Abbreviated version of Thursday's session (full, very long version is in LT's Thread, but thought it might be interesting for people who considered playing music for their T.

T Thursday. Went back and sat down. I said I kept thinking about playing a song for him and felt like I wanted to do it, even if I wasn't sure what I was looking for. And I was trying to figure out if he was telling me last session that I shouldn't do it. He said he just wanted to make sure I knew what I was looking for from it. I said I'd posted about it on PC and had gotten a variety of responses. That one was about how it seemed to be coming from a teenaged part of me. That I kind of agreed with that. We discussed that briefly.

Me: "You said Monday how if I played the song, you'd feel awkward if I was sitting there staring at you, waiting for a reaction. And I was thinking to myself: 'Then you'd know how I feel every session!'" T laughed: "Turning the tables?" Me: "Yeah."

Me: "I know you're trying to make sure my expectations aren't too high. But part of me just wants to try it. I mean, maybe it would make you vomit immediately." T: "Well, that would at least be an emotional reaction." Me: "True!" T: "I feel like how you do therapy is that you're trying to express your inner world and have that be understood. And this would be a part of that." Me: "So if you don't understand it, you feel that might negatively affect me?" T: "Maybe." Me: "I wouldn't expect you to have the same experience of the song as me. Especially after hearing it once." T: "OK."

T: "Well, you don't know what kind of music I like." Me: "I thought you weren't into any music?" T smiled in a way that suggested he does in fact like some music (he's said before that it's never done much for him).

Me: "Well, you've managed to set my expectations so low at this point. Would it be OK if we tried it?" T: "Sure." Me: "I brought the lyrics." T: "I appreciate that." Me: "So do you want to hear 'Terrible Love' or 'The Geese of Beverly Road'?" (both by The National). T: "It's up to you!" Me: "I know...let me go with the one where the lyrics are more obvious." T: "You can always play one, and if it doesn't feel right, do the other one. Or both." Me: "OK. I'll go with 'Terrible Love' then." I handed him the lyrics.

I hit play. While it played, I mostly stared out the window, watching the trees blowing in the wind, could see him in my peripheral vision and sorta glanced over at once or twice--he was looking intently the lyrics sheet. After one section where they repeat "It takes an ocean not to break," T said, "I imagine that line has meaning to you." Me: "Yes it does." My eyes welled up a few times as it played, but didn't spill over.

When it ended, I looked up nervously at T. T: "That was an interesting song." Me: "Yeah." T: "It reminds me of something I've heard before. I know someone who will know what song I'm thinking of." Me: "OK. Maybe it's a song I don't know?" T: "I seriously doubt there's a song I've heard that you haven't." Me: "OK, well, maybe if it's a current pop song?" T: "I still doubt it."

T brought up the "It takes an ocean not to break" line. T: "What it makes me think of is...if you're struggling emotionally, it can take a lot of effort, like an ocean of effort, to keep it together.

Me: "Yes, exactly." T: "And it's kind of clever, using 'ocean' with 'break.'" Me: "Yeah, breaking waves. Another part that speaks to me is 'It's hard to go to sleep without a little help. It takes a while to settle down, until the panic's out.' The whole song partly feels like it's about anxiety to me. It has an edginess to it." T: "OK."

T: "I'm not sure how to interpret parts of it. It almost seems like a couple different songs in one." Me: "Yeah." T: "Like what does he mean by 'walking with spiders'?" Me: "I'm not sure, I've read that some think it's a scary sort of love. And he had apparently just had his first kid when he wrote this album. So some said how that can be scary." T: "That makes sense, how that brings out all these emotions."

Me: "Yeah. But something that I associated it with...I have absolutely no idea if he had this in his mind at all--but in 'Crime and Punishment,' which I read both in high school then in college, one of the characters--not the main one, not Raskolnikov--said how maybe the afterlife is just a small, dark room with spiders. So I associated it with that." T said that was interesting.

I asked if any other client had played music for him before. He said some were in bands or did rap, so they'd played their own stuff. I said that probably felt a bit different, because it was their own. He agreed and said maybe 5 clients (he's been practicing >15 years) had shared a song in the way I did.

I said how maybe I needed to rely on music more in my life, because in a way it's a creative outlet. Or some other creative outlet Mentioned writing, poetry, etc. He mentioned painting. I said I'm afraid to take a painting class because of a bad experience when I was a kid, where the instructor said my flowers looked diseased and that it was terrible. T: "You should have said, 'That's exactly what I was going for! Nailed it!'" I laughed. Talked more about painting, and I mentioned photography, which I've done some of in the past.

We were about out of time. I said he could keep it if he wanted. T: "I was planning on it so I could ask that person about the song." Talked about music a bit more--Vanilla Ice and "Under Pressure." Deaths of musicians. How music from high school and college is often what stays with people most.

We were at about 56 minutes. T: "So we're set for next week." Me: "Yes." Went over to pay. T, shaking my hand, "Have a good weekend." Me: "Thanks, you too." T: "It's supposed to be really nice this weekend." Me: "Will there actually be a day when it doesn't rain?" T: "Sounds like it." Me: "Good!" T: "Enjoy the weather." Me: "You, too."

I left with a good feeling, like I'd connected with T in a new way. I'm glad I took the risk to play the song.