TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

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CLIENT: I thought that rather pointedly before Valentine's Day sort of left him up shit creek. I actually think (inaudible at 00:00:09) ahead before Valentine's Day and she's like, ‘Well if you're going to leave just let me know'. And so I was like, huh, person hasn't been treating me well, if I know I'm going to drive her (inaudible at 00:00:17), yeah I've got to leave. And that was like February first. Valentine's Day is a big deal for every flower shop to say they've lost manpower and I feel like some experience is nice.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But she referred me to another guy who, this is my third year working for her, really it's like two full years have elapsed but it's the third time doing it. So he has at least ten times as many orders as the old flower shop. I've done ninety-nine orders so I'll do a hundred by the time I get home and that'll be until Valentine's Day.

THERAPIST: What do you do, deliver?

CLIENT: Yeah. So I get paid by the delivery.

THERAPIST: Oh. It was just a question for you of

CLIENT: Uh-oh this sounds bad. [00:01:05]

THERAPIST: No no no, well hopefully not. I was wondering if you'd be able to accommodate something in my schedule where I could really use meeting fifteen minutes earlier on Fridays.

CLIENT: Huh.

THERAPIST: One forty-five. There's also a chance that, well let me start with that is that possible?

CLIENT: (Five second pause) Well I'm having trouble getting here on time but it's certainly possible. Yeah it's two o'clock, or two ten, now. But yeah I could.

THERAPIST: Does it have anything to do with the time of the day by the way?

CLIENT: This time, this particular time it would have been difficult to make one forty-five, but I think in the future that would be good.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: And would the sessions be as long as usual?

THERAPIST: Yes. Yes, definitely. They just, I'm moving everything back fifteen minutes because I have to be somewhere later in the day that is about to start next week.

CLIENT: Yeah that's cool with me. [00:02:08]

THERAPIST: And the fifteen minutes makes all the difference in the world.

CLIENT: I like it, okay.

THERAPIST: Okay, okay. If it doesn't, there's somebody else I meet with later that, if that works better for you, could possibly switch I could do

CLIENT: We'll screw them. No (chuckles).

THERAPIST: Let me know, I mean.

CLIENT: Yeah, hopefully it'll work. You know, give it a probationary period for two times and I think it should be fine.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: I thought it might be a ploy to get me to come in on time.

THERAPIST: No it's not, it's not at all. (Client laughs) We'd still be, you know it's the same thing.

CLIENT: Cool. I wish you had an I-phone charger, I could surreptitiously hook my I-phone up.

THERAPIST: I actually, which version did you?

CLIENT: 4S.

THERAPIST: I actually have one for my (seven second pause) shoot. (Five second pause) I've got this thing but I don't have the actual plug.

CLIENT: Really? [00:03:18]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Oh for a laptop.

THERAPIST: Yeah well I also have a plug plug. (Five second pause) No I'm sorry.

CLIENT: Well maybe if we plugged it in we could secret call (ph) to start these therapeutic sessions.

THERAPIST: What's that?

CLIENT: Maybe if I had some juice in the phone we could receive a call conducive to our therapeutic explorations.

THERAPIST: Yeah I wish.

CLIENT: I asked this next girl (inaudible at 00:03:57, chair squeaking) that was still working at the flower shop, I think every year I've attempted, like this guy who runs the shop he's kind of and asshole, but I understand him so I appreciate it. I don't like him but I appreciate who he is. At the end of every year he says the same thing, he says, ‘these flower girls are dumber than last year! Next time I should look at their face instead of their ass.' And so he usually has like a crop of girls and it's interesting because he's situated in a college so the girls are all trying to do a good job, in other words please him, but he's implacable. What he does he nags people incessantly. [00:04:40] He knows from experience that it doesn't really affect me and I do a good job anyway so it's not an issue. But this third time around seeing these girls, you know, they're trying to do such a good job but they don't understand it doesn't matter because the guy's the same.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: The guy's, I'm sure he probably gives a good reference or whatever, but he's not going to change and you can't really, you're pushing a stone that's not really going to.

THERAPIST: So these women can't distinguish themselves, or it's not going to matter to him?

CLIENT: Yeah, in comparison to each other they can distinguish themselves, but in the long run they can't, I don't know I feel like it's not, what they do isn't as important as they think it is.

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: But I'm sure some of the, I don't know this, but some of them, one of them said to me, ‘It's nice you stay out of Charlie's way, you're doing a good job'. [00:05:47]

THERAPIST: That doesn't sound congratulating.

CLIENT: So I asked one of the girls out, she was kind of, she's just nice. Reminds me a little of my cousin. She could have been young, I don't know how old she was but she said she had a boyfriend so I don't know what to do with that.

THERAPIST: What to do with it?

CLIENT: Yeah I mean where do you take that? Just be like, I don't care? (Both laugh) Like what do you say?

THERAPIST: I guess this is the first (inaudible 00:06:20, voices overlapping)

CLIENT: I'm still up for going out. Yeah no, and I've been, I got back together, or I mean I've been having sex with the ladies. It's nice to have a warm body.

THERAPIST: Yeah what's it been like?

CLIENT: She's like, she's staying pretty constant. And I guess what I liked about it initially is that to me she was a revelation because she was just completely open about, not completely open but, relatively open about sexuality and just, you know, bang and then the next morning just eat cereal or whatever and don't need to talk about it.

THERAPIST: Huh. [00:07:05]

CLIENT: She's content and I'm kind of leery like what's going on here? But it doesn't matter, you know, and so that's good. But I think I've sort of, like I got her flowers for Valentine's Day because it was easy delivering flowers and I think I'm trying to convey, I feel like she's cultivating me toward something serious but I'm never going to cross a certain threshold. And I'm sort of maintaining a veil, like I want her to feel cared about. What's important to me I think is having a love object, someone I can love and show care to and, here let's go here my mother was clearly in need of assistance sometimes and she wouldn't let me help her. (Five second pause) Like that time when I was in college and I was on student council and I was actually looking forward to a parental visit once and I asked if I could stay with her at my uncle's house and she just said no. [00:08:21] And I was sort of obstinate because she was visiting for this parents weekend and I wanted to visit my uncle but she just said I couldn't because I didn't announce (inaudible at 00:08:35) or something. I think I've explained this before, though that's probably in the distant past. So at first I wouldn't tell her how to get back to college and then, you know, I just wouldn't tell her, wouldn't tell her and she was more absolute than I was. She just dropped me back at my dorm and I cried the rest of the night.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: But she got lost that whole night, she didn't get back to my uncle's house until like four am. She just didn't know how to get home. So she's someone who, at least in her later life, has been in need of some, I don't know what she needed but she hasn't been getting it. (Four second pause) She's not very approachable. In fact I feel like any kind of intimacy directed toward my mother is rebuffed rather strongly with hostility. [00:09:33]

THERAPIST: Wow. I know you said you were going to be staying with your uncle, you were excited to see your uncle, but I'm assuming too you wanted to see your mom and wanted to say, hang out with.

CLIENT: Yeah I did, I guess.

THERAPIST: And yet she really, kind of stubbornly, blocked it.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. The only thing I could think of is that it would appear strange. I mean I know my uncle and my uncle said afterwards, or my aunt, they said, ‘Well why didn't you just bring her back?' Because they don't care but I'm sure she had some concerns about presentation. She had probably already discussed the fact that she was coming home without me. That was a good mistake (ph?), but if I was unannounced then that might appear unsavory somehow.

THERAPIST: But do you feel in some way that it represents something about your mother and intimacy though, and closeness to you? How comfortable she was with you being close to her [00:10:38]

CLIENT: In that case no.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: In that case I feel like maybe she was falsifating (ph?) her brother for some sort of professional reference and she didn't want to appear silly. That's something different, but in other cases any kind of serious discussion of her feelings or, yeah. I mean she wants to, or she had wanted to play the authoritarian and she did it rather successfully with me to a certain age. Then my brother and sister came along and she may have been, she couldn't keep it up but sometime around my third year at [inaudible] she was sort of coming apart. Slowly, but we know she was still trying to be the authoritarian but she also (four second pause) she wasn't completely together. She wasn't cohesive. Her feelings were leaking out.

THERAPIST: What did you notice? You said she wasn't kind of together, what was she acting like? [00:11:47]

CLIENT: (Seven second pause) Well I mean, she's been looking for a job for six years or something like a job. She's never satisfied with wherever she is, and rightfully so in most cases. She's intelligent and really quite creative.

THERAPIST: (Eleven second pause) The question seems like a hard one that I ask.

CLIENT: Oh yeah, I mean there are instances I just, it's pretty difficult to call them out. (Four second pause) I wonder if I'm audible on this recording because I sometimes speak in a low tone.

THERAPIST: It's pretty good, it's pretty good at picking stuff up. Especially if I put it, that place is close enough to pick it up.

CLIENT: Good. And you really didn't have a charger, that's not one of these boundaries things? Okay (chuckles).

THERAPIST: If you can find it in the bag it's all yours (client laughs). [00:13:02]

CLIENT: (Five second pause) Here's the thing though, there was that first instance where she had sort of, she had come on to me and kissed me and gotten me drunk. Jane (sp?) not my mom. And gotten me drunk and that one night and then she sort of said, ‘Do you want to come back to my room?' And I said, ‘No thank you' and she said, ‘Well the door will be open'. That night she told me that she, or she was crying and she was telling me about when she was a kid, I don't know she had to see a therapist so she's been abused by her female cousin and all these things. Not all these things but a couple things, and she was crying. And as she was crying explaining these things to me it was interesting because we were on the couch opposite each other and so I was here and she was there and her legs were sort of intertwined, but the light on her face it was very unappealing and I've said I'm not terribly attracted to her but it was as if the sorrow had grown, it was like an overgrowth on her face.

THERAPIST: Hmm. [00:14:16]

CLIENT: And I, sometimes she appears that way, but in this case something in the lighting as she was crying and telling me her sordid life story she precisely resembled my mother. Like the lighting on her face was just, it was like an exact replica.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: It was rather shocking.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: I wasn't even, well maybe I was hallucinating, but it doesn't really matter. It was just like this.

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: I was quite calm and that's why I'm confused.

THERAPIST: Yes. Yes.

CLIENT: It was like, that's pretty remarkable.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: And Jane (sp?) is similar in a few ways in that she complains a lot about her workplace, doesn't like the people, the personal dynamics in her workplace, that's a lot like my mom. Like she's always, there's something interpersonal at her work that she, that is not making her happy and she (five second pause), I don't know she complains about it. [00:15:28] It sometimes seems to me like there are productive approaches and if things are really terrible you should look for another job. Who am I to speak, but there's something uncanny in that regard.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Also, if you have a thought feel free to interject, but one of my little strands that comes up is this, I wonder if my personality sort of creates the female other and they begin acting in a specific way just based on how I am. (Four second pause) Because my therapist, the previous one, the woman, who wouldn't see me again I was in triple (ph?). She had said once that I understand that I'm sort of like a surrogate mother or, she didn't say surrogate, but she said I understand that I sort of come to represent a mother. I don't know why she said that, it hurt, but it made sense at the time. In some sense she was some sort of recreation of my mother, or maybe I was treating her that way, or whatever. But what is interesting is she began to act in a very similar fashion where

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: like getting sort of, putting up walls I guess. Like if I'd get playful or whatever she'd try to be really, really stern, whereas that wasn't really an element of her personality when I was getting to know her earlier. Like she would take on a very firm, slightly over-

THERAPIST: Boundaried or something? [00:17:15]

CLIENT: Boundaried?

THERAPIST: Yeah like I was thinking did she kind of follow, did she hide behind boundary? You know the idea of boundaries?

CLIENT: Maybe. I don't remember, but that was basically the theme. Yeah, yeah that was the theme.

THERAPIST: Like what was appropriate before was no longer felt to her to be appropriate or something?

CLIENT: Yeah. I can't say that certainly but I think so.

THERAPIST: Yeah. No I think you're right there probably, something about that, the interaction it brings out a certain kind of enactment of something between you and the other, you and the other woman. Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Because again it kind of, I mean I don't know we've maybe talked terribly about a lot of specifics with your therapist, the former therapist, but there is that kind of element again of you feeling like you've got something good going and then when they know it or something the tables turn. Like there's a kind of shift that you find in them too. [00:18:28]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And they can kind of get cold, kind of cut you off.

CLIENT: That's how I perceive it, yeah. (Fourteen second pause) And it can be very uncomfortable for me to be in comfortable situations. Like it will be good for a minute and then something happens.

THERAPIST: What are you thinking about?

CLIENT: (Four second pause) What you just said. I guess also there's the association with (inaudible at 00:19:20) having sex with my other roommate. It's one of those things I'm dead certain of that have happened. And that dead certainty calls, sort of raises a question in itself. (Four second pause) There's a thought that I might be mistaken but I'm just not willing to admit that possibility. [00:19:43] You know there's the possibility that nothing happened, but I'm not willing to admit that.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: And the therapist, last time we worked we struck a chord and then she wore fishnet stockings or whatever the next time, and I sort of resolved to take a break for a while if not, I suppose, permanently. I was thinking permanently at the time but I kept wanting to go back.

THERAPIST: (Four second pause) Yeah what did those stockings, her wearing those stockings? I mean obviously the seductive element, but in relation of what you're talking about.

CLIENT: (Nineteen second pause) It's something, I couldn't say though. I couldn't say, I don't know.

THERAPIST: Hmm. [00:20:59] (Eleven second pause)

CLIENT: Yeah the boundaries seemed bogus to me earlier because my boss used that. One thing she taught me, you know what's interesting to me about football is you have the helmets to protect the players, like their heart and they protect their heads, but the fact is the players use the helmets to hurt each other more severely than they would otherwise. In the same way I think my boss had gone through some psychotherapy and she used these words I wasn't familiar with as the vices against me. I'd be doing my job like always and she'd be like, ‘You need to learn boundaries!' I'm like, ‘what are you talking about? I'm behaving the same way I've behaved

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: the past year and a half?' She's like, ‘You just, you don't, you shouldn't be working on the computer" or whatever. And I (inaudible at 00:21:58) I'd have to work on the computer until I could get order information with no problem. Andrea's a, but yeah. [00:22:07]

THERAPIST: They hid behind it, they used it or something. They became uncomfortable so they started talking to you about boundaries.

CLIENT: (Six second pause) I feel like what you're saying is true. I wish I could internalize (inaudible at 00:22:25).

THERAPIST: What do you think? You ended up feeling like it was you? It was kind of a?

CLIENT: Well yeah I felt like guilty

THERAPIST: Yes!

CLIENT: and like forced. Like shamed.

THERAPIST: Yeah!

CLIENT: I felt like I thought I was (inaudible 00:22:47, client chuckles while speaking), but also angry I guess.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But the anger didn't really have an outlet. I mean my boss was (inaudible at 00:22:59) I couldn't really, you know, react against my boss so I never really had an outburst. Except one, she was driving me hard with that psychotherapist shit. And suggesting I should see a psychotherapist.

THERAPIST: She did? [00:23:16]

CLIENT: Yeah, once. Before I was sort of depressed, I had told her when we were hanging the Christmas decorations at the, wait did I lost a tangent? What was I saying?

THERAPIST: Ehh. Did you?

CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:23:33, file volume drops). Yeah when I was hanging the Christmas decorations with her I told her about this friend who at the time had just committed suicide. And it was such a surprise because he was one of those happy, happy-go-lucky in a very clumsy way types. Like he was a clumsy womanizer, you know kind of one of those people who says what they think even if it appears foolish. And was just always, he was an aspiring intellectual and he was formal. A pianist by training and just a goofy, a goofy friend. (inaudible at 00:24:35) and I didn't have many friends. He respected me and he was always so glad to see me. [00:24:30] But he killed himself and when he did I thought it was a joke because the way I found out I wasn't on the Haverford list server anymore because I had left in grand fashion but there was this online obituary. And in the past his friends had taken over his Facebook profile and they'd like put pictures of a girl or write outrageous things for what he liked and (therapist laughs) sort of mess with him. Because he was that kind of guy, you knew it didn't really matter. So I thought the obituary was a joke. But it wasn't.

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: It wasn't a joke. So I told my boss about that, you know she said something like, ‘I think anyone would be lying if they said they've never thought of killing themselves'. And so it was another sort of turn-around for her.

THERAPIST: You said that to her or she said that to you?

CLIENT: She said that to me.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: So when she suggested that I seek help or whatever she also complained about me telling her about the suicide thing as like a boundaries thing.

THERAPIST: Oh. Oh boy. [00:25:42] But the shift happens, they kind of shift in their position and then you feel terribly bad. Yeah, almost it moved the line that you stepped across.

CLIENT: True. I'm almost reluctant to talk about this because I feel like I might be getting past it, then you always feel like you're getting past things. And I do think that somehow I'm (inaudible at 00:26:17) this and I'm triggering this relocation of the line. Something in my fear of it happening or fear of being abandoned or some, I don't think I'm wholly responsible of course, but something there I think. Sort of that keys it off.

THERAPIST: What do you think? Can you pinpoint anything?

CLIENT: Well there's that one time my boss and I did finally talk about some letter I had sent. And her name was Tracy, Tracy. And she was a fox, she was like really skinny, six feet tall, like I said probably anorexic or something. [00:27:04] But she has Lupus, very attractive. So we finally had a talk and as I described once very vaguely, she sort of obtained my trust by saying she would never, I don't know what she said. It's probably written in that letter somewhere but I don't know what she said. But anyway after that she basically affirmed in a way that I trusted that I could trust this person. She told me to trust her and I did. She said would she trust me not to do that, I said no. And then she said, ‘you can trust me' or whatever. So I did. But Friday after that meeting I just went home and I shivered in my bed for like three hours I think. I just sat in my bed in the fetal position, I was shaking.

THERAPIST: Mmm. [00:28:11]

CLIENT: And I didn't know what was going on. Really. And then I thought about calling her and I, the exact time, I'm not kidding the exact time I was finally like damn, I have to call her and say something. Because at this point it wasn't clear what our relationship was, like I'm your delivery boy but you've just affirmed that I'm more than a delivery boy. And there's a possibility of some sort of emotional intimacy in the very least, and for some reason I was shaking and I just decided to call her. (Four second pause) It was the same way (ph?), she scared me or I don't know what it was. The phrase comes to mind, ‘you scare me Tracy', or something like that. But she called me at the exact time that I was about to send her. And I was stricken with this thought that if I had just called her first it would have been okay. [00:29:16] But she called and said, ‘was that alright today? You know was everything okay? Are you sure?' You know, because I (inaudible at 00:29:25, file volume drops). She was very conciliatory. And I said, I was sort of like someone who'd had two hangovers in a row. I was like, ‘Yeah I'm fine'. I didn't say anything.

THERAPIST: Because she had called you instead of you calling her, it would have been different for you to make the?

CLIENT: Something would have been different. When she called I said, ‘I was just going to call you, I was just going to call you', and I don't think she believed me. I think for her that was a trigger for like, okay this is like a kitty (ph?). A young guy who's kind of, I've taken too far maybe I should back off.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: (Four second pause) But (inaudible at 00:30:20) I've enjoyed sleeping with her, it's just nice. And I think she, I don't know it's unusual. I don't know whether, the refreshing things I've found like when I've tried to cater to her needs while ignoring my own, she's said outright that she didn't want whatever it is. [00:30:48] Like if I tried to make her dinner or something, I don't remember the exact things that happened but if I tried to make her dinner or or drive her someplace she's like, ‘No, no, no, I don't want want that'. And I didn't really want to do it anyway so it's good with me. But with her I'm not sure, like I get the sense that she's trying to cultivate me as like a husband or something but it's very far off and that's very far off, and that simultaneously I've had the sense that I've described, that like it's very easy going with her.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. But what I hear is that, born out of some experiences maybe, that you really link up with the way some interactions with your mother were really important is that it's come to be this feeling of a woman kind of cultivating you in some way. Cultivating you in some way, be a certain person and almost to draw you in to have, and not that it, it doesn't even sound like you're describing it as with malintention, with malicious intent or anything but more that they unconsciously kind of draw you in and you become kind of a giver. But then the tables.

CLIENT: Yeah, something. [00:32:03]

THERAPIST: Or you're certainly aware of a risk there.

CLIENT: Too aware, yeah. Yeah I do, I take on the giver role. Or I have in the past.

THERAPIST: Yeah. And you see something in these women, I mean you see that the points of their own aspects of vulnerability in them that you find yourself kind of drawn to and wanting to tend to.

CLIENT: Yeah. I've wondered about that. Especially now because like when I was close to an affair with the nineteen year old girl who broke my heart in some way, I mean that's someone who, I didn't know this when I first met her, but her English was, to hear her say it, incomplete. You know so she's young and she's vulnerable in the country and there's something distasteful about the appeal of someone that weak. Although she had an incredible drive. She probably had a narcissism complex.

THERAPIST: Hmm. [00:33:21]

CLIENT: But, being drawn to that, there's something about that.

THERAPIST: You were drawn to it.

CLIENT: Well I wonder if it's just like I'm seeking out, like a wolf seeking out the sick and weak deer or something. That's not how, I mean that's like a self-criticism I guess and it's not very useful.

THERAPIST: Yeah it does sound like these women are quite that. I mean maybe I'm missing something, but there's something in all of it. There's like a wounded quality to them. But then they also have these kind of potential.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yes definitely.

THERAPIST: Yeah that cultivation, that's something else. That was a good phrase (inaudible at 00:34:14, file volume drops).

CLIENT: Although you're just using my words.

THERAPIST: I know that's what I'm saying, it's your words.

CLIENT: It's a good point, there's something there. [00:34:26]

THERAPIST: (Fourteen second pause) One thing I was thinking of is that, in that you might feel that. What always gets me is that by describing them as, by describing yourself as the wolf that there's a way that you can feel like you're doing something and yet there's also this feeling like they're doing something too. There's a back and forth, do or done to kind of, that moves back and forth between who's the doer and the done to.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I think the solution is just sex, like you have to have sex with them. Because that's where you sort of rectify the separateness of people's agendas right?

CLIENT: I don't know. Well there's a, yeah, with Cleo (ph?) in some ways it seems like it cools things off and then, weird. [00:35:36]

THERAPIST: All of a sudden I was thinking about these other women you didn't sleep with them.

CLIENT: No. Yeah, I almost viewed it as, I absolutely view it as like a merit to cultivate platonic and caring relationships. But whether it's the age or the women that's backfired royally for me. For reasons which may or may not be important.

THERAPIST: What were you thinking?

CLIENT: Well it could be any number of causes, like it could be what I've said is true and I've just trailed off because there are any number of causes and I can't really attribute cause and effect as that approach has failed.

THERAPIST: Oh okay.

CLIENT: And it's caused pain.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: (Chuckles) Which is why, I think, getting more in touch with my body and being more sexually fluent is important. [00:36:39]

THERAPIST: Oh, huh. What's the link do you think?

CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:36:46, file volume drops). (Four second pause) Link to what?

THERAPIST: Oh I guess I was wondering, that somehow, maybe another way to put it is do you feel like it's been harder to be in touch with your body, in touch with that sexual part of yourself with these women or with women?

CLIENT: It, how much you want? I was a staid and pretty prudish in that sense. I mean of course, well I was probably the first generation to be exposed to mass pornography on the Internet. I think that has something to do with it, but I sort of. My family there was never any touching in our cultural (ph?) life. My father like fifty-whatever, he's a doctor but he still doesn't hug.

THERAPIST: (Client laughs) Huh. [00:37:46]

CLIENT: One thing that's interesting is like when I was in, or it shouldn't be interesting psychologically but characteristically, when I was in second grade and through fifth grade, probably up to sixth grade, whenever kids hugged their parents I just saw it as fake. I felt supreme distaste, like these pretenders, these fakers. Like there was no idea for me, the concept of giving a hug to your parents and that meaning something it was, it wasn't disgusting, it was a farce, it was fake. It was, there couldn't be anything substantial to it.

THERAPIST: Ahh.

CLIENT: But in my home, my parents there was never any intimacy between them.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: I sort of, the last visit to my mother I sort of pitied her because it seemed like she'd sacrificed a lot for my father. Like allowing him to be the head of the household. [00:38:53]

THERAPIST: (Seven second pause) Well this is, we're out of time but there's something important in all this I think. I mean you get into this whole, especially what's going on, this idea of your parents not having much between them. Or sacrificing.

CLIENT: Now I feel like you're milking me or you're cultivating me.

THERAPIST: Yes! Yeah, go on, what do you think?

CLIENT: Well I mean, ‘there's something important here', what you just talked about.

THERAPIST: It's kind of seductive in some way, is it that?

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean, or there could be something important in whatever I last said to keep me coming back.

THERAPIST: Yeah. No that's, yeah well that's

CLIENT: Fair.

THERAPIST: I find that to be a fair statement.

CLIENT: Okay. [00:39:50]

THERAPIST: And yet at the same time I say that, yeah maybe there's a way it's an encouragement for you to keep coming, yes. And yet it's real. I mean at the same time, for what it's worth, there seems to be, it's partially also because I know we're out of time, but am I obvious, have us think about that more. But yeah. Okay, so Tuesday.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah we'll get into some good stuff.

THERAPIST: They're cultivating us.

CLIENT: Yeah, right. Like the fucking CIA (therapist laughs).

THERAPIST: Alright, see you.

END TRANSCRIPT