. He was very excited for her. I was just like, “I don’t care. What are you talking about she’s coming out with a book?” I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Almost like... It sounds like you were kind of like, “I don’t want to hear about that.” (LAUGHTER)

CLIENT: I don’t know. It was just like...

THERAPIST: I mean, not because... It didn’t sound like... Well, because of the book itself as much as it’s something about the way your dad was kind of...

CLIENT: Yeah. (PAUSE) Yeah. Just the way it was like, “Oh, now we get really excited about this.”

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: It’s like, “I’m not really that excited.” But I want to go to sleep. Like I feel like shit. You know?

THERAPIST: Did it feel to you like he wanted you to be excited like somehow?

CLIENT: Oh yeah. He wanted me to. You know? He was very... The way he was putting it was very clear like he just wanted me to... [00:13:03]

Like it wasn’t even like he was expecting me to be genuinely excited about it. You know? It was almost just like, “You’ve got to appear excited about it for Reese.” You know? (LAUGHTER) And... (PAUSE) I was like, “Aww. That’s just not on my priority of things to do right now.”

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. No. I was thinking just the idea of reacting to your dad felt like burdensome, like really, really...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...tiring and burdensome. Yeah.

CLIENT: I’ve just been having these like... I’ve been having these dreams where like I’ve kind of been putting off work a little bit this week. And I’ve been having these extremely vivid dreams every single morning where the first class that I have that I’m not prepared for I am like teaching. Like, for example, I had this class and we had this whole accomplice liability for criminal law. And I hadn’t looked at anything for the class. [00:14:09]

But in my dreams, for the whole morning, I was teaching myself this like made up material about what accomplice liability was. I mean, I hadn’t even looked at it. I didn’t even know what it meant. I was just making this stuff up. And then I’d wake up and I’d just be like... I’d almost be like confused as if that was actually based in fact or something.

THERAPIST: Huh. (PAUSE)

CLIENT: But it just felt like I was not even sleeping well. But that’s all I was trying to do. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. What? You mean like trying to sleep?

CLIENT: Yeah. I was trying to get some sleep. Like that was the whole trade off. Maybe I won’t be so prepared for class but that means I can get like a good night’s sleep. (LAUGHTER) And then my whole night was just me waking up, being like, “Am I in class? Am I reading right now or something?” I don’t know. [00:14:57]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Just really just kind of restless kind of sleep.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And then it just made me feel even more crappy the next day because I felt like I was even more tired than I was before.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. It was just a frustrating week in that sense. I didn’t feel very... (PAUSE) I didn’t feel like I accomplished either of the things...

THERAPIST: Right. I guess that’s, that you wanted some break or rest from it and almost like your mind wouldn’t let yourself.

CLIENT: I felt like I was less able to just get a good night’s sleep even with, even by just trying to just devote all my time just to that. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:16:05]

CLIENT: It’s like I was sleeping better beforehand or something.

THERAPIST: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t know. And I was just... I was just feeling overwhelmed.

THERAPIST: Well, I think maybe there’s something there about that in some ways there’s kind of a nagging feeling about, nagging feeling of something that’s left unattended if you’re trying to get a good night’s sleep. (LAUGHTER) You know? Like we talked about... Like how can you get a good night’s sleep when you’re worrying about something. It’s almost like you’re sort of saying it’s hard to just do that. It’s hard to kind of (PAUSE) like... It’s hard to feel like, “Oh yeah. I can have a break from this and it be something restorative.” There’s something that you feel. “But what am I leaving left undone?” [00:16:59]

CLIENT: Yeah. I end up just feeling a little more anxious about everything and just... (PAUSE) Yeah. I guess it’s just frustrating to not feel like I can like just remove myself. Because that’s kind of like the ultimately frustrating thing about it is afterwards I just feel like that’s not even an option.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And at the same time, I was just thinking about it as maybe it’s your attempt to try. You know, as opposed to just keep on working and working. And, you know, in some way, it seems to me last week we were getting into this a little bit about, yeah... I seem to have a lot (inaudible at 00:17:49). And taking some sort of other approach that feels little less anxiety ridden because it feels like something’s left undone. [00:18:07]

And it seems like this week you’re saying, “Well, I want to try and rest,” some attempt to try and have that. (LAUGHTER)

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I just could see the kind of meter of... (PAUSE) Yeah. You know like when you see those things on commercials talking about like the national debt like rapidly increasing and all that stuff? It’s like all that, you know, all that happens when I try to just do a little something like that...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: ...and I feel like I need to... This week it wasn’t even like I wanted to relax. Like I felt like I physically had to.

THERAPIST: You had to. Okay. Yeah.

CLIENT: So I can like even just try to do that, you know, as like... Weighing all the pros and cons, it just would be better like if I can just let myself maybe try and feel better. But like all like... I just can’t sleep. All I can hear is like those things clicking, like the debt increasing and increasing. You know what I mean? [00:19:05]

Yeah. It just got me really frustrated. I felt like... I felt like even Laney and I kind of like got a little frustrated with ourselves one night, you know, just because I wasn’t... You know, I think I just kind of left the house a mess because I just wanted to go to sleep. I just felt like I should be able to.

THERAPIST: You should be able to...

CLIENT: I just want to go to sleep. I just feel like I need to go to sleep. I should be able to do that. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And then Laney got home late and the house was a mess and I knew, obviously, she shouldn’t have to come home to the house being a mess. And it was like... But I feel like I should be able to get some rest because I need to right now. I just... Yeah. (PAUSE) [00:19:57]

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. And feeling when you do that, boy, yeah, the numbers on the deck... (LAUGHTER)

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess I just felt really guilty. I felt really bad about myself. I didn’t feel very... (PAUSE) It’s kind of a shameful or whatever, I guess. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Can you tell me a bit about that? What about the... What...

CLIENT: Like I wanted this week to be living like alone in a house where I can just be there by myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And like I didn’t want to be living with Laney. You know what I mean? I wanted to like be home alone. You know? Like I wanted to not be... (PAUSE) Yeah. I didn’t want to be, you know, in a shared space with anybody. I wanted to be by myself. You know? But I felt like I couldn’t.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:20:59]

CLIENT: Because I felt like if I was living by myself like it wouldn’t matter if...

THERAPIST: You could leave the dishes undone.

CLIENT: Yeah. I could clean them myself. You know? (PAUSE) But that was like... Even something minimal I felt like something I didn’t have the ability to make a choice about. You know what I mean? (PAUSE) And... (PAUSE) Yeah.

THERAPIST: What are you...You stopped. What..

CLIENT: Like even... I would want like, you know, if Laney wasn’t going to be coming home for a while, I would want her to not come home. You know what I mean? Like when I felt like she was coming home and like if I was just tired and had been sleeping, like I feel like, you know, the way like, you know, like if my parents left me home alone at the house and I threw a big party and they came home and saw the mess or something. [00:22:09]

You know what I mean? Like I had just done something just really (PAUSE) forbidden. You know what I mean? Just like a judgment moment or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. That...

CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:22:31) stand for my errors or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That kind of judgment around... I think what you kind of feel as... The way you described it was like a lack of consideration like quote, unquote call it. Is that...

CLIENT: Well, yeah. And there wasn’t... Like yeah. It wasn’t really a lack of consideration until she came home.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right.

CLIENT: (inaudible) That’s why I just kind of wanted her not to come home.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:22:57]

CLIENT: You know, I obviously felt kind of shitty about that too.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right. (PAUSE)

CLIENT: Yeah. I guess I just felt really annoyed, just like, “Gosh. I just feel like I’m sick. I feel like I should just be able to get sick and not have to...” I felt like that wasn’t a reason for anything. You know?

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: That wasn’t a good enough reason for anything. I just kind of wanted it to be. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like it wasn’t a reason for me to just be able to just like relax in my school work for a little bit. There wasn’t a reason for me to like just come home and go to sleep. There wasn’t a reason for me to have to be like really, pretending to be excited about this book that my sister’s publishing. (LAUGHTER) It just seems like a joke to me. You know what I mean? [00:24:05]

It’s like really interesting like... (PAUSE) Like nobody told me about this. I feel like, “You guys knew about this or whatever?” You know what I mean? And know they’re just calling me into action just to be excited or something. I don’t know. It just seems (inaudible at 00:24:31).

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It just made it seem like less kind of (PAUSE) substantive or something. You know? (PAUSE)

THERAPIST: Yeah. No. I was thinking to you, it’s like, “Why am I...” As you say, this felt very artificial because why didn’t anybody say anything from the beginning. You’re supposed to all the sudden act excited but it’s just kind of this strange thing about not being told about it at all or... [00:25:03]

CLIENT: It just made it seem even more just like orchestrated.

THERAPIST: Yeah. No. Right, right.

CLIENT: Like... (PAUSE) It just seems like maximize the fact that you’re not actually excited about this. But, you know, you need to do these things to seem excited about it. You know, it just seemed even more trivial. I don’t know. I just felt like... (PAUSE) I just felt like kind of crumbling under the weight of all this stuff this week. You know what I mean? I’m just really frustrated with how it’s making me feel. That’s what I felt really frustrated about. The fact that like I couldn’t just feel good like with myself about making those decisions because even when I tried to I couldn’t even sleep. [00:26:01]

You know what I mean? (PAUSE)

THERAPIST: You mean you were frustrated that, “Yeah, I can’t even give myself a...”

CLIENT: Well, it would be one thing to like...

THERAPIST: To not worry about the studying, that you didn’t do it.

CLIENT: Yeah. One thing to, you know, like decide not to do that stuff and then get like chewed up by my teachers or yelled at by my parents or something. But if I can just genuinely relax with it and just not really care. You know what I mean? But it seemed like I couldn’t even get myself to not care about it for like one night. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yes.

CLIENT: I didn’t even have the ability to like make that choice myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: You know? (PAUSE) And that made me... I feel like that made me feel really annoyed that I couldn’t even like choose that for myself or whatever. You know what I mean? [00:26:59]

THERAPIST: Yep. Yeah. You know what just, what comes to mind, and I’ve got to say it might be the first time I’ve ever thought about this in reference to you, it just strikes me as significant is like I’ve been thinking in somewhere, at least in my mind, was implied a sort of, “Hey wait. I need to take care of myself.” And kind of a more function of... Like some sort of thing that came to mind was, you know, a guy that’s sick that’s needing tending to. And, you know, one thing that’s kind of been conspicuously absent in things as far back as, you know, probably even earlier but at least to the divorce is this kind of, this kind of absence of you getting a certain kind of attention, a certain kind of, not just asking how you’re doing but something about that. [00:28:25]

I was thinking, “Gosh you had a long week.” I had the... I just imagine that in some way you might have wanted, “Hey, if somebody would take care of me for a little bit... Would somebody...” Not that it was the conscious idea. But I was thinking what’s kind of implied in that is when one goes to bed and is feeling sick, somebody else picks up the load. Somebody else kind of tends to things and you feel kind of taken care of. It’s what kind of... What I’m getting at maybe is it’s very interesting how absent those kind of ideas are for you it seems to me. I mean, at least what we talked about. [00:29:01]

CLIENT: Well, yeah. I mean, I feel like part of it was I feel like I couldn’t even like assert that kind of idea for myself, like even just like myself to feel confident enough...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: ...to be able to like sleep. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLEINT: But yeah. Even somehow in my own calculation of things it seemed like I couldn’t even convince some part of my brain to kind of acquiesce to that. (PAUSE)

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It just didn’t even really think about like trying to get it from the other angle. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like that’s just like... I guess that didn’t even really...

THERAPIST: That’s not even on the radar. Right?

CLIENT: That’s not... It’s not... Yeah. It doesn’t even present itself as...

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:29:59]

CLIENT: ...that.

THERAPIST: No. I see that. Right.

CLIENT: It’s just like I think I would have liked to have been able to just, just at least feel confident in myself even if like it’s going to mean that there’s all these other things that are kind of getting thrown out of whack. You know? Like even if it means the tension with Laney or with my parents or something. Like even just to be able to myself make that kind of a...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: ...calculation. You know?

THERAPIST: Yep. (PAUSE)

CLIENT: I felt like that was even kind of hard for me.

THERAPIST: Very hard. Yeah, yeah. (PAUSE)

CLIENT: I don’t know.

THERAPIST: It’s such a power. It’s like a very (PAUSE) yeah, really important conflict to you. (PAUSE)

CLIENT: I mean, like I didn’t tell my parents that I wasn’t feel well either. You know? My mom is trying to get me to get in touch with my cousin this week and get in touch with my grandparents this week and get in touch with my aunt and uncle this week. [00:31:11]

Like... (PAUSE) I feel like she was, she had a lot of things she was trying to throw into play this week too. (PAUSE) Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s like not even that I like kind of tried to explain that to my mom or anything and her ignoring it or anything.

THERAPIST: No. But... No, no. Exactly. It’s almost like it’s something that you’re even struggling with yourself to deal with both the annoyance and the desire for relief of it.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:31:55]

THERAPIST: Before you would even think about saying something...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Is that...

CLIENT: Well, yeah. I mean... I guess... Just, I don’t know. I guess I feel frustrated sometimes but I don’t... I guess I feel frustrated that things don’t react to the situation that I’m in. But I don’t really, you know, do anything that would seem necessary to react to it, like make it known. You know what I mean? I guess...

THERAPIST: Yeah. Like saying, “Hey, I’ve had a... I’m sick and I’m like really burned out. I really don’t have time for...”

CLIENT: Yeah. I used to do that a lot. You know? (PAUSE)

THERAPIST: You do... You don’t...

CLIENT: I guess I don’t... I don’t know. I don’t really tell my mom when I’m feeling like stressed out or anything or whatever. You know what I mean? Such that she can kind of put things into that context when she’s asking me to do stuff. You know what I mean? [00:33:03]

I mean, in a way, I couldn’t really blame her for not being more kind of attentive to that. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Sure.

CLIENT: Just because I just didn’t even indicate that or anything.

THERAPIST: Right, right. She’s like... She remains just kind of... She doesn’t know.

CLIENT: I mean, I could have like gotten that from her at the same time too. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: You do?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, I don’t like to... I don’t want to... I feel like if she asked me if I was feeling sick I would probably say no. I don’t know. (PAUSE) I just kind of keep like a neutral type of thing. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Something about her knowing, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah. (PAUSE) Yeah. (PAUSE) [00:34:00]

(PAUSE) I mean, I guess I’m just thinking about it. It just seems interesting that like... (PAUSE) Because saying it out loud, I imagine someone hearing it, it just seems like... Well, I mean, there’s probably a lot of really simple easy what to have handled it would maybe mitigate what it was like for you. Like you were feeling overwhelmed by all these things from your parents and, at a minimum, you could have just told them you weren’t feeling well. I feel like that’s what I would say to someone if they told me what I just told you. You know? (PAUSE) But, you know, I didn’t do that. It seems like the logical thing to do in that situation. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah. No. I see it. Was there any way that felt like I was conveying that to you?

CLIENT: No. It’s just me saying it out loud.

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: I just... I guess I’m just like being self-critical almost.

THERAPIST: Yeah. No. I see. Right. I was thinking too... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking too though that like are you saying though that like talking to your mom about that... [00:35:27]

There’s something as you say, you don’t want to really, you know, bring her into that... (PAUSE) You don’t want to talk to her about that.

CLIENT: I mean, I guess it’s just I... It’s the fact that how uncomfortable I feel with even being frustrated by it. Like...

THERAPIST: Oh okay. Okay.

CLIENT: I mean, I guess that’s like why I even feel unsure about how justified I am in feeling stressed about it. Like... [00:36:05]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: (inaudible) with it really.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah.

CLIENT: I mean, I guess that whole point what I was referring to, like my own kind of like uncertainty about being kind of in a sound position or something. You know what I mean? And maybe I don’t really have any basis to be kind of annoyed or something. You know what I mean? You know, I’m not even... Maybe they weren’t kind of being overbearing or anything. Maybe they were being totally rational. You know, it was just me who was being kind of (PAUSE) silly and not sensible, like the way I was dealing with it. You know what I mean? [00:37:07]

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:37:11) situation for myself. Like maybe it was just my own kind of like improper way of handling it that led me to feel just kind of frustrated with what it was. Like maybe it was my fault that (inaudible). (PAUSE) Maybe I shouldn’t be so annoyed.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I get it. Yeah. Like...

CLIENT: I should just chill.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: That’s immediately like where my thoughts go.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You know? (PAUSE) [00:38:00]

(PAUSE) Like why I just don’t want to talk about it like with my mom or my dad or something. I don’t even want to tell them when they ask me to do stuff that it’s frustrating me. I just want to just end the conversation just gently.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Kind of like you know you have no leg to stand on. Is that safe, like... (PAUSE)

CLIENT: I guess maybe I’m the one who’s being really ridiculous here. You know? Because I can’t really make sense of why I’m doing these things. You know?

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: I don’t know.

THERAPIST: I think that’s right. That’s exactly right. (PAUSE) [00:38:59]

CLIENT: I don’t know.

THERAPIST: What? What do you not know? What’s up? (PAUSE)

CLIENT: I guess I just feel really uncertain about the whole thing. You know what I mean? Like I feel like that’s the, maybe like the substance of what makes it hard to like fall asleep or something, you know, or like why in my dreams, I’m like... It’s hard for me to sleep because I’m having dreams of doing the exact opposite of what I feel like I’m trying to do for myself. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: I think you’re right. I think that’s exactly it.

CLIENT: Trying to just like not study tonight or something and I just have these dreams where I’m like (LAUGHTER) making stuff up to study in my mind (inaudible at 00:39:55) it’s the weirdest thing, like making up this like... I could remember really well when I woke up. [00:40:01]

I had this like book that I’d actually be completely certain that I wasn’t playing around with... I hadn’t looked at the material. But I had like made stuff up in this really like intricate network of rules that I was like trying to learn in bed to like justify sleeping in longer. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Creative.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERPAPIST: You should have written it down.

CLIENT: Yeah. No really. Serious.

(CROSSTALK)

CLIENT: Like the classic idea, you know, like the person having the dream in the morning that they’re getting ready so they can keep sleeping longer. It was the... Maybe it was like the archetype of that. You know what I mean? It’s like, “You can sleep because you’re studying.”

THERAPIST: You’re working.

CLIENT: You know? You’re getting ready. You’re getting ready to leave the house.

THERAPIST: Yeah. The compromise formation.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, yeah. (PAUSE) Yeah. (PAUSE) Yeah. [00:40:59]

I remember just waking from that dream too and just feeling really like, just like confused and just like, just crappy. I don’t know. I had this dream... I had this one really vivid dream this week that my mom died which was like really, really weird too. But I remember very little about it. But...

THERAPIST: What do you recall? What do you remember? (PAUSE)

CLIENT: I don’t know. Just like it happened and I was just like thinking about it, you know, it was just really sad. (PAUSE) I don’t know. I just felt really... I don’t know. Just in a way, like I like entertained what the feelings would have been like in a way that I feel like I’ve never really done before. You know what I mean? [00:42:01]

I never really thought about what that would feel like. But like I really felt it in the dream.

(CROSSTALK)

CLIENT: Like really like... (PAUSE) Like in my stomach. You know what I mean? It was bizarre.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Something that...

CLIENT: It felt really crappy waking up to that. You know what I mean? Trying to like disregard stuff my mom was asking me to do or whatever. (LAUGHTER)

THERAPIST: Oh was this... This was around the same time?

CLIENT: Oh yeah. This was the same week, I think probably like the same night that I had the other dream. I don’t know. It’s just really, really vivid dreams, I guess, that made it hard to feel like I was getting good sleep. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: It made me more cranky. (PAUSE) [00:43:01]

THERAPIST: Yeah. And something about that dream emerging in light of the demands that your mom...

CLIENT: Wait. What?

THERAPIST: That dream coming up in light, in the context of these feelings of your mom asking you to contact your cousin and all that.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, I was trying to go to bed based on this conclusion that I could like ignore this stuff.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: You know what I mean? I could disregard what my mom wanted me to do or something. That was the place where like I felt like I had to get to.

THERAPIST: It’s interesting like to see that too as like some sort of work your mind was doing then...

(CROSSTALK)

THERAPIST: Yeah. No. I hear that too, that element of like, “This is exactly what I wanted to avoid.”

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And like... But from the standpoint of it being almost a compromise formation, “I can still sleep while I’m doing this piece of work about my mother.” [00:53:59]

CLIENT: I guess in so far as it let me feel really bad. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Something about that.

CLIENT: Yeah. No. I can see that. (PAUSE)

THERAPIST: And some of the meaning of all that holds to this kind of, this particular situation holds to you about your mother dying and your reaction to it. It’s...

CLIENT: What time is it? Do you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. It’s...

CLIENT: Like one of the things I remember in the dream too is like me like people... Like all these other people around my mom, like her sister and everything... But like I imagine people being like, “Wow, Geoffrey (ph) must be really upset right now. His mom just died.” You know what I mean? Like people like looking at me like that and really being like, “Wow. Geoffrey must be going... This must be really horrible for Geoffrey.” You know what I mean? Like I remembered in the dream like I was really upset but I also felt like really sure in that. You know what I mean? [00:45:07]

Like I could feel people looking at me and being like, “Wow.” I didn’t even have to like say anything. I didn’t have to try and like make it known to people. Like it was just known, like, “Geoffrey’s going through a really difficult time. His mom just died.” You know what I mean? I remember thinking that a lot.

THERAPIST: Because the way you were feeling was conveying that to people?

CLIENT: Because my mom died.

THERAPIST: Oh okay. It was because your mom...

CLIENT: You know, you don’t even have to... It’s just...

THERAPIST: You didn’t have to. I see.

CLIENT: It spoke for itself.

THERAPIST: Okay, okay.

CLIENT: I feel like that felt kind of good in a weird way in the dream.

THERAPIST: Well, yeah. How so?

CLIENT: I didn’t like... (PAUSE) I guess to draw a parallel, it was almost like the exact opposite of this week. Like I would have had to like gone out of my way so far just to be like, “Just cut me a little bit of slack or something.” You know what I mean? [00:46:03]

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Like that distinction felt really stark. You know what I mean? Like I felt like if I just didn’t do anything that I did after that, it would have just been like, “Oh, Geoffrey’s having a really tough time. His mom just died,” or something. You know what I mean? You know what I’m saying?

THERAPIST: I see. Okay. Yep. Yeah. You’re cut some slack. It’s okay.

CLIENT: It was recognized or it was... (PAUSE) Like that would have been a really justified reason for me to have not done my reading the next day or something. You know (inaudible at 00:46:43).

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: It seems really weird that I’m putting it in those terms. But I remembered thinking that a lot in the dream.

THERAPIST: This is legitimate.

CLIENT: Yeah. (PAUSE) [00:47:01]

People wouldn’t look at me as being immature for doing stuff. You know what I mean? Because that was like a grown up reason for me to be upset or something.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That’s when the rest is okay.

CLIENT: Yeah. Probably. I suppose. (PAUSE) But yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I feel like that went by really fast.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Twelve forty five. Yeah?

THERPIST: Yeah. What do you think about all of it?

CLIENT: Yeah. I had kind of forgotten about that dream actually. It didn’t really... It was a few days ago but I hadn’t really thought about it. It was just a weird dream.

THERAPIST: (LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

THERAPIST: I mean, I get it that way.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, it’s a nightmare for all intents and purposes. You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah. It sure says a lot though. [00:48:03]

CLIENT: (inaudible)

THERAPIST: Pick up for next week then.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay. Cool, cool.

CLIENT: Alright.

THERAPIST: See you next week.

CLIENT: See you next week. Yeah.

END TRANSCRIPT