TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Looking sharp.

CLIENT: Yeah I'm going to this reception thing tonight, I was talking to somebody…

THERAPIST: Oh right, yeah that's right.

CLIENT: Like a reception for scholarship winners.

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: Yeah we'll see.

THERAPIST: Yeah I guess we never formally talked about it but that's where you're going to end up?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah I guess we didn't. I don't even know if I've spoke with you. I got into Roger Williams; I don't know if I told you that, did I? I don't think I did, I probably didn't. I got in there and got wait-listed at Emory.

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: So the only thing that would have been a possible game changer would have been if I got into Emory and they gave me some money or something. I think with all the scholarship money and everything Suffolk is pretty persuasive.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I went to orientation there last week and it was really nice.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah. I actually really, really enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Real quick I lost the bill that you gave me. Do you recall how much that was?

THERAPIST: I don't. I don't…

CLIENT: It would have been…because you were away right? It was six times…

THERAPIST: $320.

CLIENT: $320?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Alright. Do you have a pen? I was trying to do this before I forget. [00:01:42] So I'm writing it for $360 okay?

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Another thing I don't know if I told you at all was I was speaking (ph?) a little while ago when this predicament first came up with the deductible. I had kind of mentioned it there, just sort of discuss it with her really and a couple days later she got back to me and she's like "If you have maybe an idea of how maybe you could work this out," I met with her and she's going to hire me to be a research assistant for some of the stuff she's doing. Some of this stuff I was thinking about studying with there, when I was in school.

THERAPIST: Alright.

CLIENT: Yeah I mean she offered, she said "I was thinking that I needed one, I thought that maybe the money would help," so we just kind of casually starting doing it.

THERAPIST: Oh is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah but we'll see how I end up getting paid from her. Yeah it's interesting. It was a nice break. [00:03:08]

THERAPIST: How many hours do you work with her a week?

CLIENT: I mean, basically just started off her telling me what she was working on and I have to read two books, this is one of them. This books all actually like Volkanian (ph?), kind of stuff which is interesting. I'm going to finish it and then I'm just going to work on a paper that she submitted that got sent back, I'm going to rewrite some parts of it and stuff. So I really don't know what the hours or anything are going to be. $360…(pause) Sorry, just don't want to forget this. [00:04:15] Okay.

THERAPIST: Thanks. Let me see that book if you don't mind.

CLIENT: Yeah that's what I put, some…it's really, really good. There's a lot of really kind of…the whole book is kind of psychoanalytic oriented analysis of (inaudible). Everything is like (inaudible word) and I don't know (inaudible) so I feel very kind of lost in bits of it but…(pause)

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: I think so far I think if you want to get a good little…this whole synopsis here is an incredibly well put summary of the book. (pause) [00:05:30]

THERAPIST: Hmm. (pause)

CLIENT: Look interesting?

THERAPIST: Yeah it does.

CLIENT: Yeah. You should read it.

THERAPIST: He's a Tuft's guy?

CLIENT: Yeah he's from Tufts, he's a really, really (inaudible, noise) He teaches English. I think last fall he actually taught a night class on Will Cotton…

THERAPIST: Yeah, clear theory inspired by this (inaudible).

CLIENT: Yeah it definitely…yeah it's an interesting appropriation of psychoanalysis, pretty interesting…

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:06:54]

CLIENT: I don't think Freud ever would have seen this body of work before…it was cool. Have you read a lot of Volkan? Have I asked you this?

THERAPIST: You know what most of what I've read about Volkan has been about Volkan, it's very hard to read and very elusive especially when it's even translated. Most of the stuff I have read has been about Volkan.

CLIENT: I have to read about Volkan and I was reading (inaudible).

THERAPIST: Yeah the other thing Volkan does is he so, he's got such a background in linguistics and semiotics and stuff like that that it feels like you got to have some understanding of that to be able to understand what he's talking about.

CLIENT: Signifiers?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. It uses a language that is not all psychoanalytic but really is a lot of linguistics. It seems like a different kind of vocabulary then psychoanalyst's use.

CLIENT: Absolutely.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:08:17]

CLIENT: What were we talking about on Monday?

THERAPIST: Monday, yeah.

CLIENT: We were talking about…I remember where we ended, I just don't remember how we got there.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: I remember we were talking about something that wasn't unrelated to our previous session, I remember it was kind of a continuation (pause). I think I remember, I said something to the effect of…I said a whole bunch of stuff, I kind of like just went on for a little bit and I stopped and it just felt like kind of sad thinking about it.

THERAPIST: Yes!

CLIENT: I remember I said that to you and I think I remarked to you that I've kind of noticed just from people's sort of superimposed impressions upon me what they think, it goes on and it's never stopped at this, the break down and crying type thing that I kind of notice that I never even felt like remotely close to something along those lines. [00:09:45] It's never even felt like really sad but angry and frustrated and anxious leaving here, you know?

THERAPIST: That's sad man.

CLIENT: It's never the defining…I remember where I left last one day I left, I felt sad. I remember Eric told me when he started, he was seeing someone for a while, I don't know if he still is, he was going once a week like a therapist, and he told that he (inaudible) for like three weeks. He said he just like broke down and started crying at one of his appointments. It struck me as really odd, I couldn't relate to him on…it surprised me. But I think you're final comment which really stuck with me was (pause) like what it means for me to be sad and here or to be visibly sad like in the presence of another person. Just to be sad about I think the stuff we were talking about. [00:11:22] (pause) Which I think stuck with me a little more than I thought it would actually, I think I thought a little bit about it as I was leaving. I think I thought that there might really be something that I…I remember when you asked me that I actually kind of considered it and I think if you had asked me before that I wouldn't have imagined that that had been something I had trouble with or something but I think when you raised that topic in the midst of me feeling really sad I think I kind of recognized how uncomfortable, how out of place I felt. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Out of place, yeah. (pause) [00:12:38]

CLIENT: I think maybe even, by out of place I just mean (pause) unfamiliar territory, you know? It felt unusual. (pause) Whenever you asked me that question it made me think…I remember you initially raised it like it "Makes you wonder what it means for you to be sad in the presence of someone else, like in the presence of me, to be sad in here," or something and I remember initially when you asked that I thought it just sort of like clicked in my head and I was just like yeah, a lot of what we were talking about is I think I've outlined to you for a while great lengths that I've gone to to not come off as really, really sad. I don't think that would have…it didn't stand out to me as prominently though before you asked that question. [00:14:05] I guess I was very aware that I never wanted to appear sad but I mean I think I've said that to you, I think a lot of times, in many different ways. Growing up, in particular my parents were splitting up I never wanted to like come off as like really, really sad or devastated or something to my mom but I think you saying it and thinking about it now it doesn't require me to actually admit that maybe I even was sad or something. Like that I, think about what things were making me sad or something but when you asked that question that's kind of what like flooded into my head. Does that make sense? Am I making sense to you?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. (pause) [00:15:20]

CLIENT: I think before really I…I don't know. I'm still struck by, like I was eager to get out of here after the last appointment, I remember like we were ending at what? Like 10:50? I think went on a rant for like a while and think I stopped maybe like five minutes before we were going to end and I think that's when I said to you "I just can't sit, (inaudible) just kind of makes me feel kind of sad," and I was like ready to leave then.

THERAPIST: After you said that?

CLIENT: Yeah, kind of.

THERAPIST: What about that moment, what was in that moment? (pause) What hit you?

CLIENT: (pause) [00:16:30] I think I mean I think just to recall it, you know, like reflecting on it, I had said a bunch of stuff and then in speaking about it and thinking about it just through sharing it with you…it made me feel sad and I immediately just wanted to turn it off. I didn't really make anything else, you know what I mean, but that was just what I felt, like I needed to leave or stop…change the topic or something, you know?

THERAPIST: To leave, yeah…

CLIENT: Yeah to…yeah. To be done with this, to not be here or something. That was what I felt, I felt like a compulsion to just turn around or I don't know. That's really all I can remember feeling.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I remember feeling, I think I remember (pause) I thought about you're question when I left for a few minutes, pretty exclusively and I think at that moment when I was feeling really kind of sad thinking about that stuff, feeling really sad about something that I don't, I'm not really used to feeling sad about, then when you kind of asked me like "It makes you wonder what it means for you to be sad around someone," or something, just my gut visceral discomfort at that moment just like answered it for me. [00:18:35] I didn't really have an answer except for it means something like "I want to get out of here and not think about it…"

THERAPIST: Yes. It was a bodily kind of visceral…

CLIENT: Yeah I mean I guess it was like "What does it mean to you?" At that moment I felt like I was just kind of, if I was to say what I was feeling most basically it was probably like "it means a lot and I would like to leave now." You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But…(pause) It's one of those simple questions that comes up sometimes that you think...Before I came here I think I had an image of myself as like I had a lot probably that I would benefit from talking about and trying to work out but I felt like I had kind of by myself like really gotten a handle of some of the stuff, thinking about a lot like from when I was depressed and I was very anxious and stuff, like restructuring stuff on my own on the computer instead of seeing people and…I was always thinking about it and I felt like I had put it together in some ways, you know? I felt like I had kind of gotten over some of the simple things. [00:20:11] I probably would've thought a question like that, you know, that I don't have a problem with feeling sad, you know, because I'm not sad. That was just not even in the…I wasn't expecting that to be like an area for something new to pop up. I don't know, it just really surprised me leaving here because I think leaving here the only thing I could conclude from that little interaction was I think it's hard for me to feel sad about it. Not that it's difficult in that being sad is difficult but like it's literally difficult for me to think about the implications that would stem from the fact that I'm sad about it. Like what does that mean about the people around me? What does that mean about the forces that are acting upon me to make me sad, you know what I mean? It's difficult in that sense.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking that in some way (pause) you know the e-mail that you received, that I guess you had imagined that your sister was crying, speaks to something that, it seems to me like it kind of suggests this kind of (pause) that she had found some room to be sad and hurt in some way. She's found some way to be sad and hurt and it's almost as if like it would mean it could be dropped if you're lap and all the stuff with your dad started to come about and it was as if some sort of window into all that within yourself kind of was opening. It's just kind of what comes to mind. [00:22:37]

CLIENT: No, where you said about my sister had found a place to cry, it made sense to her to cry or something. Yeah that resonate, yeah. She was aware of something going on around her that I was learning about briefly, she was aware of it to an extent that she felt like she was in a place to cry and then cried. Yeah that speaks I think to something. (pause) [00:23:50] Because I was bothered about it and I was bothered by what was going on in that interaction with my sister and my dad but I really didn't know, I think I felt a lot of things, I think I felt really angry in some ways, sad in some ways but I don't think I would've felt any of those things almost like confidently enough to even imagine crying about it or confronting someone about it or…doing anything with it. (pause) I think I felt really uncomfortable at the end of that last appointment with like what to do with the fact that I was feeling sad. In a way I think it felt almost kind of good to like feel that in a little sense. [00:25:08] But it made me feel more uncomfortable about what…like if I had started crying in here more than what made me feel sad and start crying, when I left here what I think I would've been worried about was "Should I have been crying about that?" Like what's my argument for that?

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: You know? How would I defend that?

THERAPIST: And you chose to (inaudible)?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, that would immediately be what I felt like I had to produce if even only in my own…

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah. (pause)

CLIENT: And I think that's probably…I don't know. That's what I would have done with that. I think that's what I did do with that even though I didn't cry I think I was still sort of in a different way just feeling like…I don't really know what to…where to go with it. [00:26:29]

THERAPIST: Well it's almost like you're body was telling you to leave and you had also this association with like… is this defendable, is this…?

CLIENT: Yeah do you remember when I told you about that time when I sat down with my parents and they told me they wanted to, that my dad was moving out and my dad was sitting right across from me like this and he started crying ?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And I don't think I've ever seen my dad cry, probably the only time I've ever seen him (pause)…like at that moment he was acknowledging that something really shitty was happening. Even though we in different ways speak about that event, speak about splitting up, speak about my mom…we talk about it a lot but he's never like put himself out there like that. He's never been like sad, he's never been reflective, he's never been vulnerable about it, ever after that. Never really about anything at all so there's something unique in that sense but I remember in that conversation when I was sitting there I…like when I recount that story what sticks out to me the most is my parents telling me that and me sitting there and just wanting to be able to just like rise…

THERAPIST: Yes!

CLIENT: And just like disappear. [00:28:15] I just wanted to not…you know what I mean? I think I explained that too. That was the only thing that I remember feeling, like I wanted to just like flip a switch and do that thing they do in Star Trek or something and…I don't know.

THERAPIST: Transport yourself?

CLIENT: That's literally all I was thinking when I was sitting there. Just like I want to, I don't think I…I didn't want to come off this being sad, I just wanted to leave and I did, I ended up going over to a friend's house right afterwards which I was happy about. I mean on a small level it reminds me of that like that feeling when I was here like I wanted to just…

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Just go away or something.

THERAPIST: In face of all that, in face of all this (pause)...[00:29:36] Almost as if you were leaving to kind of escape whatever entrapments might have been involved in being sad or in seeming sad in that position.

CLIENT: I knew when I was going over to my friend's house, I don't think I had any illusion…I went over to my friend's house. I didn't have any illusions that I was going to go there and then start playing video games and forget about this. I knew when I went there all I was going to do was think about it and that's what I did. I spoke about it all night with my friend.

THERAPIST: You probably did.

CLIENT: Yeah I'm pretty sure I did. I knew when I left that something just went down like I knew that. I think I probably the most of an event that I could ever actually hold onto throughout the experience with my parents, my dad moved out, you know? That was the most like…one day I could actually look at and say "That's when something happened," or something as opposed to the rest was just this like spread out, like hair growing, like you don't…it's going on in front of you and you don't notice it, you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Mm. [00:31:15]

CLIENT: But still I mean I was like safe in that environment. There was something about being, I mean it wasn't just knowing that this was going on but something about like being in the presence of my parents and they were both just so sad. My dad was crying saying things he never says like "I'm always going to love you, this doesn't mean that…" I don't even remember, just things that I just wanted to like hold my hand over and just (inaudible due to cough), "Why are we going here?" (pause) There was something about that, there's something about the intimacy of that or the (pause) [00:32:30] Like…I don't think I wanted to react to what my parents were saying to me because I think I didn't want, I think I still at that moment didn't want to say something that would make them sad and I felt like what my dad was saying to me is like…what do you want me to say? Like yes? Like I agree? Like do you want me to cry? Is that what you want me to do? Like do you want me to tell you how hard this is for me too? In my head it was almost like can't we all implicitly agree that we're not going to do that? Can't we assume those positions in this argument going on for so long?

THERAPIST: What's the position?

CLIENT: That we're all going to just let this play out and yeah we're probably all sad, of course, why wouldn't we be? This is shitty but we're not going to sit around and tell each other how miserable this family that we have is making this. It almost felt like it was…it just flew in the face of the way that I was handling it, the way that I…because this wasn't new in some sense. My dad was hardly living with us before he had this conversation with…I mean he was sleeping out multiple nights a week, it was already in progress, it was kind of just like acknowledging it or something. [00:34:41]

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: There wasn't news for me in that conversation, the only thing that was new or novel to me was my parents like crying in front of me and acting sad about it and treating it like a divorce (laughs), I don't know. That was the only thing that was new.

THERAPIST: Mm hmm. The only time it was kind of spoken…sad, shared…

CLIENT: It was funny because I've been here and I've talked to you about how unjust I thought it was that like this emphasis on like maintained, everything's cool, there was none of this like it'd be hard for me to think about if I was angry and made me sort of bend my interpretation of things to fit this. That moment probably sticks out as the hugest departure from that. We're going to sit down and this isn't cool, this sucks, we're going to cry about it and do what people do I guess, admit defeat or something (laughs), you know I'm just being…you know? [00:36:11] Acknowledge that the stuff is happening, you know what I mean? Like that's…I mean cool is not that. That's what we…you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: And there I was and I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to go to my friend's, wake up the next day, you know, my dad probably wouldn't have been there, he wasn't there the day before anyways, it's not like this huge Teutonic shift in our lives, just go back and just keep doing this.

THERAPIST: Yes, exactly, we keep doing this the way we've been doing it, that's the way we've been doing it all this while and it's as you put it, it's a great departure from that. It's a total shift, an unexpected shift, not an anticipated shift.

CLIENT: Yeah it was no new discovery, you know, nothings particularly clarified it's just…I don't know.

THERAPIST: Uh huh. [00:37:24]

CLIENT: It's not like if they said "Oh should we have this conversation with D?" Like they could say "Well we have to make sure D knows what's going on, like just be straight up with him about this, there's no confusion…" There was nothing that was clarified, that was ambiguous to me or something. It seemed to me like it was as productive then as if my parents and I got together right now and said "let's talk about what happened that day to make sure we all know what happened." It would be as sort of clarifying now as…you know? Maybe not, maybe that was part of, maybe that was a chapter in my mom's book, sit down and have a cry session with your parents…I don't know, maybe.

THERAPIST: You say something direct and clear about what's happening…

CLIENT: That's my mom's M.O., she's a social worker, this is the way that she clashed big time personality with my dad. She's like if something's wrong let's sit down, let's talk about it, let's knock this out, lets converse, lets…(over talking). My dad's like…that's not like him, that would just piss him off, that is just going to let…you know what I mean? Now that my dad was doing that he was crying in front of me.

THERAPIST: Yeah I see.

CLIENT: It was weird. [00:39:01]

THERAPIST: Well I was thinking in one way too that he kind of parted that way of dealing with these situations and you had, I was thinking in some way that I wonder if you felt like, well you would've learned it through that way and you were using exactly what you're dad taught you, like "Why are we talking about this stuff for? It's no news to me, let's get on with it, let's not talk about it, let's keep going the way it's…So do you're thing dad," when he left. "I want to go over to my friends."

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, I mean even like looking back on it now it's like he moved out, like he'd already done it…(pause) this conversation may feel different if we were having it a long time ago. "I've already gone through this process that I feel like you two are going through right now by myself and now I'd rather not sit around and just sort of milk some more tears out of it to get through it because I'm on the other end of this already and I would rather not…"

THERAPIST: Mm hm.

CLIENT: And (inaudible) too. When I look back on it now this is my thought then but I was like "I thought we weren't doing this," my opinion was that I wasn't doing this, out of a courtesy to you guys. [00:40:57] I wanted to be (inaudible) for my mom but I…I mean it's easier on you, you know?

THERAPIST: Yeah "We had been talking about it because of the impact it might have on me now why are you wanting this to have impact on me?"

CLIENT: Yeah so…this feels like "If you guys knew at the moment, I'll kind of just stop what I'm doing, let this take over my life for this fifteen minute conversation when I feel like I made the decision today to not do that to you guys."

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: The only other thing I'll say about it now that I'm thinking about it…I talk about my dad as being ignorant, having the ability to just clear his conscience and just forget that like he may have done things that are…I even said to you like it would be easier for me to think about a relationship with my dad, accepting that he's done horrible things like if he expressed an awareness of it, like if he didn't go into interactions with my sister like he just did a couple weeks ago as if he could scold her for things as if he's been living with her, like his ability to create this like moral equivalence. [00:42:38] He doesn't even take into account the things he's done when he…that he can't just come into my life whenever he wants, I said in the car, that is the thing that bothers me about it was the fact that he wouldn't give that to other people at times. That moment there he was like a dog over on its back, like he's crying saying I'm sorry, literally saying "I'm sorry for what me and your mom did," but putting himself even in that circle like…

THERAPIST: Yes. Culpable.

CLIENT: I mean he's been there. He went there and decided to leave there like it's not impossible for him to get in touch with that stuff.

THERAPIST: That's interesting.

CLIENT: Do you know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Mm hm. [00:43:43]

CLIENT: Who knows? (pause) I don't want to make that out of people. I don't want to get where my parents are feeling vulnerable and then dig in to them like…do you know what I mean? (pause) That's just what I feel like when I think I start to feel like really sad about this stuff is I'm…I don't know. Like in that instance where I was talking to my parents I could see them the start of the conversation no one was sad and they started talking and increasingly the sad factor was going up and it was sort of like a rapid playing out of a microcosm of like some larger thing within fifteen minutes and I think I wanted to just…I certainly did not want to contribute to whatever that sad factor was in that room. I wanted…and without thinking about it just very evident to me that if I started getting sad too it would not take me to the direction I wanted to go, that was not an option there. [00:45:32] It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do when my dad was looking like that.

THERAPIST: Hmm. Yeah I mean this shouldn't be like…how complicated and (pause), yeah how complicated it was to see your father in that spot. (pause)

CLIENT: Yeah that was the toughest thing about the conversation that we had, just my dad crying.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Which is weird because it seems like that's what I want from him. I feel like (over talking) it's one of those things I come in here ranting to you about.

THERAPIST: Yes, yes.

CLIENT: You almost think "Oh well that's what you want," but that's not what I want. (pause) Definitely don't want that.

THERAPIST: What was it like seeing your dad…?

CLIENT: I just wanted to leave. I didn't…all I could think is the exact same thing like literally I feel that question comes in in my head and I can like feel my head like slip off…

THERAPIST: Wanting to get off the question of…

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:47:17] I think even in that conversation when I was sitting in that room I was looking at my mom more. I remember an instance of seeing my dad like that and I don't think I really looked at him again, you know?

THERAPIST: Okay. (pause) It's not just seeing your mom it's seeing your dad…

CLIENT: I saw my mom a lot and I feel like I have fifteen years of seeing my mom sad.

THERAPIST: You did see it on her?

CLIENT: Seeing my dad sad, I didn't even want to put those in the same category because it was like a couple seconds.

THERAPIST: Yeah you had to turn away. (pause) He was sharing his sadness with you. Showing it and sharing it.

CLIENT: Mm hm. [00:48:37] (pause) He had found a place to cry and I assisted with it. (ph?)

THERAPIST: Yeah I mean you had. And it seems to me like last time you were trying to find his face but not…I understand to not wanting to, some other force not wanting it to happen.

CLIENT: The thing that comes to my mind when I think about this feeling, this like repulsion is like two magnets moving against each other. When I thought about that question I saw in my head, that's the kind of image…I don't know. (pause) Yeah I've tried to sense…

THERAPIST: What was the next…next Thursday.

CLIENT: Thursday? [00:49:49] Alright. Thank you.

THERAPIST: You're welcome.

CLIENT: I still have you're book too by the way. I didn't forget.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: I got it from them (inaudible) back too.

THERAPIST: Yeah speaking of that I…the report you gave me hasn't turned up.

CLIENT: No?

THERAPIST: I feel really horrible about that. I need to give another look, I can't believe I would've taken it and misplaced it. I just don't do that.

CLIENT: Maybe gave it back? I…

THERAPIST: No, no, no…

CLIENT: I don't know, we'll see. To be quite honest I haven't looked for it either. Maybe it's lying around somewhere.

THERAPIST: Okay, okay.

CLIENT: I'll see you on Monday I suppose.

THERAPIST: Yeah you're right.

CLIENT: Yeah we spoke about (inaudible due to noise). Thank you.

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