Miss Vib Vib.doc · Web viewT305: You feel that isn't too wholesome a state to be in. C306: No, certainly not. I still ah, get the feeling sometimes that now maybe I could start off

Transcripts of Carl Rogers' Therapy Sessions

Edited by Barbara T. Brodley and Germain Lietaer

Volume 6

The Case of Miss Vib

[eleven sessions circa 1946-48]

Page

Session 1 2

Session 2 14

Session 3 26

Session 4 35

Session 5 45

Session 6 56

Session 7 66

Session 8 76

Session 9 86

Session 10 96

Session 11 108

These transcripts are available for purposes of research, study and teaching. They may not be sold.

Throughout these interviews the responses of the therapist (T) (Rogers), and the client (C) are numbered for easy reference.

Rogers’ Transcripts, Volume 6, VIB, contents page 1

This transcript is available for purposes of research, study and teaching. It may not be sold.

Throughout these interviews the response of the therapist (T) (Rogers), and the client (C) are numbered for easy reference.

The Case of Miss VIB (circa 1946-48)First Interview

T0: Come in.

C1: I knew I wanted to come in before but I just couldn't seem to get up the nerve or something.

T1: Couldn't get your nerve up to that point.

C2: I just don't know whether it was the nerve or just getting the initiative to take the steps to come in.

T2: M-hm. It was a matter then of actually making the steps.

C3: I know I wanted to all the time; and now as I look back I think of the times I could have come in a couple of months ago when I first began to feel myself having some difficulty.

T3: M-hm.

C4: And at this stage I've - I'm just wondering what - how much can be done.

T4: You feel that it's almost too late.

C5: (Laughs) I feel in an awful meddle. I just don't know. I've never felt - well - so disorganized, and - and - as if everything just didn't matter any more.

T5: Everything all mixed up and nothing matters.

C6: That's the way it seems. I don't know - I don't know what is the thing I need help most on at this point. I was wondering if maybe I could come in for a series of talks with you - I don't know - or with someone in the Counseling Center.

T6: You don't know what the matter is, but you want to come in for a series of talks with me. Yes, that's possible.

C7: M-hm. And I don't know about the arrangements of the Counseling Center. Is there - That's the charge and so on?

Rogers’ Transcripts, Volume 6, VIB Session 1, page 2

T7: Well, you are a student here, aren't you?

C8: Yes

T8: There is no charge for students. Charge for non-students, but not for students.

C9: Well, I really don't know where to begin. It seems to me that I've just thrown away a whole year of my life as far - or -I don't know whether it's a year that's been thrown away, or whether it's a trend that's been developing for a while. And I wonder if there is something really awfully wrong or if it is something that could be straightened out or what.

T9: It's hard to know how deep it is, or how much there is in it.

C10: That's what it is. I - I'm just not doing the things that I'm - I usually do. And I haven't been acting like myself really. Or - like - sometimes…

T10: It's really different.

C11: It seems that I've lost all direction. I don't know. I was thinking about it today. And that's the thing, - it seems to me - that's the thing I've lost more than anything else…

T11: You no longer have any sense of where you're going.

C12: That's it. And - well, it seems to me I came here with perfectly clear ideas of what I was going to do this year and I just haven't done anything at all, and - for example in our neurology class we had - that was in the first quarter when I came - I came back in the fourth quarter -we had a notebook to do, some drawings to make. We had just one test at the end of the quarter; we had the test and I passed it apparently although I didn't get my marks. And I had an incomplete because two of my drawings weren't finished, so I've - it wasn't - - I'd never had incompletes before - and it just seemed sort of unusual for me. But a lot of people in class had incompletes, so it wasn't too bad. I mean, it was something that was fairly common - to have on our notebooks. So I went right over after class - after I found out about it - and - to see what was wrong - and Dr. B. showed me the two drawings I had to do and I stayed over there and did the drawings and (describes the drawings) and I think I did really pretty well on the drawings - but - I put a lot of time on them - at least what I thought were good drawings. But - So he said those look all right, now label 'em and turn 'em in. So I took 'em home and I never did it. And I know the drawings are all right, and I knew if I didn't finish the drawings I'd get an F for the course, and I just never did go back.

T12: You can't understand yourself why you didn't do that extra bit.


C13: That was all there was to do and I don't know what it is. And I've been doing things like that - well each quarter has gotten progressively worse.

T13: It's gone on like that increasingly.

C14: M-hm. And it just doesn't seem like me. Well, one thing, this is the first year that I've ever really gone to school; though I've been up here in the summer; and I was here once before in 1941. But this is really the first year I've gone to school without working. And when I was in college I had to utilize every minute of time. And I worked and kept my class work up all right, and I always managed to get things done and get good marks - and I think I know what I was doing then. And now another thing is I don't feel as if I knew anything at all. And I - so - I really haven't worked in my field since about 1943 - steadily, but before that I was working in Alabama at a teachers' college. Well, of course, their standards there are quite low, because the high school background is poor; and the things they teach them for, - educational psychology is very elementary psychology - but I knew enough to teach that all right.

T14: And you look back and feel that you handled a pretty heavy load and handled it 0.K., and you seemed to know what you were doing.

C15: Yes.

T15: Now you don't handle the load and you feel that --

C16: And - I don't have any - I don't know what it is. Whether it's a - Well, everything seems meaningless. I don't know whether...

T16: Everything's kind'a futile.

C17: And I don't find myself planning things and going ahead and doing things (laughs) I remember in the first quarter I went - had an awful concern - for I was really concerned, for I wasn't - I wasn't getting anything done - so I wrote out a schedule; and tried to follow that and (laughs) I went and sat in your class one day (laughs)... and you were saying that - I don't remember exactly what you said, but you were talking about rigidity and one of the - you were talking about neurotic behavior (words lost)

T17: (Laugh) You felt that made it look kind’a bad for you.

C18: I did- but if I'd gone on with it I might have done better than I have done. I just - and - and this time -Well, the things I think I want to do I just don't do, -I mean in matters of social life I don't so. but - well -such a simple thing like eating meals - well I used to eat with a group I really enjoyed and now I'll let myself get pulled into eating dinner with a group I don't enjoy and I just seem to avoid making the effort of going with friends I like.


T18: (Words lost)

C19: And what seems so appalling to me is that this whole year- Well in the first place I've been on a scholarship; else I wouldn't have been here. But it seemed important to me that I get things done so if I stopped and went back to work I could at least have some work behind me and possibly I might get to a stage where I could - Oh - get along on a job on my own efforts here. All that has fallen through.

T19: M-hm. All the high aims that you had when you came here - just melted.

C20: That's it. And what I don't understand - I mean I can't see how my personal life has disintegrated so much. I for instance, - friends, people that I know and like, I haven't kept in touch with them, or haven't gone to visit people, or do things I know I'd enjoy. And I've done some silly things. This summer two or three people wrote me - some from home and some from Alabama - that they were going to be in town and where they were staying and their telephone numbers, so I could get in touch with them. And I didn't even answer their letters; and sometimes if the buzzer rang, and I was almost certain it was someone I know and I didn't answer the buzzer; so that I didn't get in touch with them at all. And people I've really enjoyed and would have liked - under normal circumstances that would have been such a delightful way to spend an afternoon.

T20: You can't understand how you could have let your personal relationships go to pieces that way.

C21: M-hm. And even with my family I have done the same thing, equivalent to. I don't know what, I just stopped writing home for a long time and my people worried and wondered what had happened. They called and they left a message for me to call an operator at home. By that time I'd gone so long without answering that I knew they would be angry; so I didn't call home (laughs). And that kept up for a long time. And finally my mother came to see me; and that was just absolutely unnecessary, because - I mean my behavior there - because I know that she can't afford to spend the carfare to come here to see me for the week-end just because I didn't write home and - yet I didn't do anything.

T21: You had every reason for your keeping in touch with them in someway; and yet somehow you didn't.

C22: Of course. That's just what it was. Everything that I should do I don't do. Even little simple things like my clothing - I had in mind to buy some summer dresses and I managed to get down town one day and it seemed like all the effort in the world I could manage was to try and get one to fit me. One cotton dress of course wouldn't get me through the summer. And I didn't go back to get anymore. I just


didn't - I just didn't go. And I - I - well, just the things I should do I just don't do them.

T22: Ordinary things that you would expect to take care of, you don't.

C23: I don't. And the things that seem important - I mean, that I've always called 'important', like - Oh - keeping in touch with friends, and something - I've never been a very good letter writer but I've always kept in touch with people -and - well - little things like keeping my fingernails always manicured - I've always done that - and like taking an interest in keeping my hands well-groomed, and I just even haven't done that.

T23: All the way from important things like friends to little things like your nails you've just sort of let things go.

C24: That's right. I just let things go. (Pause) And now I'm living in International House, and two or three people there - there's one man I used to teach with in Alabama who is here in town, and then there's a woman who is dean of women at ___ that I was friendly with who I was with in Alabama - though we were not close friends we were quite good friends, - and under ordinary circumstances I'd just be so glad that they're both here. And I've avoided seeing them all summer (laughs). And I finally was almost forced to eat lunch with her one day, and I just felt so ill at ease. And the people I want - and she's a person I really would want to be friendly with, and a person I would want to be around. And the other man - we would have so much to talk about. low he told me he had so much news to tell me about and I would ordinarily be so anxious to hear it. And I don't.

T24: You find you have really avoided the very people that you would like to have some contact with.

C25: That's it. That's what I don't understand. I don't - It seems I have sort of withdrawn from everything. I've withdrawn from the people that I find - or under ordinary circumstances - most interesting, and the things that I enjoy. And - I - There's just no way to explain not writing home and causing so much confusion and worry there. That's - I don't know - I don't understand that. And not seeming to care about my personal appearance or - And that's silly, because - well - I've never had a lot of clothes or anything, but I've always been clean and neat at least. (Laughs) I don't even find myself caring about that anymore

T25: You've sort of pulled away from a lot of the things, and a lot of the people, that used to have meaning for you.

C26: That's it; and – Well, nothing seems to have too much meaning. It seems - I don't know. It seems as if I'm sort'a experiencing things from the forefront of my consciousness, but nothing is sinking in very deep; and nothing I'm doing now or nothing I'm going through is - is very meaningful.


T26: M-hm. M-hm. Whatever goes on, it just doesn't have any really deep meaning for you.

C27: M-hm. And I - I don't see ahead at all now. I - in December my scholarship is over, and I will really need to go back to work, or do something. Well, I just don't see ahead. I'm not making any plans; and things that I could do I - I'm not doing. For instance, - Oh, about April, I guess - I had a letter from one of the teachers- one of the people at ___State College - which is one of our pretty good Negro Schools - and it was one I always thought (laughs) would be very nice to work at (laughs) - asked me if I would like to come - well that was just sort'a of fill in for some one away on leave - and at any other time that would have seemed like a brilliant opportunity - and I didn't even answer the letter. And I - then the worst thing, I suppose, in regard to that is I had an offer for a place at ____ University, the school I graduated from, in the personnel department. Well, it would be a pretty good job, but nothing exciting - but even so it's a job and - so at the beginning of the year I corresponded with the dean of women and wrote her a letter, and I finally just stopped writing altogether. And then I had a telegram from her just before this quarter, -during the summer - and asking me: "to let me know when you would be available, “ and all that sort of stuff. Well I reacted the same way I did when I got the letter from ___State College. I just - I got nervous and all up in the air about it; and so finally I decided I'd just sleep over it and answer it the next day. And then the next day I carried it around all day and decided that I just couldn't make up my mind. And so each day it became less and less important to answer. And I never did answer it. And - which means that when I - If I could think ahead and see it, when I decide to go back to work and get a job the best places there are to work I just won't be - no...

T27: You've really cut yourself off perhaps by the way you handled the correspondence and so on.

C28: Yes. That's what I can't understand.

T28: You've really been a puzzle to yourself in this sense.

C29: Why I certainly have. I didn't realize - I don't know whether - when I first came back in the fourth quarter, I didn't have any feelings. But as I look back now I was (Words lost) It seems to me everything looked so lovely and fine, and I was just happy to be here. I still - as I recall - I didn't do much work though. And it never occurred to me that I wasn't, for some strange reason.

T29: You were a little bit 'high' during that period but really not working very hard.

C30: No. I wasn't working and I wasn't aware of the fact that I wasn't... it never occurred to me, for instance, the physiology course that I took, well I just decided to take an R. Well I knew that was the course, everyone had told me that was one


we really needed. Well it never occurred to me to buckle down and do some work and pass the test. I - I - and even there I reviewed systematically - I started to - Oh, about four weeks before the end of the quarter - and reviewed very systematically, but I just didn't see how I could ever pass the course ...so I didn't take the test.

T30: You feel there you worked right up to the crucial point but then didn't do the last thing.

C31: And that - I think - Well it just isn't like me. I don't know. I've never - I've never thought I was brilliant at all; but I've always felt capable of doing schoolwork that I had to do. And I've always done it. I had some difficulty in college with math; and I didn't take any physical sciences; so I just probably didn't run into difficulty there. But, other than that I just accepted the fact that if I had work to do I would do it. And I did it.

T31: Up to this point you've really met your responsibilities.

C32: M-hm. (Pause) And right now it doesn't seem to me I could ever - It just doesn't seem I could ever assume responsibility for anything anymore.

T32: You feel it would be quite impossible to really take responsibility.

C33: And I haven't, - I don't know. I guess I haven't known what was happening to myself. I've known things weren't going right, but I haven't availed myself of the opportunities I could have had to do something about it.

T33: You haven't quite admitted the situation to yourself or made use of the resources that you might have.

C34: It just doesn't seem real to me. (Laughs) It seems (laughs) it just doesn't seem real. And I - I know that's bad to think of things happening and not - Well, I know what's going on. I know what's happening, but it just doesn't really seem that this is actually taking place.

T34: M-hm. You feel that what's happening just doesn't seem real, and you don't like to have that feeling.

C35: No. That worries me somewhat. I - all the time I was studying - I mean, I was supposed to be studying for my exam - I really never studied for my exams in a way that I should have studied or that I ordinarily would have studied, but each day I - if the week had passed someone would say we had five more weeks and I would realize it -I would look at the calendar and realize it - but it just didn't seem real (laughs)


T35: You knew it on one basis, but still it just didn't quite seem to sink in or have any meaning.

C36: That's it. And then - I don't know. It seems that - I don't know. When I'm - at times when I'm most composed - when I'm alone at night after the International House has sort’a quieted down and I know no one is going to knock on my door - if I wake up early in the morning before maids come around and start banging, and I know no one's going to come in, it seems that being completely alone and just being sure I'm not going to be disturbed, and knowing that I don't have to do anything, - for instance after eleven or twelve o'clock at night I know I couldn't be expected to write a letter home or answer telegrams being sent me; so that I just don't have anything that I feel responsible for, well then everything seems all right.

T36: During those times you are sure you're all alone and won't be disturbed, and sure that nobody could really expect you to take any responsibility, then things seem okay.

C37: M-hm. And (pause) - I just don't understand it. And it's - it's all so, - I don't know. It seems that I just don't know anything anymore.

T37: You just really don't know anything.

C38: M-hm. And the things that I haven't done I begin to feel sort'a guilty about them, and then I start avoiding people more.

T38: You feel guilty about what you haven't done, and it gives you more reason for avoiding the people that..

C39: Miss_____ is one of my advisors for my thesis topic I'm supposed to be selecting; and the first of the year when I came in --well, I'd never had a course under Miss___, but I've known people who had - everyone seems to like her, and I've been with her in little seminars and things, but not any class contacts; so I was so thrilled at the idea of working with her, and I went for the first two or three conferences; and we talked about things; and she gave me a lot of her time. And then pretty soon I just stopped going; and then I got to the point where I was just avoiding her, and hoping I wouldn't see her.

T39: M-hm. So that from feeling "My, what a fortunate chance to work with her", gradually to the point where you hoped you wouldn't see her.

C40: That's it. And I wasn't - and I seem to be withdrawing from everyone that I ought to be interested in.

T40: M-hm. You feel that you have pulled away from all the people it would be logical that you should be associating with.


C41: That's It. That's just what I'm doing. And then, I waste so much time. I can spend the whole afternoon doing absolutely nothing. And I waste time doing things I never bothered about before. Like, Oh, reading funny papers and following 'Lena the Hyena' and 'Little Abner'; and - oh, of course I've always read funny papers, but it never occurred to me to sit down and take time in the afternoon to read the evening news through and through and pay special attention to the funny paper. I can spend an hour reading the newspaper. After - well, usually I glance over it, see the head-lines, and read the main things; but then, even after I've done what I ordinarily do to a newspaper, then I can still spend an hour just finding some excuse not to get up.

T41: You can just find ways of putting in the time with the newspaper.

C42: Without doing things that I should be doing. And I remember in our - when we were preparing for our exams - we have a study group - four or five of us - and I would go to the group and sit up there - and they'd discuss something that I'd know was very important. For instance, something like (words lost) and I'd take notes on that and after a while put it all down so I just sat there (laughs).... (words lost)... I looked at him and thanked him, and told him that it was a good job; that he had really helped us a lot. But I didn't listen at all to what he was saying. I knew that was important. I just didn't listen.

T42: Felt your emotions were being appreciative, and so on; but you just weren't really there at all - as far as listening to him.

C43: That's it. I spent the whole summer that way. (Laughs) During this - I don't know whether I am just trying to -whether I know some of the things I do - I wonder if I know that it's probably the neurotic thing, so I'm doing it; and whether the problem's just that, or...

T43: Just can't tell whether you've been putting on a kind of behavior because you know that's just regarded as being neurotic. Is that it?

C44: That's what I would like to know really. Whether I'm - whether I'm just acting this out? I - I know that some - a lot of this is real; else I wouldn't be doing it. But on the other hand, it seems some things I do I just don't have any reason for doing and - or things I don't do. And now another thing I can't understand, how my personal habits have changed. For instance, I used to get up every morning about a quarter till seven, sometimes six-thirty or so, and take time getting dressed, and so start the day early. Well now I don't get up early in the mornings, I sleep till nine o'clock - ten o'clock sometimes. And if I have a whole morning I don't do anything about it. I probably don't get started to work till around the o'clock.

T44: Really you used to be able to get organized and going early in the morning, and now all that is changed.


C45: It just seems like I'm a different person altogether. None of it - it doesn't seem that any of the things that I really think is sort of important are things that I've been doing. I don't know whether I've - maybe I haven't been awfully sincere about what I thought was important, and I just didn't believe in them anyway.

T45: That is, you haven't been doing things that you've been in the habit of saying were important to you, and that has made you wonder whether were those aims and goals really sincere goals.

C46: And that's why I've been wondering in a way about - it seems that schools were - at least it seems to me -such a perfect opportunity to go ahead and do something which I had been wanting to do for a long time. And there's nothing standing in the way of my doing it as far as I can see. And really what I have done here I could put together in two or three minutes.

T46: Here was the chance that you've been looking for for a long time and had a chance to do a very significant job, and actually what you have done could have been turned out -

C47: (Laughs)

T47: You've really been going backwards rather than forwards.

C48: That's it exactly. (Pause) Really I do. I just don't know. It seems - What I mean to - I need more initiative about doing things. I don't know.

T48: Sometimes you can't find motivation - or something.

C49: That's what I mean, I'm sure. (Pause) And I know what I ought to do, but I don't seem to be doing it.

T49: You can see the things that should be done, but just not doing them.

C50: M-hm. I - another thing that sounds sort'a silly - but I don't think that - actually the same thing emotionally is - whether the things I would feel glad and joyful about are passed away and things I ought'a feel shame and regret about pass away gradually, and I just don't have any emotional attachment to them.

T50: Really don't respond to the situations -

C51: Now the business not writing home. I knew just how much worry that was causing them at home over a period of a long time, and then when my mother came to see me I talked with her about everything else. I wouldn't even let her know that I - (laughs) - and I mean, she's most understanding; and once or twice she could tell I was worried about something; and so she sort'a tried to get me to


talking, and I just asked about people at home and what the things were during the summer, and when she was going back. And I could tell that she was - I mean, she didn't go around looking sad and unhappy, or anything, but I could tell that she was. And any other time that would have been awfully important to me. But it didn't seem so important to me at the time.

T51: You felt you kept the relationship on a pretty surface basis even when you knew she was concerned about things; and even the fact that she was concerned didn't bother you the way-

C52: Not anymore than anything else did. And when she came, she suggested that we call my father that evening. He hadn't heard from me for so long he didn't know just what had happened. And I just wouldn't call him. And first, I just openly refused, and I saw that really upset her a little, you know. I - I was making excuses. I said, 'Well, if we use this telephone upstairs, it's so public, --- and that we should go downstairs to the telephone booth. And - so then we went downstairs; and that meant that she had to get dressed - she was undressed and ready for bed. Well, ordinarily, I wouldn't have been interested to that extent. And - well there I sat busy with so many things while she got dressed and went down-stairs; and my father had gone out; so we couldn't get him - and it was such a relief for me not to hear his voice over the telephone.

T52: Felt again you went through the motions, and put through the call; but you really didn't want to hear him and was glad he wasn't home.

C53: That's right. It really was. And I didn't go home between quarters. I didn't tell them I wasn't coming home; and they expected me all the time. And I had the money to go. My father mentioned that he would send me railroad fare to come home. He knew I should have the money, but when I didn't come said, 'Should I send the railroad fare?” And I just didn't answer their letter.

T53: Didn't make any move toward going home.

C54: No. Well I started for - let me see. For two or three days I kept thinking, "I will pack tomorrow. And I had my trunks sent up from the basement. Then I decided that was silly. I wouldn't take a trunk home. I left it out in the hall for several days. then I got my suitcases out. And each day - "Well, I'll pack tomorrow afternoon." And I never did get packed. And then, we could stay in our rooms till about Tuesday without paying for the extra time in the spring quarter; so I said, "Well, I'll go home Tuesday then." And I got the money out of the bursar's office for my railroad fare, and kept it in my purse so I could get my ticket out of my allowances. And so Tuesday I didn't go home, and said, "Well, I'll just save that extra money and keep it for on the spring quarter." So that was that. And. then, all of a sudden I - about four days later I just decided - I worried about it a long time - and then I said that "I'm not going home." So after that I just didn't -- worry about it anymore- about going home. And then I'd told everyone I was going


home (Laughs); so I kept out of sight and didn't see anybody, and let people think I had gone home.

T54: First you thought you would; then you decided you wouldn't. Then you had to avoid people because they thought you were going home. Time's about up, isn't it? Would you like to- Monday and Friday is all -

C55: Well, Monday and Friday I just have one class; so either one of those -

T55: One-thirty Monday?

C56: My class is one-thirty to two-thirty.

T56: Well okay then; how about two-thirty?

C57: That'll be very good.

T57: You'll be in on Monday



The case of Miss VIB (Circa 1946-48)Second Interview(Seven days later)

T59: Let's pull your chair a little closer.

C59: All right. Thank you.

T60: All right; do you want to go ahead?

C60: Well let me see. I think - I - Last time I went away with a feeling of being somewhat relieved from one thing that came up at least; and that was the way I had acted over the September holidays when I didn't go home at all, and didn't do anything but really stay in my room and sort 'a hide from people. And when I - I was worried about that, because that seemed quite abnormal to me. And then I got the idea from our conference that maybe it was a matter of guilt feeling - I 'd told everyone I was going home - and it was to cover up so as not to have to make explanations. At least that gave me a more normal reason for staying hidden, as I did, almost, but I don't know.

T61: You feel somewhat less abnormal and more just the result of the guilt feeling that you felt because you had told people you were going home. Does that seem it?

C61: That's the way I felt about it. I - I still don't think it is a thing I ordinarily would have done; and…

T62: Something very different from you.

C62: Yes; it does. It really does. And I still have a feeling about it. In fact the whole year I haven't gotten anywhere. I haven't accomplished anything in the whole nine- ten months now. The time has passed and I just haven't been getting anything done.

T63: You've had a pretty wasted year.

C63: That's absolutely the way I feel. Well, I think the way you put it - and a year has gone by - always it seems that I have been able to see where I was going, and what I was doing, but it looks like this has been one year that has been without

14Rogers’ Transcripts, Volume 6, VIB Session 2, page 14

direction at all. It just seems to have gone on from day to day, and without any real aim or anything at all.

T64: It just drifted along without any compass.

C64: M-hm. And the thing that seems so appalling is that I should choose this year of all years to be drifting. (Laughing). I haven’t – why I haven’t had the opportunity to do graduate work without – I wouldn’t have had the opportunity without the scholarship; and when I did get the scholarship, and it seemed like the thing I wanted most – and I was so happy too – and why I would choose this year to be drifting along so long is something that appalls me.

T65: You're puzzled as to why the very year when everything should be just right you would choose to have a year of drifting.

C65: That' s what it seems. I- Oh, I haven’t done anything awfully important during the years – I mean, just working along at jobs that weren’t paying very much; but at least I worked, and did my work, and so on; and before that, going to school, - and I got through school all right; so that always before it seems to me I’ve been going along in – at least, thinking I had some goal and some aim, and some reason to keep on doing things that were important. But that’s just sort’a fallen away, and I don’t know what it is. At least it seems now that I don’t know.

T66: Before you had a reason for doing things and now the reasons for doing things and now the reasons for doing things seem to have kind’a dropped away.

C67: M-hm. That is it. It seems to me that just the passing of time – just letting time pass – is important. As I get up in the morning it’s good when it is finally twelve, and then after twelve it is good when it’s finally six, and then it is good when it is finally time to go to bed.

T67: Mhm. You really feel pleased that another hour has gone by.

C67: M-hm. That's it.

T68: One more hour over with, is that it?

C68: That's the way that it seems it's been. (Pause) I don't know. Let me see - when I first started – well, realizing that I wasn't doing much, and I wasn't getting anywhere, it seemed for awhile that every time I had a letter from one of my brothers and sisters from home that it was some bad news. At first my youngest sister – the youngest of the girls – she was in school in W_______ - and she was in her third year, I guess; and she was majoring in art, and apparently doing quite well in her art classes, but not doing too well in other things, and we thought at the time the best thing for her to do was to be to go ahead and try to get her liberal arts’ background, and then maybe go ahead to another school. Well, I suppose


that would have been best for her to do would be to work – to take a couple of courses in commercial art or something, and try to get some sort of an unimportant job. As it was we just just tried to get her through college. Well, first I got a letter from her saying she was being put out of school. And she didn’t know – she just wasn’t passing her courses. Well, she was upset about it but she wasn’t despondent or too much abnormally worried about it. And then I had an older brother who was at C___. And a little bit later he was taking exams. And I don’t know just how – they have a little bit different system from ours here. I don’t know what they call their exams, maybe ‘qualifying exams’ or something. Well, I got a letter from him a little bit later that he had not passed. Well, he had found that he needed an extra year’s work. What they do is, they give a fellow a sort of diagnostic exam and tell you how much work you need. Well, it seemed that as long as I knew that my brothers and sisters were doing well, and other people were getting along, going along all right, I had something to sort’a hold to, but that was – I shouldn’t have – I mean, I’ve had bad news before that – and – well, that was discouraging. Well, then my other sister who is married doesn’t get along too well with her husband. Well, I mean, she won’t do well with him and she won’t do well without him. (Laughing) I think she gets along better when she’s just to herself. But periodically she gets upset about things. So she wrote me one of her discouraging letters about she was about at the end of her rope. Well, she does that periodically. But nothing that we can do would make her leave him and they try living under different arrangements. So that’s something to worry about. Well, it seemed that one night after another one of my brothers or sisters had something – something had sort’a a – well they haven’t let me down – they weren’t under obligation to me – but they had, well, fallen from grace somehow; and each….

T69: And things went sort’a bad for each one. It somehow made you feel you had nothing to hang on to. Is that it?

C69: That was the feeling I had in a way. That I just had nothing to hang on to, and – well, just nothing to hang on to.

T70: M-hm. Somehow they weren’t getting along and it hardly seemed worthwhile for you to go on. Is that it?

C70: That I - I think that was it. I – it – if they weren’t getting on, how could I expect to do well myself?

T71: M-hm. M-hm. They weren’t too successful in their work or their relationships. How could you expect to be?

C71: That’s part of it, I think; that I just decided that – I don’t know, but it seems as if our family as a whole was just not going to accomplish a great deal, and that if


they – if things were falling apart bit by bit, the next thing (laughing) was for me to fall apart a little bit too.

T72: It seemed as if it was evidence that your family really couldn't get places; and you were part of the family, and you probably would not get places either.

C72: Yes, that's what it seems. It seemed like there was just some sort of block – that we could get so far and probably not get much farther. (Pause) It seems a mystery to me how I could sit around here a whole year now - this is the fourth quarter - and could have done as little as I have. I just haven't done anything I can see up to this point. And it doesn't seem - well - it just doesn't seem real. I - I shouldn’t think that aren't real but it just doesn't seem real.

T73: You can't see how you could have accomplished so little; and I take it the whole year just doesn't sound like a real experience, even though you don't quite like to put it that way.

C73: Though I don't like to say that I don't - I mean that things are - well. - not thinking rationally and soundly. But it just doesn't seem that I've lived through a whole year, and not done anymore than I have.

T74: It seems really that it isn't really possible that that much time could have gone by, and so little to show for it.

C74: M-hm. I suppose - I don't - and perhaps if I had chosen courses differently, but even so, as I look back now, probably in different courses I would have done the same thing.

T75: M-hm

C75: I don't know that I would have done much more in different courses.

T76: M-hm.

C76: I probably would have - well, first, I had physio1ogy and neurology – science courses. And if I had had a reading course I'd probably, done little or nothing. I could go through the motions of reading and still not see too much.

T77: You don't really think that it was the courses that are at the bottom of yoursituation.

C77: I don't think so. I think - well, the first quarter when I first came back I was in a little bit of a different state. I was quite sure I was going to get things done, and I was quite happy about everything. And so it wasn't a matter of being depressed, or feeling aimless, Or feeling lost, or hopeless. And I can understand this attitude.


http://oor.io/

I mean, it seems logical at the time that the actions I had at the first of the year when I was apparently - I mean, I was - I thought I was all right; but I still - as I look back - I didn't study a bit.

T78: Then it 's really easier for you to understand the present situation than it is to see how you could have felt so confident and assured earlier and still didn't get much done. Is that t?

C78: That's right. I think so. (Pause) And another thing that seems silly to me is that when I hear other people talking about how much they accomplish and how much they got done, it makes me feel awfully incompetent. If someone else comes in the apartment and says, Oh I just finished writing a paper; well, I feel terribly incompetent, when I have the same amount of time, I could do just as many papers as anyone else, if I would just sit down and do them.

T79: Then you feel that your achievement has been awfully poor in comparison with others.

C79: M-hm. (Long pause) I’m still not making plans for next quarter, or for, next year at all either. And that's not like me. And of course I shouldn't give you the impression that I've always led a very well ordered life. I never have been awfully systematic about things, but I've gone on from year to year knowing that I was going to do from one year to the next, and at least managing my own affairs and taking some responsibility for other people for that matter.

T80: M-hm. There is a very real difference between the way you handled your affairs in the past and the way you fail to plan ahead and look forward at the present time.

C80: M-hm. It 's a real difference. (Long pause) I don't know whether - I don't know whether the ideas I have - it seems to me when my mother was here she reminded me of one thing that I used to say a lot - that I’m getting old so fast. It seemed to me that I expected by the time I was thirty - and I'll be thirty in December – that I would have - my life would be sort’ a settled into a pattern, and I thought I’d be through shuffling along and trying to attain something. And as it is, the older I get the less organized things seem to be.

T81: M-hm. It seems disappointing to still be working toward attempts to do things, when you had thought you 'd really be attaining it.

C81: Thought I'd be sort’ a settled in whatever life's work I was going to take on - (Laughs) - marriage or whatever it might be by this time.

T82: M-hm.


C82: But I- I don’t know. (Pause) Maybe that business of - well expecting things to be sort’ a settled by 28 or 29 or 30 (Laughing), and still finding that – I mean, always going on – or at least I’m still going on trying to get sort’ a settled. And apparently I’m not getting any closer to the goal – and it had sort’ a taken the starch out of me.

T83: M-hm. It’s just the gradual realization that you are not as far toward the goal as you hoped. Is that it?

C83: M-hm.

T84: Sort’ a knocked the props out from under you.

C84: I think that’s it. And sometimes I think I should have gone, taken a technical course of some kind, or something like nurse’s training, or some other course that would be terminal in itself and would be training, and I could get out and work at a job that was physical labor and that was – that would have me weary at night time and be finished with everything, and get up the next morning and go back to work, and have a set pattern and be through with things. I’ve wondered if that isn’t the kind of thing I should have done.

T85: You have quite a little attraction to work that wouldn’t take so long in training and that would be more definite during the time when you were doing it.

C85: M-hm.

T86: Know when you began and know when you’re through.

C86: Yes. And I would see definitely something – well, I mean, I’d know what I was doing each day. I’d see definitely something – well, I mean, I’d know what I was doing each day. I’d see definitely some results each day. And I think – I don’t know. I sometimes think that’s the kind of thing I should have done, instead of going along gradually.

T87: Think maybe it was a mistake instead to pick the educational path which you did.

C87: I’ve wondered. I think it might have been. It seems to me I – well, I just hate to say that I couldn’t go ahead in graduate school, but I sometimes wonder if I probably wouldn’t have been more satisfied if I had just, oh, finished high school maybe, and married some boy at home, and settled down, and got a job in a – in some very cut and dried situation and let it go at that.

T88: That really maybe a simpler goal would have been more satisfying.


C88: I think so. If I – If I could have been satisfied with a simpler goal I think I would have been happier. The thing is I don’t know whether I could have been satisfied with a simpler goal! (Laughing)

T89: And then that raises the question whether you could have really chosen a simpler goal; and you’re not sure that you would have been satisfied with the idea of having that goal.

C89: That's it. I probably wouldn't have (Laughing) now. And yet I don't know maybe I'm one of those people who never would be happy anyway (Laughing). Because If I'd had a simpler goal I might have gotten along all right and always felt why didn't I go ahead and do this and that.

T90: M-hm.

C90: As it is I seem to be trying to push myself into something that I'm just not letting myself be pushed into at this stage.

C91: That is that you feel that on the one hand you're trying to push yourself into this program, and at the same time you yourself are avoiding being pushed into it. Is that it?

C91: That's what it feels like to me. I can't see any other explanation of it.

T92: Pulling both ways within yourself.

C92: It - it must - it seams - it is a pulling, because I'm just not letting myself on one hand go ahead with things I - one part of me seems to be saying, Go ahead and do, and the other seems to be saying, Not. And the Not is triumphant at this point. I'm just acquiescent.

T93: M-hm. Part of yourself that says, “No, I don't wish to go into this,” is the part that at the present time [is] really governing your life…

C93: That's it. I seem to be in sort of negative stage where nothing is really accomplished at, all. And I don't know how long this can go on, or where it’s going to lead. (Pause)

T94: It's hard to know what the outcome will be.

C94: I have one sister at home, the sister that is just next to me, who studied dietetics and trained to be a dietician. And she came here to Chicago when I was here three years ago - I was here for a while then - and worked. And it was hard work. She worked at a rather small hospital. But she got along very well and apparently enjoyed the work; although it was really quite hard. She had terrible hours and


everything. So finally one day she just gave up the work and stopped work, and came home. And she hasn't worked since. (Laughs) And she's quite happy. And she goes to the "Y” and works with the young people’s group and does a few things like that, but she just hasn't worked anymore. I don't know whether she just isn't ever going to work again or not. Well, that isn't the kind of thing I want to do. I mean, I don't want to give up entirely trying to cope with the world. She hasn't given up trying to cope with the world at all, because , I mean, she is not in any sort the same that I am at all. She - she just gave up her job.

T95: M-hm.

C95: But otherwise she does whatever she wants to do. But it seems to me now that if I give up and go home now, I will just develop into one of those sort of people inyour family that you keep sort’ a hidden in the background, or something. And… I mean, I don’t see any reason why I should do that. But I don't see anything else for me. If I - if I obeyed what I feel like doing, and just stopped trying anything altogether and just gave up, I'd just go home and - not that I think home is the best place to go, but I don't know anywhere else I could go (Laughing), - and just stop seeing people and just stop bothering altogether.

C96: If you really did what you feel like doing you'd just feel like giving up and not bothering with people or anything.

T96: M-hm. That's the way I feel. (Pause) I know that at the dormitory we sometimes go downstairs in the Lounge in the evening. Go down and talk, or play cards or something. But I used to do that fairly often, and now I never go down and when I go down I don't stop to talk to people very much, and - unless it’s someone I happen to know. For some reason I seem to [be] different - to have gotten to know a lot of people when I first moved into the dorm - and they are still there; so I know a lot of people, but otherwise the acquaintances I've made over this quarter are - this quarter I just haven't met anyone. I've just not tried. And some of the kids who knew me first last quarter, or the quarter before that - often say, Alice, you don't ever come downstairs, or, why don't you come sit in the Lounge occasionally? (Laughs) And I tell them I'm busy. Why, I'm not really busy. I'm just sitting up in my room. And yet, once in a while, if I sort'a force myself to go out among people I feel more natural.

T97: M-hm. M-hm. On the one hand you feel that you just don't care to make an effort to make contacts with people or even keep up your contacts with people...

C97: M-hm.

T98: And yet when you do you feel somehow better or more natural, or something.


C98: Yes; I do. (Pause) And it keeps surprising me too that people haven’t noticed more of a change in me.

T99: M-hm.

C99: I don't know though some kids tell me that I don't seem quite as friendly as I did at first, or something like that. Just a few have told me that. But the other people who seem to - who were fairly close to me just don't notice any change, or they don't act as if they notice any change. And it seams to me that if I were as - I mean, if I had a friend who was just withdrawing and uncooperative as I've been that I'd just sort 'a leave them alone, or else try to find out what was wrong with them. (Laughing)

T100: M-hm.

C100: And that surprised me. I don't know whether it pleases me or displeases me.

T101: M-hm. It is quite surprising that they haven't noticed more of a change which to you is fairly significant.

C101: That's it. It And I don't know whether it's I'm sure - I mean the process has been cumulative over three years, and not just taken place one quarter. But even so, I mean it's - I think a great, or at least significant changes have occurred.

T102: M-hm. And you feel basically it may be a slow or cumulative thing; but that the sharper changes have taken place rather recently.

C102: I think so. (Long pause) It seems - I don't know - It probably goes all the way back into my childhood. I've - for some reason I've - my mother told me that I was the pet of my father. Although I never realized it - I mean, they never treated me as a pet at all. And other people always seemed to think I was sort of a privileged one in the family. But I never had any reason to think so. And as far as I can see looking back on it now it just that the family let the other kids get away with more than they usually did me. And it seems for some reason to have held me to a more rigid standard than they did the other children.

T103: You're not so sure you were a pet in any sense, but more that the family situation seemed to hold you to pretty high standards.

C103: M-hm. That's just what has occurred to me; and that the other people could sort 'a make mistakes, or do things as children that were naughty, or that was just a boyish prank, or that was just what you might expect, but Alice wasn't supposed to do those things.

T104: M-hm. With somebody else it would just be just - Oh be a little naughtiness; but as far as you were concerned, it shouldn't be done.


C104: That's really the idea I've had. I think- the whole business of my standards, or my values, is one that I need to think about rather carefully, since I've been doubting for a long time whether I even have any sincere ones.

T105: M-hm. Not sure whether you really have any deep values which you are sure of.

C105: M-hm. M-hm.

T106: You've been doubting that for some time.

C106: Well, I've experienced that before. Though one thing, when I make decisions I don't have - I don't think. It seems that some people have - have quite steady values that they can weigh things against when they want to make a decision. Well, I don't, and I haven't had, a I guess I'm an opportunist (Laughing.) I do what seems to be the best thing to do at the moment, and let it go at that.

T107: You have no certain measuring rods that you can use.

C107: Yes. M-hm. That's what I feel. (Pause) Is our time about [up], Mr. L_____?

T108: Well, I think there are several minutes more.

C108: I was thinking about this business of standards. I somehow developed a sort of knack, I guess, of - well -habit - of trying to make people feel at ease around me, or to make things go along snooth1y. I don't know whether that goes back to early childhood, or - I mean, to our family situation where there was a large family and so many differences of opinion and all that there always had to be some appeaser around (Laughing) and seeing into the reasons for disagreeing and being sort 'a the oil that soothed the waters. Well, that is a role that I have taken for a long time. And - I - it's gotten so it really - I mean, before this sort of things came up I realized that as a person in a social situation I could go into a social situation or group of people like at - Oh at a small meeting, or a little party, or something - and I could help things to go along nicely and appear to be having a good time. And I'd see where someone else needed more punch, or where someone didn't have a partner, or where somebody was bored with that person, and something - somebody was standing in a corner, and I could go out and meet them. And sometimes I'd surprise myself by arguing against what I really thought when I saw that the person in charge would be quite unhappy about it. In other words I just wasn't ever - I mean I didn't find myself ever being set and definite about things. I could see what I thought was needed in the situation and what was the idea I thought might be interjected to make people feel happy, and I'd do that.

T109: In other words, what you did was always in the direction of trying to keep things smooth and to make other people feel better and to smooth the situation.


C109: Yes. I think what it was. Now the reason why I did it probably was - I mean, not that I was a good little Samaritan going around making other people happy, but that was probably the role that felt easiest for me to play. I'd been doing it around home so much. I'd - just didn't stand up for my own convictions, until I don't know whether I have any convictions to stand up for.

T110: You feel that for a long time you've been playing the role of kind of smoothing out the frictions or differences or what not...

C110: M-hm.

T111: Rather than having any opinion or reaction of your own in the situation. Is that it?

C111: That's it. Or that I haven't been really honestly being myself or actually knowing what my real self is, and that I've been just playing a sort of false role. Whateverrole no one else was playing, and that needed to be played at the time I'd try to fill it in.

T112: Whatever kind of person that was needed to kind'a help out that situation you'd be that kind of person rather than being anything original or deeply your own.

C112: I think so. I remember one summer. We used to go to YWCA camp in the summers. And our family lived way out near the edge of town. We went with the school groups that went at a certain time during the summer. Well, we didn't know those children very well, because we didn't see them except on Sundays when we went to church. So going to camp wasn't an awfully satisfying experience because I felt quite strange among the children. Well this summer - I'd been to camp once before - and I think I'd decided that I was going to be one of the popular girls at camp. So I went to camp with these children that I didn't know too well. And I don't remember what I did that summer; but any way, I came home voted the most popular camper. What I do remember though is when I got ready to go to camp I - and I don't know how old I was then - I was not 13, I don't suppose; maybe 12 or 13, I don't know quite how old - I just decided I was going to be the most popular girl at camp. So I went to camp with that decision, and I did the thing that needed to be done. Whatever they were I'm sure I don't - I mean, it was probably a lot of drudgery too: like making other people's beds and doing other things like that, I'm sure. But anyway I went through a set campaign and came home and was actually chosen the most popular girl at camp (Laughing) And it seems that what I've done is do things 1ike that instead of developing a real self.

T113: In other words it's been kind of a planful campaign in each case rather than because you really felt that way or really wanted to be that kind of person. Is that it?


C113: Well, yes. I think so. It seems that it's more - that it's not realistic, or it's not honest, or not, it’s not sincere, maybe…

T114: There's something a little bit false somehow about it.

C114: M-hm. M-hm.

T115: I guess our time is up for today. And - would you like to came in Monday?

C115: I think I'd like to, if I may.

T116: Let me see - I think - How about 2:30 Monday?

C116: That would be fine.

T117: O.K



The Case of Miss VIB [circa 1946-48]Third Interview

T118: Want to pull your chair a little bit closer?

C118: All right. Could you- can you hear my talking at all? I don’t know whether I should be loud or not.

T119: You have a rather soft voice – but it comes through.

C119: I called home last night and talked to my mother and father which was --- I guess it’s (something covered by laughter.) I sound silly. I mean, it’s such an easy thing to do, and yet I kept putting it off so long, or they’ve been wanting to talk to me so long, I –

T120: You felt that even though it is such a little thing, maybe it means something significant because you have put it off so much, is that it?

C120: I think maybe so, I – I don’t know, but it’s – could be. Now that I look back on it I wonder why didn’t I weeks and weeks ago. But at least I finally went ahead and did it. And- I don’t know why I just wouldn’t call.

T121: It’s hard to see why it seemed difficult at the time.

C121:There shouldn't have been any - I mean, there's no reason why it should be difficult to do, and yet I don't -- I just wouldn't do it. Even when my mother was here she suggested I call and talk with my father, and I just couldn't seem to make myse1f do it. And they haven't said anything, I mean, anything to me that should make me want to stop writing or talking to them. And over the phone I could tell my father was being so careful not to say anything - (laughter) - anything that would give me cause for feeling unhappy, or - or even cause to repeat not writing for such a long time.

T122: You were just sure he was trying to make things smooth and trying to avoid upsetting you, is that --?

C122: I'm sure he was. And I’m sure he was sincere too – with what I think he really meant – that he didn’t – that it really didn’t matter that I had not done – how long I had not written or anything. He didn’t even bring up the subject at all. It’s – what it appears to me is that everyone else is willing to go ahead, if I would just do it myself. It seems that people still expect me to function at an adequate level


and they’re willing to give me every bit of cooperation in doing it.

T123: You feel that both your family and your friends, and all, are really accepting of you as a person that is able to function, and if you can decide to function, that’s the question.

C123: M-hm. That seems to be it. And it seems to me now, if I could start from today, just going on, things would be all right. But I- I still have that awful – I can’t start from today. I have to take into account – I mean, I have to, oh, do things I have left undone and undo things I have done over the past year or so. And – m-hm.

T124: So that if you could begin to more right ahead today, why, probably that would work, but you know there are lots of reasons why that is hardly feasible.

C124: M-hm. I guess that’s it. I don’t have the – today at least, right now – I don’t right at the moment, or today, anyway, I haven’t felt so hopeless about things.

T125: At least today things don’t look quite as bleak or futile.

C125: No, (Pause) It still seems that I have an awful lot to do to get things straightened out. And there’s one thing that really concerns me and that is whether I should try to stay in school and go ahead or whether I should give up going to school.

T126: You feel there’s so many things to be straightened out, if you were to move ahead; it makes you wonder if you should try to move ahead with your school work, or whether you should drop it for the time being, is that it?

C126: And it seems to me that if I – I don’t know, - if I drop it now, I probably never will come back. (Pause) But if I go ahead – I don’t know – there’s not only the time element, - it seems like it would take me two or three quarters to straighten out what I have done; and then there’s the fact of money. It would be difficult, and I couldn’t get over feeling that it was wasted, almost, because I would have to waste the money that I have wasted, these other two or three quarters getting nowhere, or getting involved in such matters. (Pause)

T127: It would take a long time to get things straightened out and that would be expensive and so on, and that would give you concern. (Pause)

C127: And then I begin to think about it – I don’t see ... I’m sure I would never be quite happy – or maybe I would be if I could readjust my thinking, to just drop everything, to begin to do nothing at this point, or I mean, to take a job somewhere, where I could get a job –

T128: That side of the picture doesn’t look very satisfying to you either, if you just dropped everything, and tried to get a job, that doesn’t look too good, is that it?


C128: M-hm. And then, I do feel that if I could get a job that I would enjoy, I might like that. But the thing is, I don’t know what sort of job I’d get, what job I could get.

T129: M-hm.

C129: And then, even if I did get a job that I liked, it seems to me one of the things that I’m going to have to face in the next two or three or four years – is always – no always – is the feeling of regret, - but maybe I’ll get over it – a feeling of sort of remorse at the way things have gone along this year and so on.

T130: You feel you’d always, or at least for a long time, be pretty likely to feel – well, guilty, or a little remorseful at the – how little had happened this last year.

C130: I think so. I don’t know how important it’s going to be; sometimes it seems awfully significant and other times I’m not so concerned about it, but whatever happens, it seems to me I’ll always, I’ll always feel that things – if I had behaved differently I could have gotten my work all right.

T131: You’ll always kind of carry that load of responsibility with you for not having somehow handled yourself differently.

C131: M-hm. I think I will. (Pause) And now time seems to be getting away sort of rapidly. Well, this quarter is well on the way and if I do the things I should do in my classes this quarter, I’m not going to have much time to make up incompletes from last quarter, do the things I should have done last quarter.

T132: You feel that if you just keep up with your current responsibilities, you’ll be doing pretty well.

C132: M-hm. That’s what it seems to be. (Pause) I don’t know – Will it be possible for me to see the – to hear about the Rorschach test that I took, do you think? Or is that good practice?

T133: Well, - I don’t know. That might be – I haven’t seen it, they’re filed away, I don’t know anything about it myself.

C133: M-hm.

T134: You sort of felt that you’d like to know about the Rorschach, is that ---?

C134: I did – I – I just wondered how it would score – I mean, how my responses would fall. It would – I don’t know whether you do that with Rorschachs – do you discuss them with the person, or –

T135: Well, we haven’t used them except for research purposes-


C135: Oh, I see.

T136: But there are, if you mean is it possible to discuss the finding with the person, yes it is.

C136: Probably wouldn’t be any help. (Pause)

T137: Just a little curious to know what your responses look like to someone else, is that it?

C137: I thought I’d like to see them, if it’s done, generally. If it’s not, it doesn’t really matter. – if it’s not being used that way at all. I’m not in any state of anxiety to see it.

T138: Well, we – frankly we aren’t doing anything with them yet, except filing them away. Just part of a research project, on which we may get to work after a time.

C138: I don’t think I did very full responses on the T.A.T. I was getting sort of tired, I didn’t give all the leadings up to the outcome and all that.

T139: You felt you were getting kind of worn down by the time you were getting through those. (Laughter)

S139: I think so. I might have done more at another time. (Pause) I don’t know how I’m – whether I’m getting to the stage of insight into my situation. I – I – I think my feeling about it – it seems that a little bit – that since I’m coming here I haven’t had such an awfully – at least right now today, I don’t have such a sincere feeling that I’m practically losing my mind, or something like that, as I did.

T140: That is, for a time you really felt you were pretty abnormal, but you don’t feel that way quite so much at the present time, is that… ?

C140: M-hm. (Pause) I think that worrying about that probably made me be not as effective as I might have been.

T141: You feel that being fearful that you were losing your mind would make you less efficient in your work than would be the case otherwise.

C141: I think it did. I think it did. Although I don’t feel quite that strongly now. I still have a sort of feeling of amazement, or something, that it has all taken place anyway though.

T142: You can’t quite conceive of all those things happening to you.

C142: And I don’t know whether I’m getting any greater understanding of what’s happened or not … what’s happening.


T143: You’re really not sure that you’ve gone into it enough yet to really get any, much deeper understanding of it.

C143: M-hm. It’s – I talk about it – it seems. And I don’t know what the next step is. Maybe I haven’t thought deeply enough about it.

T144: Pretty hard to know where to go from here. Whether to go deeper or not.

C144: (Chuckles) (Pause). One thing that – I remember when I talked to Prof. ______ about my examinations. We talked about the physiology part, and he said something that sounded so, well, intelligent – he said, it wasn’t a matter of miracles, passing a test, and that the failure in physiology was probably something that – I just didn’t know enough physiology, that’s all. Those weren’t his words, actually his only words were the miracle idea. Well, that struck me quite – really – because it seems to me I’ve gotten out, though so many places – well, I’ve never had the idea of miracles happening at all, but I mean, if something is supposed to happen it just happens and – how the – and the mechanism or way by which it happens I’m – I haven’t gone into very fully. Thinking back to college. I studied and all, but – it’s I mean, it seems to me there have been so many times when I had a particularly difficult thing to do and – or something was coming up that I wasn’t quite prepared for, didn’t feel prepared for, the situation was coming fast, and I would find that things would work out, and I wonder if I had – I mean, if that sort of began to make me think everything was coming, that I’d have to face, would come out all right.

T145: You feel you’ve had so many experiences in the past where without too much thought or planfulness on your part things have worked out, and maybe you’ve gotten to the point of just a little bit expecting miracles without getting into the causes of things, or without being too concerned about the planning, is that…?

C145: I think so. That’s – I thought about that a lot after he said that, and it’s proven that – well, when I look back on it, that’s the way things have happened so many times for me. And I – I don’t know, but I have started building up the idea that whatever obstacles I had to face, whatever I had to meet would be miraculously met somehow. But it seems to me that’s one thing I’ve done.

T146: You sort of feel that without really intending to you have kind of come to depend on miracles.

C146: M-hm. I think I have. (laugh) Looking back for instance on things like – well, like going all the way back for instance to Latin or one of those subjects I liked a lot in high school – in college I took Latin again too – Well, I can remember whole, almost whole terms in high school when I never did any Latin homework. I could- that was after we came to reading and I could read at sight quite well, and somehow I could always tell just before I was called on – just the part I’d look


over quickly and I’d do it. Well, in college I did the same thing quite a lot – if I had time I did my homework, but if not, I didn’t bother to translate, and somehow I’d – it would – I’d happen to get a part that I could translate at sight, or else I would get some kind of little warning beforehand, and read it quickly before I was called on.

T147: You felt that either the fates were pretty good to you, or you got some kind of advance warning so you could tell what was coming and be a little bit prepared for it.

C147: M-hm. There wasn’t anything supernatural at all – in high school the teacher would go around from one to the next. Well, I would know – I could always judge about how much each person was going to read and read ahead two or three paragraphs to my part – my college Latin teacher would always look at a person for a second or two before calling on them, and if we would get a part we wanted a call on, we would look at her significantly – well, it was things like that that somehow got me through. And I remember in tests I was fortunate often – well, it didn’t happen that way all the time, that would be silly even to suppose – but if there were two or three outside readings and I would read one, that would be the one that would be on the test – well, I knew enough to manage. I don’t think I was – as I look back on it, I didn’t consciously depend on my luck to get me by things but somehow I usually managed to get through all right. So I think that some other things that I have done – it isn’t that I haven’t worked, I always have. But – I think I’ve always sort of felt that somehow I’d get through.

T148: You have worked but you’ve also had some pretty good breaks in luck and so on in seeing you through different tough spots.

C148: I think so. (Long pause) But I – even through all that – I’ve always spent my time more effectively than I have now.

T149: That doesn’t explain the fact that you recently have been pretty ineffective, is that what you mean?

C149: M-hm. I don’t think it does. It’s – I suppose it’s a related factor – it might explain part of my difficulty, but the thing that seems to have been the biggest difficulty was using my time efficiently. I was just not using it efficiently at all, that’s just what I haven’t done. And not seeing ahead what the consequences would be if I didn’t use my time efficiently, just like before.

T150: The problem of time has been a pretty important one recently.

C150: M-hm. It seems to be. (Pause) And the – I should think I would have had every reason to go right ahead. I can see that I might have been a little more intelligent in the choice of courses and things of that kind, but even so with the courses that I did take if I kept up outside readings and so on, I could have done better than I


did. I don’t understand it. When I look around and see that in the time I’ve been here, some people have finished the Masters degree in S___ or some other field, or people have done other things, done a complete unit of work, started it and finished it and gone away about their business – it just seems incredible.

T151: When you see people that have really completed something they’ve started it just doesn’t seem possible.

C151: M-hm. Makes me feel I’m just sitting and wasting time.

T152: You’ve just stopped.

C152: M-hm. That’s the way it seems. I don’t know now – the way I begin to do things – when I decided to call home Saturday evening, I thought, well, if I start thinking about it. – I’d been thinking about it for weeks, but then I felt quite favorable about it and decided to. I would go downstairs and call. Well, it began to get later, until it was nine-thirty or ten-thirty, and I said, it would be an hour later at home, too late to call, but I would call Sunday. Well, Sunday I got up for breakfast, I mean, I got up in time to go to breakfast, then I started doing little things around my room and went down the hall to visit one of the girls for awhile, then came back and sat around the room again. Well, when I was having trouble with my tooth – I’d had so many girls coming in to see how I was and I decided – Sunday – Saturday was the first day I’d really gone out and all – and they knew that I was not in my room any more; so Sunday I thought would be a day, well – they wouldn’t be coming to see me at last. They knew I was out. Well, Sunday one of the girls would be awfully nice, bringing up meals and everything was going away for about three or four hours, she went away around twelve and was gone till around three or four. – And another one of the girls who’d been nice about helping bring books from the library and all was going to be away all day, and I thought those are the two who are most likely to come in and – it just seemed like a good idea to stay in my room for three or four hours – I’d be sure that nobody was coming in. So—

T153: You felt inwardly glad that you’d have no contact with anyone.

C153: M-hm. So I – around twelve o’clock I was getting dressed for dinner. I decided well, I would really enjoy just being in my room by myself. So I closed the door, and first I read awhile, then I got in bed and slept until around four o’clock. Well, then, by that time – two or three people had knocked at my door – two people I guess, and I didn’t open the door. I mean, I didn’t get up, I just made believe I was sleeping. So then by four o’clock I said I can’t carry on like this any longer so I got up and got a shower and got dressed and by that time I was so hungry (laughs) – so I went downstairs and – I was supposed to eat dinner with a group of people – I hadn’t let them know I was going to eat with them and I had gotten a note saying, “Let us know if you can,” and I hadn’t answered, hoping they’d go ahead and not wait. Well, I got down – and yet I went at exactly the hour that I


was supposed to go to be with the group, but when I got down there they were in the hall. They had sat around for awhile, not only waiting for me, but in case someone else came too. So we ate, sat around and talked for awhile, and – oh, until around eight-thirty or nine and decided to come down and make the call home. And I came and got some change at the desk – and while I was there some man in the house said, oh there you are, where you been keeping yourself, haven’t seen you in a long time,” so we sat down and talked for a while, to find out what he’d been doing. I wasn’t particularly interested, but I sat down and talked to him until quite late, and then I went upstairs. I was still wide awake; I’d been in bed most of the day. So I read and worked on, but it seemed like such a silly way to spend the day, and it was night – it was four o’clock really when I started on a day that should have started at – oh, one o’clock anyway, on Sunday morning.

T154: You felt that you didn’t make any adequate use of time, just got it all out of joint, is that?

C154: M-hm. I felt – I can’t understand why – if I have something I have to do I know I’ll get up and do it – but why it should take me until four or five o’clock to get started on the day – One thing was a physical matter of being hungry I – I was – by the time I skipped breakfast and lunch, around two o’ clock I was so hungry I could hardly move about. Well, that was silly because I knew if I didn’t eat breakfast – well, certainly not eating breakfast and not going down to lunch, well, that was silly, I knew I’d be hungrier still.

T155: You knew you were doing absurd things really, but you did them.

C155: M-hm.

T156: Awfully hard to understand yourself, as to why you do some of those things.

C156: And I realize how fast time is going, how much I have to do, and I don’t seem to be doing them.

T157: Again you’re aware of what you ought to do, but still that doesn’t insure that you’ll do it.

C157: No (Pause) It’s only – I can’t understand things – every element is there except that little gap between thinking – knowing what I should do and doing it.

T158: Everything else is in place except whatever it takes to bridge over between knowing what you should do and actually carrying it out.

C158: M-hm. (Pause – Laughs) I feel a little bit more effective at this point, I don’t know why – what - . And I think if I begin to get something done soon, it’ll make me feel even more like I’m really living.


T159: You feel a little more like you really are living.

C159: M-hm.

T160: And if you could do more, you’d feel more that way.

C160: M-hm. (Pause)

T161: Our time is almost up.

(Appointment is made.)



The Case of Miss VIB (circa 1946-48)Fourth Interview

C162: I've been wondering if it would be any help to do any homework between interviews or if it - I don't know whether I’m - I don't have the feeling of making much progress from one time to the next and I wonder if I ought to be doing anything - Well, I think about the sessions in between times, but I don't know – I’m not doing any deep thinking about it, I 'm afraid, and I wonder if it would be any help to sort of try to either get ready some questions or else rehash them - I don't know whether that's good policy or not.

T162: M-hm. Well, I don't know the answer to that myself. I know some people do – I mean, some people really plan for interviews and some do not, and I think probably it 's very much of -

C163: An individual problem - what's coming out of it.

T163: You feel a little bit as though you aren't making, as rapid progress as you wish you were, is that it?

C164: Yea, uh-huh. Well, I wonder what - would I have - whether I'm really accomplishing much - I know I am, I don't feel as anxious as I did. when I first started coming in, I don't know if that's a good sign or not, but anyway, I don't have such awful feelings of anxiety and feelings of - oh, -well, compulsive almost, I don't know, being driven to do something or other, and maybe that 'a a first step in being a little bit more calm about the whole situation, gradually getting something done, I don't know.

T164: You notice some changes and you think it's - maybe it's the first step but, still it's - it seems a little slow to you, huh?

C165: Yes, I’m not sure whether it's the first step or whether I'm getting sort of - not complacent, but settling down into a state of not even doing enough to worry about things.

T165: You feel the lessening of anxiety might be bad because you might let things stand as they are.

C166: That's what I mean, I'm wondering if it's that – whether that is what's going to happen or whether I'm going to go ahead now. It seems if I'm going to get anywhere I think I’m coming to a point where I ought to be doing something


positive now. I don't know. And - yet sometimes it seems that I'm - all I've done up to this point is just to state where I am now and not do very much -

T166: You feel that up until now you've just really opened things up, I mean, just made more clear just where you are at this point, but that really you haven't begun to think very deeply yet.

C167: That's what I feel. I -I - I - don't know what direction to take, what to do now, I mean, - I think if I'm going to do anything positive, it's about time now, I should think, should be beginning to see, well, maybe not beginning to see what I should do, but maybe at least to see what – begin to feel more deeply that something is going to come.

T167: M-hm.

C168: I think that getting over the awful anxiety has been an important thing. It's not completely gone, but at least I feel a little more comfortable than I did. Now I really don't know what's going - what's the next step to take, where I should turn.

T168: In other words, some of the really bad aspects have cleared up a bit but now where do you go?

C169: M-hm. 1 don't know whether I'm not giving myself wholeheartedly to this experience, - or I don’t know what it is. I don't think it would be particularly hopeful for me to talk, for instance, about my early childhood, or things of that kind. I don't know what good - what to talk about, what to think about now. It seems that - well, I have had some experiences that I thought were pretty devastating at the time they happened, but, I have still - I've always had the feeling, or at least recently I've had the feeling that those things haven't been awfully - I mean ... I haven't been really changed by those experiences very greatly, so that - in trying to decide what it is that I need to think about now, I just can't decide what it is that's sort of standing in the way of progress.

T169: It's hard to know what is significant, what angle should we tackle.

C170: That's what I feel -

T170: You know that some experiences that you've had have been pretty influential, but whether those are the ones that are significant to talk about now, or that have to do with your present situation, I take it, that's what you don't feel sure of.

C171: M-hm, I don't know. (Pause) I still keep making comparisons between myself and other people. Today I had lunch with two girls that were in college with me. One happens to be in town for the weekend and the other one is here on campus and we talked about friends and oh, people that we all three used to know in school. I still see other people doing more effective things than I am and I wonder where


the difference is. I mean, what it is - where I am weak, where I am inadequate.

T171: What keeps you from being effective.

C172: And when I - when we talk about things that happened in college, or years ago I’d - it seemed to me I started off all right- going along all right in the proper direction -

T172: M-hm. In other words, at that time several years ago, you feel you really were functioning okay and going in a suitable direction.

C173: I thought I was, and as I look back it seems to me that I - well, there must have been something working but whatever it was, wasn't evident. I was able to manage own affairs, and take part in the social activities, and get along with people, and be quite effective as I recall.

T173: You really seemed to have a pretty good adjustment in various phases of life.

C174: Apparently I did. And it seems too that other people have some of the same difficulties that I have had, but they don't let them stop them completely, they go on. They're not that important.

Tl74: You feel that perhaps you've been blocked by things that other people might somehow surmount or assimilate them or -

C175: I think so. Little things that have seemed awfully important to me, like getting an incomplete in a class, well, that's not uncommon, people do it all the time they just go just go ahead and make it up the next quarter, nothing comes of it. And why I should - I mean, a thing like that or other things that are less important perhaps should just make me stop functioning altogether instead of going ahead --

T175: Why should a little thing like an incomplete have – seem to have so much importance and really to – sort of freeze you temporarily.

C176: M-hm. I know when I came back to school this time I had a big piece of work hanging over my head that I hadn’t finished the previous year - and that - I don’t know - don't know whether that had any effect or not. When I first - That had any – has had any effect or not. When I first – the first year that I was here in school for a whole year I had a field scholarship which was given by an association for child education and I was – I accepted the fellowship not realizing what a field fellowship was. That sounds silly, but I really thought I would come to school and take some courses – because I had gone through college on – well, tuition scholarships, all I had to do was take courses. And this was quite different. I didn’t realize it until after I had accepted it and come here to school that I was expected to turn out a piece of field research, which seemed more than I could do.


But – I – and what I was awfully interested in at the time, I had been teaching in a teachers’ college in a southern state where health conditions are very poor and the public health – well the state has a public health program, but it’s – it isn’t functioning very well in all areas, and one other thing seemed awfully important to me was that the teachers should know about physical growth of children and know something about, oh, at least be aware of what facilities were available for public health and all, so I was interested in the physical growth of children at that time, and I – in applying for the scholarship I got ... There were two possibilities of topic and one was, one I submitted myself on physical growth of children, and the other one – The principal of the school where I worked, he decided he would send in a topic too. Well I was busy and I didn’t have a lot of time to fill out the application, so that it didn’t occur to me that that might not be a wise thing to do, let him submit a topic, so he submitted one on – what was it? Oh, on something about underprivileged children – let me see- I can’t even recall the topic now – (Laughs). But anyway I got the fellowship and and the topic that he submitted, just really to fill out the second space because I had no time to think up another one, was the topic the association chose that I should work on that year. Well, I was greatly disappointed. It still didn’t mean a lot to me, so I came to school, thinking that I would take some courses in physiology, some of the work like Dr. F___ gives on physical growth, and do something about the scholarship – but I didn’t have any clear notions of my obligations. So when I came back and talked with people in the department, I realized that my full obligation was to the association to do this study of – what was it? – it was a study of under – something about under privileged children – parent-teacher relationships in a community, something like that. So I didn’t – I had never done a field study before – well, I just went at it, by sheer physical force and went out into the community and walked around until I met people and actually – I just pushed myself through the project. So I – but at the same time it seemed to be so unpleasant that what I really wanted to do was to be here at the university taking courses on physical growth and instead I was out in the miserable near West Side slum area, walking up and down the street, pestering mothers about their children. Well, I started – it was a long time before I knew what I was doing – well, the time wasn’t wasted because I was getting well known in the area, and establishing close enough relations there with the people so I could really go into their homes and talk to them. So I finally – just blindly – adjusting myself in the situation, I got the nucleus of a study together, and I had interviews with parents and with teachers over in this neighborhood, about – with the parents about their relations with the school, with the teachers about relations with parents and so on. Well, at first the interviews didn’t seem very productive, I had never done that sort of interviewing before, didn’t know what it was all about, but I had Dr. S___ and Dr. R___ and Dr. M___ on my committee, and they were all very helpful, although Dr. S____ had her ideas about how it should be done, and Dr. M___ and Dr. R___ had their ideas about how it should be done. Well, I pulled through that all right, and finally decided the path of least resistance probably was to follow Dr. R__ and Dr. M___’s plans, so I did and collected quite a bit of material, and my interviews kept getting better and better until really, they began to get excited


about them and thought they were very good. I never believed in the study very much though, and it never seemed to me that I was doing a great deal, though – but both of them said that my interviews were really well done, and that I was getting quite a bit of material. Well, I think I was scared that I was not getting things. Dr. M___ would tell me, for instance, that we needed the material from a lower class family. Well, I would bring, - go out and get what I thought was lower-class and he would say, well, that’s upper-lower, get a lower-lower class. Well, one of the ways to find out about lower-lower – find out if they were really lower class was such things as physical violence in the family, jail records and all – so I found myself consorting with jail-birds and everything else. (Laughs)

T176: M-hm.

C177: And – well, some of the places I went into was really scared. I remember one house I went into – it was – oh, it was in the winter and it was really a little shack up on the roof of another house, and the – you took your life in your hands climbing up the steps. You had to go up outside steps on the roof, and there were rats and dogs and cats all around and when I got in, the woman I went to see was – well, really sleeping off a hangover from a Sunday night party, and she was sleeping in all her clothes in a dirty, filthy bed in the kitchen, and a dirty baby was running around, probably hadn’t been attended – and it was a filthy place and I sat and talked to her alone. And she told me in a very calm voice something about shooting her sister-in-law. Well, I nearly fell out of my chair. But I sat calm and talked with her and – about how troublesome relatives can be at times. So we got quite friendly over the business of shooting her sister-in-law. (Laugh) And – things like that. Well, it wasn’t pleasant – I didn’t enjoy it at all, but I just felt I had to keep on doing it, because those were the terms of the scholarship. Well, finally, I had been slow getting started, and that summer I had to go back and teach summer school, so I didn’t finish the study. Well, I still had collected all this material, and I had written some – oh, about half of it I had written up and Dr. R__ and Dr. M___ thought it was all right – it got to the point where I thought if I looked at another interview, it would drive me mad so I packed them all away in a suitcase and I haven’t finished the thing yet. Well, that was two years ago and periodically I would get out the interviews and start writing again, but it just seemed then… the way I feel about it now I think I could go ahead and finish it. But it seemed all along at the time, I just got so tired of those interviews I couldn’t put in another minute reading them.

T177: M-hm. If I get it, you got started on it by inadvertence and letting someone else take too much initiative, and then somebody else thought it was a good plan, somebody else thought this was the way you should do it and so on. And you feel you went along with that all the time and really eventually doing pretty well on it, but still getting to the point where you just couldn’t look it in the face again.

C178: I think that’s what happened. I really didn’t realize how much other people had sort of steered the direction of things. But it – that’s really the way it went along.


T178: M-hm.

C179: And all the time it seemed to me too that there were so many things going on on the campus that I wanted to be taking part in and instead I was out – here, I’d have to…

T179: You really wanted to be taking courses, be here on campus. Instead you were consorting with jailbirds and people who shot their sisters in law.

C180: Well, that’s what it turned out to be. As I look back upon it now, I suppose I should have enjoyed doing it. And I like – I really made friends with some of the people. After I finished – I mean, after I got to the point where I finished interviewing and was supposed to be writing up, occasionally I would go over and visit some of the people I… I really enjoyed knowing some of them.

T180: Really as you look back on it, it should have been – you should have felt more satisfaction in it somehow than you did.

C181: I think I should have. Well, it never - well, there were two things. One thing was that I was so...I don't know why it seemed so important as it did, but I thought that if I was going to continue teaching, in my home state it would be important to know something about physical growth of children. That's just one at the things at least in our teachers college that wasn't stressed very much. It seemed awfully important to me. There were so many instances where children could have gotten help oh, for simple things like glasses or other help they might have had. If teachers had had a little more initiative and had known what things were available and what opportunities, and what really – what rights they had in-the public health service, and all. Well, I was interested in physical growth of children, and I had had the seminar with Dr. F___ that summer which seems to fire everyone with enthusiasm and I just wanted to get into that subject more. It was something I hadn't had much of and I, well, just really wanted to get into that subject more.

T181: That is, your heart was really more in the physical development problem.

C182: You see, it was, and I think ... well that shouldn't have made me so unhappy,but it just - it seemed like I was wasting my time and I didn't believe too much in - I guess I should this quiet business of .... well, the study had to be done in terms upper and lower class, upper upper and lower lower classes and all. Well, I just hadn't studied enough sociology to realize perhaps how important class differences are. And then I did .... well, I don't know .... everyone that was working with the study didn't have the same ideas about the class differences, so that I - it seemed to me that that was not a thing that I should be devoting a whole year to. As I look back on it now, and as I do further reading, I can see that some


of the things that I found, out in the study are things that are quite borne out by what I read, and 1 can see more reason for doing such a study, but at thattime it didn't seem awfully important to me.

T182: You've gradually come to see more significance in it than you saw or felt at the time.

C183: M-hm.... And that it seems to me was one of the beginning phases that brought about this whole situation now, because I always had a feeling - well, at first I wasn't too worried because I thought that if I finished it a month or two months late it didn't matter too much, but as the months went by and I never finished, it, that preyed upon my feelings and I felt sort of guilty about that.

T183: You really felt that you should have finished up that study and it came over youa little.

C184: So that I came back this year with that to think about too. Among other things, it seemed that I had time to finish it and I didn't.

T184: You felt you no longer had any excuse for not doing it, but it's just that you didn't do it.

Cl85: M-hm. And - I don't know when people are too permissive with me -

T185: When what?

C186: When people are permissive with me I don't think I can get things done. Dr. R__ and Dr. M___ both never acted as if they thought I was terrible for not having finished it, and I just let it go.

T186: You think that if people really leave things up to you, not too much happens, not too much gets done.

C187: I think so. At least with some things. I - I - well, I really haven't always been so lax about things. But that's what does happen.

T187: It hasn't always been that way, but at least there's something about this whole experience that you feel is kind of a turning point or a beginning of something.

C188: I think it's - that's the feeling I have. While in the first place - as I think back upon it, the study in itself ....well, I shouldn’t have been so worried about the study. I remember another thing that was awfully - that make me feel very tense. I had to send in, a monthly report. Well, I thought the monthly report ... .1 thought I had to show some progress every month. Well., it was almost impossible to do anything like that and show a great deal of progress every month. So each month as the


time came to write-up the report I just felt more and more unhappy about it and so I wished I had never accepted the scholarship at all.

T188: Sort of seemed to feel the pincers in that, and felt you had to show some steps and couldn't…

C189: But then think back on the scholarship and all, and the whole situation is one that I should have handled. There must have been something wrong in the, beginning or I couldn't have felt so tense and worried about it.

T189: M-hm. You felt somehow you should have been able to handle it better rather than - that is, there must have been something else in the picture to make you so tense about it.

C190: M-hm. That’s why I think - I mean, I .... it would be easy to say if I hadn't had that awful experience of struggling a long time with that research not knowing what I was doing, that this wouldn't have happened. But the thing is, the awful struggle, the worry and anxiety, were there before the research came. I mean, I couldn't -

T190: It would be kind of nice to lay it to the difficulties in the research, but actually you feel that it goes back before that.

C191: I think so. I - I mean, that's a dramatic experience that I can remember, and I don't know any other, I mean, I can't think of any right now. But - I should have handled that year, I mean, the work of that year all right. I didn't have to come out with a world-shaking piece of material. And it shouldn't have been such a source of worry. It seems to me I should have gone on each month doing what I could and letting it go at that.

T191: M-hm. You feel that if you'd just plugged along, that would have been quite satisfactory, rather than getting so upset about what you felt was expected of you.

C192: M-hm. Well, that is - that's the thing. It seemed to me I was so concerned about what was expected of me, and surely nothing impossible was expected of me I don't know .... I don't know why...I mean, that seems to be going back, but not going back far enough because I don't now why it would have impressed me in that way.

T192: As you look it over coolly you wonder why did you feel that so much was expected of you, why did you have such a struggle about that.

C193: M-hm. That's what I wonder. I can remember the feeling of - oh, just dread and anxiety and worry and everything else.

T193: Really some pretty deep feelings about it..


C194: M-hm. But I don't know. (Pause) (Long pause) I remember that same - that year I was resuming a friendship with a young man that I -know. I don't know whether that was something that was part of the picture or not. It didn't so awfully significant at the time. I don't think it worried me a great deal at the time.

T194: You wonder a little bit about it, but at least at the time it didn't…seem too upsetting or too significant.

C195: I don't think I did. And just because it happened at the same time as the - I was doing the field research ...I don't know whether that would…. it doesn't...as I recall it doesn't seem to have worried me too much at the time.

T195: That is the friendship with the young man and the research did come at the same time, but whether or not they were.... whether or not the friendship was one of the things that caused you to be worried or upset about it, that you don't - you’re not quite sure of.

C196: M-hm. I'm not. I don't see how it could have really I don't know - I mean - it was just, a coincidence it happened at the sane time because he happened to be here in the city and I hadn't been - he'd been here for several years and I hadn't been around. We'd been in college together but I hadn't been around to - since college until I happened to come here to go to school, and we started seeing each other again. But that didn't take up a lot of my time and I just don't know - mean, I don't think that's one of the things that was- I don't see how it could have been.

T196: It doesn't seem to you that that could have affected you very much.

C197: I don't think so. At least not at that time. During the year when I was doing the study I don't think it could. My youngest brother was in the navy then. He was out at the naval station and my sister was here at that time. She was working here and my brother was in the hospital for a while. He was hurt at the station and he was out the-- for about three months. I used to worry about that a little bit. He was our youngest brother and all, and it seemed too bad.

T197: There was some concern about it at that same period, about your brother.

C198: M-hm. And my sister wasn’t enjoying her work too well, and that was the cause of a little worry. But even so I don't know how all this, I mean, how it all fits in together. Or if it does.

T198: At least you don't see as yet any way that those things fit together very significantly.

C199: I don't see anything that's happened that I shouldn't have handled too well. Everything has been all right.


T199: Seems as though you should have been able to handle the various things thatcame along.

C200: M-hm.

T200: I guess our time’s about up for today. Come in again Monday?

C201: I’d like to. At the same time?

T201: Yes.



The Case of Miss VIBFifth Interview (Three Days Later)

T201A: It’s a warm day, today.

C201A: Oh, it is warm.

T201B: Would you like to pull your chair a little bit closer?

C201B: M-hm. (Moves chair) I have a note from Prof. M____ which says that I should come in and talk to him and let him know how I’m getting along, and it suddenly occurred to me that I’d been staying out of his sight. (Both laugh)

T201C: You realize your evading him.

C201C: Which is a horrible thing to do, because he has been so helpful to me all along. So, then I thought, too, that I haven’t been doing much so there’s not much for me to talk to him about. (Laughs self-consciously)

T201D: You felt it was sort of useless to talk with him. Is that what you mean?

C201D: I wouldn’t have much… I think now, I wouldn’t have so much to tell him about what I’ve been doing.

T201E: I see.

C201E: …But I, I ah… because I haven’t been doing a whole lot. I’ve seen… but I… I could have, ah, always found guidance from talking to him, previously and I could have gone back and talked to him….

T201F: You feel it would be helpful, but you wouldn’t have much to report that you had done. Is that ah….

C201F: M-hm. And I was ashamed of myself when I realized that I hadn’t been in to talk to him in a long time.

T201G: It sort of surprised you that you had been staying away.

C201G: (Laughs) I've... well, it just hadn't occurred to me, really. I know that I haven't been going up to the office at. all, but I just realized that it had been a long time


http://that.it/

since I'd actually been in to talk to him. That seems to be... to be another bad thing... (laughs),

T201H: That looks bad too.

C201H: I think it was. I don't know, ah, because I've always, well, just found it easy just to drop into the office and see what's going on, even if I didn't have anything to do, up there. And, and, I just haven't been in, except on one or two occasions, when I absolutely had to go, and that was…

T201I: So that again it seemed like a sharp change in your own behavior, is that, is that it?

C201I: (Thoughtfully) Yes...again ...And I, I've always liked... I mean, I've enjoyed just being a part of the S___________ department, I, I've been in the department; I've always kept up with what was going on, before, and...seems I'm sort’a letting things float by now.

T20IJ: You're sort of letting things drift past, even though you have enjoyed the associations there, in the department of S____________.

C20IJ:Yes, I certainly have. I always have. And now I'm just getting out of the way of things again, letting things go, sort’a.

T201K: You sort of realize, even more, how much you've been staying out of the way of things. Does that ah...

C201K: M-hm, I think so, It seems ah, well, I know I wasn't doing things that I formerly did, but I really hadn't realized that I was, well, (laughing) sort of hiding from people. And not getting into things, as I had done.

T201L: M-hm, It's sort of surprising to you to find out how much you have done that.

C201L: M-hm, I certainly have, I thought I would just go and talk to him, but I still don't know what I'd talk to him about, Ah, but I've, ah, never had any difficulty with conference with Prof, M_____ before. And, ah, usually if I even, if I felt just a little bit disturbed about things, I managed to get things straightened out, and come out feeling that I saw more clearly what I was doing. So that I've always gained help from talking with him,

T20IM : Even when you felt it was difficult beforehand, actually you found it worthwhile, in the past.

C201M: That's it, M-hm. And ah, well there have been times when I've felt I wasn't getting much done, and I sort of would ...felt reluctant to go for a conference, but that was not the usual case. Usually I looked forward to going to get some


guidance, or also to find out where I stood, and usually I came away with some help, I always felt that, well, I knew more clearly what I was doing after talking to him. And it seems that I, well, the things that I should have done for the quarterly exams, well I should have gone in and talked to him again, but I just haven't done it.

T201N: You feel that really would have been a wise step.

C201N: M-hm. And that seems to be characteristic of all... a lot of my thinking now, I think back on what I should have done instead of thinking ahead on what I ought to do. I can look back and see, ah, things that I should have done that would have been a little bit more intelligent than something I, I had done in the past, And I do that from, well, not from day to day, but perhaps from.... quite frequently I look back and say, “Well now that's something I should have done”, and looking back I see how, if I had done the thing at the time, it would have been simple going ahead, doing other intelligent things.

T201-O: You find yourself dwelling, to some extent, on the notion that, “If I had done this at that time, things would have been a lot simpler," Is that...

C201-O: That's what I…I don't think that's very healthy, but I do .Ah, (Laughs) I say, well, that I should have done this, instead of going ahead and now beginning to do something about it.

T20IP: You tend to dwell a little more on what you didn't do in the past, rather than on what might be done right now or in the future.

C20IP: M-hm. That's what I do, I'm, ah, interested now in reviewing .... we're having a midterm in physiology and ah, my reviewing has been rather haphazard, and yet, I'm making an effort to review, and I, I'm wondering how it's going to come out, I don't seem concerned about it.

T20IQ: That's something you're really, really tackling, I take it, but, ah, you don't feel very sure that results will be good.

C201Q: That's it, I, ah, I start out, and ah, ah, what seems to be a pretty good job, for a while, and then let it drop again.

T201R: Sort of in fits and starts?

C201R: M-hm. I started off in physiology, for instance ah, we have homework every day and I decided I was going to do, ah, as nearly perfect papers as I could each night. Well, I did one, but of course it was easier at the beginning, but I would do a good paper and then the next day, maybe the last two problems, I just got tired of doing, and didn't act, And my work would go up and down in that. And ah, well,


I've even... I think I'm doing better now, but once or twice I, at least once I did my homework, and didn't copy it over, and handed it in. (Laughs) Well, I was... I don't know.... 1 was really having trouble with my teeth at that time, and I didn't feel too well, but it seems if I had done it, I could have copied it over...

T201S: You feel that occasionally you sort of defeated yourself a little bit by that which you've done.

C201S: M-hm. I certainly have. (Pause) And when I get started reading something, I seem to enjoy doing it if I just keep at it. But I can waste so much time getting started on things, I don't know what it is that ah...,it seems like an awful ah, lassitude that I have to overcome before I get started doing these things.

T201T: You're very apathetic toward some things...until you get into it, and then it goes better, m-hm.

C201T: Yes, Yes, if I get started and I suppose it's, it's seeing myself accomplish something, seeing something getting done, And lately I'll go ahead and do a little more. But getting started and then, ah, after I get started sometimes it seems easy just to stop the whole thing, too. I think that still, that I don’t have a, a guiding goal, or something or other, that makes me persevere.

T201U: It really goes back to that, that you’re not quite sure what the major things are that you’re shooting toward, is that ah…

C201U: Well. I think so….

T201V: (….) you think that’s right.

C201V: (Pause) I think that’s probably really very basic, is the idea that, that I don’t have very clear ideas, a very clear conviction about just what I do want out of life. (Pause)

T201W: There’s a real uncertainty as to what you want to do with your life.

C201W: M-hm. I think that’s it. When I was growing up, it seemed quite clear to me that what I wanted was, ah, well, I expected to get through school, to get through college sometime, and I thought I would, by the time I was of age, be married, perhaps, and have some children. I never was awfully concerned, I don’t believe, about working, (laughs) at a career. Ah, and yet I thought I could be of some help, perhaps, to a man who might be working through a career of some kind.

T201X: That is, your own real goal was not so much to have a career of your own, but to have a family and to be of help to somebody who was carving out a career. Is that it?


C201X: I think so. (Pause) It seems to me that that’s something I’ve held on to for a long time (Laughs) (C: M-hm) And the older I get, the farther away it seems, and I ah, that doesn’t, isn’t real to me anymore.

T202: M-hm. It had really hung on as your real goal for a long time and only more recently has it seemed not so likely, is that….

C202: It seems so… That isn’t very likely, and I wonder ah, ah, what, what’s going to become of me. And I suppose. I suppose I’ll go on earning a living somehow. But that, that doesn’t seem the most important thing in the world to me. Just to work and earn a living would be….

T203: That doesn’t look like a very exciting prospect.

C203: (Laughing) No. No. It doesn’t, although, I suppose I could find some kind of work I’d enjoy a lot and, ah, ah, go ahead with it. It seems silly to think at the age of thirty you’re just tired of working, though. But, sometimes, I feel I am. (Pause)

T204: It sounds sort of funny, but really and truly you feel.... (C: Laughs) ... you don't see much in just working.

C204: No. I don't, I really don't. I think ah, I have....one thing I have not enjoyed about the work I have been doing, is the, the circumstances under which I was living, I lived, I worked as a teacher, and I lived in a dormitory with, ah, well, the students who were living in the dormitory, but there was some room set aside for unmarried women teachers, (Laughing) who ranged in age from, I suppose from around twenty-four to around sixty-four or seventy-four. And, ah, I, after about, well, at least I'd taught for, off and on, for over five years, it seemed that that was so horrible. One side of life.... I just got tired of this business of living in one room and, ah, being around ah, women, most of them older than myself, and then later, some of them were younger. Ah, whose interests seemed to be limited to the little things that happened in the classroom everyday, and anything that happened that was a little bit different was, would become such an important topic of conversation, that it would, oh, take up days and days of talking about. And, well, everyone knew everything about everyone else. You were supposed to do, ah, well, the same thing all the time. You went to church on Sunday, and you ah, did your shopping on Saturday, and you did your washing on Monday or Tuesday afternoon, and everyone did the same thing all the time, and if you did anything different… if you decided to go to a different lunch than the one you usually attended, well, that was…had to be explained and discussed. And, or if you went out in the city to visit people that weren't on the approved list, (Laughs) that was something that was different. And, I it seems, ah, if you stayed in your room and didn’t talk with people a lot, you were different and queer, and if you went around visiting too much you didn't tend to your work. And there was never any, ah, it seemed to me, never anything that was quite well-rounded and wholesome in the way of, ah, satisfactory living conditions,


T205: The life of a working woman just seems awfully narrow and petty and not very wholesome.

C205: I think so... ah, and I know women who have lived that way for years and years and years, I don't know whether ah, I think there again, as I said once before, I was always, ah, making believe, I was enjoying it, or just acting as if I were quite happy, and, ah, sitting up talking to people about things that, ah, just bored me completely, because that was what they wanted to talk about, and doing the little silly things that seemed important to them.

T206: You felt that just to please them you put on a front, but actually you were getting more and more bored and disgusted with the whole set-up.

C206: I think so. I ah, there were times, of course, when I was happy, and thoroughly enjoyed companionship with people there, but there were so many times when what I was doing was not what I wanted to do, but really at all, and ah, it was just a matter of, oh, fitting in with the group and not causing too much trouble and letting things go on apparently serenely. But I ah, cultivated friendships with people that I wasn't especially interested in, I spent hours talking to people I know, over silly things - well, things that perhaps didn't seem silly to them, but I wasn't interested, but I smiled at them and made believe I was listening. And I think, ah, maybe, I took the....instead of all that time, ah, often in that time, I had a feeling of, that I wasn't being really myself. That…

T207: You were dong so many things that were just the proper thing to do or seemed to be the right thing to do in the circumstances, that within a lot of that you really weren't being yourself.

C207: I think so. If I know what…I mean is probably... what is my real self, I don't know whether I'd know; but I did have that feeling so many times that ah, what I was doing and trying to, ah, convince myself was very important, wasn't important to me at all. And I felt that I was just fitting into a situation.

T208: And though you're not too sure whether it was your real self, at least there were a lot of things that you were doing then you are pretty sure were your real self, at any rate,

C208: I, I think so, And I don't, ah, I don't know too, but sometimes.... well, it seemed to me that often people were ah, making up their minds about what kind of a person I was when I didn't feel that I was that sort of person at all, Ah, I know that I smile a lot. Well, I don't, I thought it was just a habit I had, at least I usually smile a lot. I think it's a habit I have and that it doesn't mean anything to me, and I ah, I don't know whether it's nervousness or what, but I find myself doing it.

T209: Your smile isn't a smile from the inside, is that it?


C209: No, It never occurred to me that that was insincere or if when I smile it is just that I'm feeling well over.... that was something that hadn't occurred to me until I started working down there and people got the idea that I was very easy-going and that I was just accepted one's opinions and that I ah, was soft, and easy to, sort of steam-roller into anything. And then if I did, ah, exert myself in any way, they were surprised. Because they said, ”Oh, you smile all the time but your smile doesn't mean much”.

T210: You seemed to really give the impression of always being the good-natured jelly-fish or something of that sort, and when you did exert yourself, they were really shocked.

C210: I think so, I think ah, I'm sure it happened in some cases, and I think it happened in a lot of cases, that it seemed that people got the impression that I was ah, that I really didn't exert myself at all. And if I did it was a sort of a surprise to them, and, and that was ah, well, sort of disconcerting, because I had never been interpreted that way before, No one had taken that sort of notion about me to any great extent before. Of course I had never been in a situation where I was working before - out on my own like that, but, ah, well, sometimes I, I ah, I do keep my opinions to myself. I suppose ah, I don't know whether it sounds good or not, but if people are differing about things oh, ah, oh, someone is saying something that I am sure is quite wrong, it seems to me that it is not going to help the situation much to say what I know about it, I would just keep quiet and not express myself. So that, well, in an argument of some kind - I mean, it might be a purely intellectual argument or an academic argument, just so it was going along all right and nobody was doing any great damage, I would just let it go-and never say anything....

T211: Often keep your thoughts to yourself, rather than expressing, them in a situation.

C211: M-hm. I know that's what I do. I do that. And I... recall sometimes too, starting out as a young teacher, I think I just found It easier to ah, let people go ahead and be directive in a situation and just attribute my lack of participation to lack of experience, or something of that kind, when I really could have gone ahead and done more.

T212: M-hm. The is at that time you took kind of a, or expected sort of a submissive role, when really perhaps you could have contributed more to the situation. Is that ah…

C212: I think that’s it. (Pause) All of this was getting at the point that in my work for the last five or six years… I ah, I had been making myself satisfied with conditions that weren't quite satisfactory. That I'd been really ah, not giving expression to feelings or wishing within myself that I would have liked to have found satisfaction for.


T213: You've been pretending satisfaction you didn't feel and and ah, not admitting wishes and thoughts and opinions that you really may have had.

C213: (Pause) I think so, Don't know why I've been saying this or why I think of things. Ah,

T214: You're not quite sure what that, leads to, but it leads to a fact of your past experience.

C214: (Pause) The the one thing that comes out, that is it seems to me I'm not quite sure just what sort of person I am. I mean if I were put into a situation where I could do actually whatever I wanted to do, and get all the satisfactions I wanted to get, I don’t know which ones… just what I would do.

T215: M-hm. (Pause) You're not really sure that you really want, or what you'd choose to do even if you could choose anything.

C215: M-hm. (Pause) And. I don't feel I know where to go. And I mean, ah, I don' t know what sort of direction I should take in finding out. (Pause)

T216: You find it rather hard to know how to take a first step on that problem.

C2l6: Ah, it doesn't seem to me that, reminiscing is awfully important. I mean, ah, looking back, and thinking what I had done, or what I had not done, I don't know whether that's awfully important or whether it...

T217: You don' t know whether looking at the past would give a clue or whether some other lead would be better.... (C: Laughs)...you just don't know.

C217: I don't know. At this point. (Pause) I remember ah, well there were two things that happened that seemed awfully important at the time but now, I, they don't seem terrible important to me. I know ah, one was that I was sick last year or the year before that, and found, out that I could probably never have any children. Well, that seemed an awfully cruel thing to happen at the time. I think I've gotten over it, though. It seemed I, well that was one thing that was part of my plan in life, and ah, it seemed ironical because ah, well, one of the important things for me has been to ah, be quite careful and ah, well, conserve my health and be careful of my body and make sure that when I came to parenthood I'd have a healthy body to start the basis for having healthy children. And... that was one important thing that I had done, and thought was really a true goal. And ah, that ah, oh that seemed awfully... it just didn't seem fair to me (Laughs self-consciously) for it to happen to me. Ah, when I could think of, of how easy it is for some girls who don’t even want to become mothers at all, it seemed that, it didn't seem that followed the laws I had figured out of the way things happen in life, and I was, I was worried


about that for a while, but it seems in the past now. I mean it doesn’t bother me much.

T218: You really had been trying to build a really good physical foundation for parenthood, and ah, it was quite a shock to find that that seemed to be ruled out for you. (C: M-hm) And I take it, you felt it just didn't seem to be in line with the way things should operate.

C218: (Laughs) Well, I ah …I don't know....I.... it just didn’t seem like ah, the way I had worked out for things to go. Well, I knew that, I know people have disappointments and all sorts of things in life, but ah, I guess I still have a sort of childish notion that if you have ....you ah, usually collect a certain amount of reward for things that you do ah, or something like that.

T219: M-hm. It seemed that it was kind of a shabby reward for the real effort you had put in to, trying to build up physically, is that it?

C219: M-hm. That's what it seemed to me. It (Pause) well, it really, seemed like a dirty deal. (Laughs)

T220: You really felt you had gotten a very dirty deal from nature.

C220: M-hm. That's what I thought, ah, even so, I mean that worried me and upset me for a while, I don't know whether thinking of that, or that was one thing that happened ....after that I just all-is well Instead of substituting some other purpose, I just - (T: M-hm) let it go altogether.

T221: You feel, I take it, that the hurt of that has tended to wear off, but perhaps after that happened, it really wasn't replaced with any other purpose, is that ah ....

C221: I think I, I think, now, that's probably what did happen. And I ah, (Pause) it just seemed such a natural thing for me, and ah, it seemed such a little thing that I was asking for, that it seemed to me that such a little thing could have been given. But then didn't think too much about it after that, I don't think.

T222: It seemed it wasn't an awful lot for life to give you, and ah, to have that turned down, that was… it really hurt.

C222: M-hm. It really did at the time. (Pause) And I don't know, ah.... but yet when I came back to school, at the beginning of the year, I was looking forward to corning to school, and ah, starting on my degree in earnest. It seemed to me that was something I was really looking forward to and enjoying - going to enjoy.

T223: You feel as though you did have a, a real desire to get on with the degree, and work toward it.


C223: M-hm. (Pause) And that seemed like ah,...I mean, I don't know whether I repressed it, or what. Just seemed like something that....well, I don't even -think about, ah, motherhood anymore. I don't think about having children anymore. It just doesn't occur to me at all any more.

T224: It really doesn't cross your mind, and you're not quite sure whether you pushed it out of mind or not. Is that ah....

C224: I, I don't know whether that would be a rather wholesome case of forgetting and going on...well, I haven' t gone on to anything else, really. (Laughs) But it, it doesn't, it doesn't worry me any more,

T225: As far as you're aware, you've really forgotten the situation, pretty much.

C225: (Pause) Maybe I haven't forgotten, I don't know. And, and yet I think I have, I mean, after all I realize I am ah, over it, and so.... and it's probably a little ....I mean if everything did come out all right, I probably wouldn't,...I still wouldn't be a young mother growing up with her children, now. So that, just being realistic, it doesn't ah .... it seems that it doesn't bother me any more.

T226: You feel you've sort of accepted it from different angles, ah…

C226: M-hm. (Pause) As I look back on its though, ah, I don't see, why that should bother me so much, even .... well, one of the things that I sort of took for granted, and ah, that it was quite important, I knew at the time, I thought, well, "Why have I bothered all those years, ah, trying to maintain some standards (C: M-hm) of conduct, and all, if it didn’t really matter.” And I don’t know whether that ties in with anything else, and made me think, “What does matter?” It shouldn’t have.

T227: M-hm. But you do realize is that it sort of hit you, "What the hell have I been doing all this for?"

C227: M-hm. (Laughing) That's the feeling I had. I certainly was .... feel that way.

T228: Whether that spread to other areas, you just aren't quite sure.

C228: (Pause) It still seems to me, though, that I ah… one of the things that I thought was very important....in having a great deal of faith in being flexible about situations, and, it seems to me that I should have been flexible enough to readjust and set up some new goals. I ah....and that, ah....I. don't know whether that was my .... it wasn't my only goal, surely. But it was just one of the things I had looked forward to as a teacher, I suppose, and it seems to me that I should have .... should not let that be a signal to give up, and let things go.

T229: It seems to you that it, being defeated, or disappointed in that ah, one thing shouldn't have set you back for a long period of time.


C229: M-hm. I don't know. It seems that.... I had expected that by ah, by the time I was oh, twenty-five or thirty or so, I would have settled down and things would be pretty clear, and, it seemed that I could work up to that point, and keep trying new things. And at the time, it ...well, age keeps coming on me ...and since nothing positive is happening, I'm tired of trying ....

T230: M-hm. As long as it was a part of of ah, oh, getting ready for life, then it was interesting new things but to see that period over, it ah, doesn't seem as though it was worth trying things.

C230: M-hm. (Pause) I ah, I think if I should ah, see something pretty...I don't know whether I need to see something very definite in the future, or what.

T231: You don't know whether what's needed is a clear goal ahead of you, or or just what. (M-hm) I see our time is up. Ah, you want to come in again, Friday?

C232: Yes, I'd like to...



The Case of Miss VIBSixth Interview(Four days later)

T232: How goes it?

C232: (Laughs) Well, I’ve been wondering how ah, it seems, I mean I’ve just been thinking over some of the things I, I talked about. It seems that nothing I talked about is anything that anyone who wasn’t quite well-educated shouldn’t have been able to weather without being upset. And, I don’t know exactly what ah, constitutional psychopathic inferiority means (Laughs), but it seems to me that that wouldn’t affect… well, with me, that I have a… I don’t know… some inherent weakness of integration of personality, because I, they seem to be things that ah, normal people just go ahead and handle. I don’t know how you would….

T233: You feel that there must really be a, a real defect in you, that you haven’t been able to cope with these things.

C233: M-hm. I think so. Ah, now, well, I was thinking just then… on our hall in the, at the dormitory, there are several girls, for instance, who ah, lost husbands in the war, or, have had other things that would be quite upsetting and… I’m sure they’re bothered by it somewhat, but it doesn’t cause them, doesn’t cause them any basic upset.

T234: They’ve been able to meet things that ah, seem fully as tough as what you’ve had to face, and they have somehow weathered it.

C234: M-hm. M-hm. That’s the feeling I have. Ah, I don’t know whether I have just come to the end of my integrating powers and and that’s all or what.

T235: That is that perhaps you don’t have ah, as much capacity for integration as some people do, is that the, ah, sort of thing that you mean?

C235: I guess so. I, well, I guess so, because, ah, I haven’t had anything really too devastating to happen to me, that shouldn’t ah, I mean, anything that I shouldn’t be flexible enough to recover from, it seems.

T236: (Pause) You ought to have been able to adapt to it, somehow.

C236: That’s it. (Pause) The more reading I’m doing in some my classes, the more it seems that it, it’s just a matter of being quite weak about (laughing) ah, adjustment.


T237: You really evaluate yourself as being kind of a weakling, in that respect.

C237: M-hm. (Pause) Well, (laughing) really, ah, that’s what it seems to me at this point. The, I ah, I thought… why I ah, failed to cope with reality, and , I don’t have any very good reason for not doing it, though. Unless it, I don’t know whether there is some basic real weakness, or what it is. But I sincerely cannot think of anything that is ah, well, I know people have had, of the same kinds of experiences… well, teaching in a situation similar to mine where there weren’t many satisfactions in living, and doing all kinds of things that perhaps I ah, had done. And they weathered the storm. Without any… I don’t know… without apparently going ah, off to any great extent.

T238: You feel somewhat annoyed with yourself that here these other people have met situations just as bad as yours, and somehow weather them without being hit too hard.

C238: I do. (Pause) It, it just… I don’t know… and then I get annoyed at myself too, for making comparisons all the time with other people. I don’t… that’s not… I don’t think it’s really… well, it is important to see how other people get along, but I don’t know why I keep making ah, comparisons between myself and other people.

T239: You think you sort of over-do that comparison a little.

C239: I think I do. (Pause) I don’t know ah… well, I’ve, I’ve never been too conscious of comparing myself with other people before. Ah, I don’t suppose I felt I really was not measuring up in any important way, so I didn’t have any need for that.

T240: That is that this comparing yourself with others is something more ah, recent.

C240: It is. It really is. At least I haven’t been conscious of it. I don’t think I’ve been doing it. (Pause) And now I, I don’t know ah whether I am really making a serious effort to do anything about it. Ah, I mean, it doesn’t seem to me that I am trying awfully hard to ah, improve my orientation, but I, I want to. I feel that I should. And sometimes it seems as if I’m quite capable of it, and yet other times it seems as if all I’m doing is just living from one day to the next, and glad each day passes as it does.

T241: That is you feel that you – in one way you want to change, but also your own evaluation of yourself is that you’re not putting in a great deal of effort on that. Is that…

C241: Well, it doesn’t seem that I am. I don’t know how I expect a change to occur. Ah, I have ah occasionally felt, well for instance, felt depressed before, and then ah, ah, it clears up and I can usually see what the reason was and, and if the cause was removed, I’d find myself brightening up and going ahead and dong things.


But then, but it… it doesn’t… I don’t know what feeling I’m supposed to have about this, or what process I go through to begin to see more reorientation. It doesn’t… I just don’t see any way to go, at this point.

T242: M-hm. You feel kind of confused, as to how you could go about making any reorientation that would amount to much. Is that…

C242: M-hm.

T243: Where before, ah, when some of the circumstances have changed, you see why ah, why you improved, or felt better after.

C243: M-hm. (Pause) Another thing that ah… I mean the thing that isn’t improving, is my, ah, ah, feeling about the family. I don’t understand that. But I’m not doing any better about it. I mean I started doing better and then I stopped and I ah, I thought… well, a couple weeks, of calling up home, and talking with my mother and father would start me back on the same relationship I had before, but ah, well, for a while I felt really ah interested in them, and I know I, it has lapsed, to a certain extent.

T244: That is you took a step in that direction and thought that would kind of clear things up or put them back on their former basis, but instead it’s ah, slipped back again. Is that…

C244: M-hm. And I, I don’t know, I try to think through to the… what it is that ah, well, whether it’s a barrier between myself and my family. I just don’t see it. Ah… I don’t know whether I’m trying to punish them in some way, or what. I wonder if there’s any of that in it. Because I, I certainly am, ah, causing concern and worry by not writing and disregarding things. My mother has sent me, ah, packages and things, and I don’t even acknowledge them. Well, it seems to me that maybe I’m punish-, trying to punish them, or be mean to them, and I don’t know why…

T245: That is, that looking at your behavior, you can’t help but feel that it looks as though your were just trying to punish them, but ah, I take it that you don’t feel sure of that in yourself. That is, that it looks that way, at least…

C245: Well, that’s what it appears to be. I don’t understand it.

T246: Makes you wonder if you might, in some way, be trying to punish them.

C246: M-hm. I ah… it, it seems that it’s been important to me… or one of the things I expected to have accomplished by the time I was this age was that I would be a little more independent from my family. But I, I don’t, don’t think it’s their fault that I haven’t accomplished them. And yet, ah, just… beginning to ignore them, almost, isn’t establishing independence from them. I don’t know.


T247: That is, you haven’t quite reached the goal that you wanted, of being independent, but still, ignoring them isn’t really the goal you were aiming toward, either.

C247: No. It’s not. And I don’t understand why, ah, I have such little emotional feeling about, about them.

T248: It seems as though, emotionally, they don’t matter.

C248: M-hm. (Pause) And that… it just seems impossible to ah, conceive of myself ever getting in such a situation as that because our family has always been so close together, and if anything ah, it seems to me that I was one of the people that sort of held it close. Ah, I don’t know, I… never… developed, sort of like the center of the family, but, it seems as if the way things have worked out, the last several years, that was the sort of role I had been holding to. And, and ah, and now I… well, I, I, it seems sometime I would just be glad if they didn’t exist. I…

T249: Whereas before you were so central in the family relationships, and now if they weren’t in the picture at all it could be all right with you.

C249: M-hm. That’s the way I feel at times. I get feelings of remorse, and I feel ashamed of that feeling, but… it comes down to the way I feel… sometimes. Well, I, I don’t ah, I don’t ah, I don’t know what it is. When my mother was here to see me I… she has actually lost weight – well, she does that easily, anyway – but she said that she had been worried because I hadn’t written home. Well, she would do something like that. I can imagine she really was. And ah, she’d talk about home ah, she and my father sometimes would lie awake at night and wonder what I’m doing and why I don’t write. Well, now that would make anyone, really, feel upset. And I don’t know… I heard her, but I don’t know how it impresses me.

T250: That is, that sort of thing ought to cause you real pain, you feel, but it doesn’t.

C250: Noo… no it doesn’t. Sometimes I ah, oh, I think about what they might be doing at home and wonder whether they worry, or have had any effect on their outside activities, and, whether they’re still just… going along as normal, or not. But that seems to be the biggest thing about it that upsets me. Whether they’re still holding to ordinary activities. Or…

T251: In other words, as far as you’re concern goes, is whether this has shut them off from some of their usual interests.

C251: M-hm. And, I ah, I know how it must be. I mean, I know when my brother was in the Navy I was at home, and there were times, not awfully frequent, but times occasionally when maybe he couldn’t write for maybe a month or so, and, ah, and my mother and father would really worry and… and I could actually see the effect on them. I mean they’re not young people, really, and so I… and that was a


legitimate socially sanctioned cause for worry. They did… and that was a subject they could talk to people about and all. But now this is something… well, you just don’t go around saying that your daughter’s stopped writing here, and so they can’t get help from their friends on it very much, and I see how, how it could be really worse. And, ah, well it seems that, ah, I know the results of it, but I just don’t do anything about it.

T252: In other words you can see the whole picture intellectually well enough, that perhaps you’re putting them under more strain than they were under in regard to your brother. But, ah, still you don’t feel like taking any steps in regard to it.

C252: (Pause) And I… it’s… it isn’t even realistic. Because ah, when my, at the end of this quarter when my scholarship was finished and if I should decide to stay any longer, I’ll have to write and ask my father for money. Well, I know he would… I don’t know what he would do now. Ordinarily he would send it. And want me to stay in school. But… and yet I know… I mean I suppose I could manipulate things in such a way that I could get him to do it now, even. And I just feel that wouldn’t be a really, ah, well, it wouldn’t be a really, ah, well, it wouldn’t even be ethical to do something like that…

T253: You’d really be unfair or dishonest or something to work him for money.

C253: That’s it. I, I think it would. It seems to me it would. If I had ah, not… got into this situation, it would seem the natural thing to do… but as it is, I don’t see how I could.

T254: Because of the way you’ve let things go, you just feel that you couldn’t honestly ask him for money.

C254: I don’t see how I could. In fact, I don’t see how… I don’t know whether I could write to him. I don’t know what I could say.

T255: That is, you don’t see how you could break the silence now, is that…

C255: M-hm. I don’t… When I talked to him on the phone ah… I think I said before… he just talked as if I had called them the week before, the night before. (laughs) And I suppose if I would write that sort of letter it would be accepted. But I just can’t see myself doing it. It seems as if I had interrupted a chain of activities of… that were quite normal and I was accustomed to carrying through, and ah, with the interruption the habit pattern has just been lost and I can’t get back into it.

T256: Theoretically you could just write as though it were more or less casual, and it would probably be O.K. as far as they were concerned, but within you, you find that the old habits and ways of doing things have really been interrupted.

C256: M-hm. (Pause)


T257: You can’t just pick up as though nothing had happened. Is that ah… part of what you mean?

C257: That’s, ah, it, I think. It seems to me if I, ah, that I must make some atonement for all that’s happened now and in the past.

T258: You somehow have to pay for what you’ve done, if you were to resume relationships, is that…

C258: (Pause) And about my schoolwork too, it seems ah, I don’t know… it seems as if ah, well, there were more to it than just starting now and going ahead. But that I ought to, well, somehow, ah, make up for the things I haven’t done in the past. Now, today, my scholarship check came, and I didn’t even… I looked in the mailbox, I didn’t make it out. It seemed to me that I had absolutely taken the money and not produced something.

T259: You felt that taking it would be taking money under false pretenses.

C259: Yes. That’s what it seems to me. I have to cash the check, eventually, but…

T260: You’ll come out of it, but you won’t like it.

C260: (Laughing) That’s what’s going to happen. I… I knew at the end of the month it was time for it to come, but I didn’t want to see it. And I was… well, not unhappy, but I just pushed the thing in the mailbox and left it there. Well, now that’s not realistic, and I have to get it out and cash it and use it. But it… I don’t know… I have an underlying feeling that oh, for the past year or so, maybe, I’ve been, I’ve not been contributing enough to life. I’ve been taking out of it, and just accepting, and not ah… well, just not doing my share of things.

T261: You feel you’ve been on the receiving end, but you really haven’t been… made your contribution.

C261: M-hm. I think that’s true. I haven’t. I’ve ah, well, the other scholarship I had, I accepted the money and went to school for a whole year, and I never did finish the research. I finished it, but I didn’t write it up. I didn’t finish writing it up. And ah… I don’t know, I didn’t… well, I was at home for about eight months. I didn’t work; I was sick. And just the business of being at home and having people take care of you – that seems… well, I was receiving again, and not giving anything. And then ah… back here again or another scholarship and still taking money and not producing anything. And it’s just a…

T262: In all three of these ways, you’ve been taking and taking but you feel not, not repaying, in any way is that…


C262: M-hm. And it seems as if I’ve fallen into a pattern of that, of of not ah, being productive, and not, ah, going ahead under my own power. (Pause)

T263: It becomes sort of a settled way of adjusting, is that it? That you keep sitting back and letting others do for you. Is that…

C263: M-hm. That seems ah… and I don’t know, ah… if… you would think, being tired of having things, ah, done for you and having people sort of direct your life would make you get up and out and start doing things yourself. And I don’t understand this sort of apathy in… not doing things.

T264: M-hm. It ought to have a stimulating effect. Instead it doesn't have at all.

C264 M-hm. And I can remember situations before where, ah, I perhaps wasn’t happy with the way things were going. Well, I never just sat down and let 'em go. The the biggest thing it seems I've done is just withdraw from others and from....from...any other competition that everything required.

T265: Previously you took up the cudgels when things were bad, but ....

C265: M-hm.

T266: More recently you're just withdrawing from the demands of ordinary life.

C266: M-hm. (Pause) But I don't ...nothing has happened...I mean, ah, oh, at the beginning of the year when school started it seems to me that I came to school with a completely, ah, free mind. I wasn't really worried about anything and...well, it seemed to me that here was the beginning of something I had looked forward to and I would go ahead and finish. Then today, I was wondering too, If I came to school with the ideas of living in sort of a protected atmosphere for a year or two. (Laughs) Ah, because, really living here and going to school is somewhat, is quite different from working and ah, teaching in my home state, of all places. And, ah, it seemed that maybe I had been looking forward to these years, or a year or so as a maybe a refuge or a form of withdrawal, and it might be .... (T: Withdrawal?) ....withdrawal, and it might be that I was beginning to withdraw all along, and didn't know it.

T267: So that even coming here, which looked like an active and planful kind of thing, might really have been a part of this same seeking of shelter.

C267: It might have been. As I look back on it now, I wonder if that's one of the reasons why I'm sort of disappointed because I haven't ah done well enough that I should feel that I should keep on in school. (Laughs) Because it has upset my, ah, my little plan to, to withdraw from certain realities and while it seems ah ....in a way, I was sort of looking forward to sort of a substitute for ....well, the life I had planned. (T: M-hm) I had looked forward to ah, to a different sort of thing.


T268: You might have been hoping that this would be a substitute for your primary goal at the time.

C268: I think that is possible. (Pause) It seemed, ah, well, for a while, when I was first planning to get married, that things were, oh, I didn't have any doubts or concerns about, how I was facing reality at the time, and it seemed to me that, ah, this was a situation that I had looked forward to for quite some time, and, but now things were working out beautiful and ah .... I could just see the kind of life I could see stretching out ahead of me for all those years. And ah....

T269: You could see your life as you had planned it.

C269 M-hm. And then that was upset. It seems ah… well, I was sort or worried about that. Well, I wasn't really worried about it, but under the circumstances, it didn't seem too difficult, and then ....I can remember saying, though, I never want to have a Ph.D. before I get married. Because, ah, I don't know how being married and having a family seem like the normal way of living but .... or why I should have thought so much that I, I don't know whether I really thought I couldn't have a normal life if I didn't ah, do that. But as I look back on it now, it seems that was my picture of what a normal life was. And ah, getting a degree, or an advanced degree, ah, seemed to me to be one way to sort of a one-sided life, not a full life for a woman, And, and, ah, I just didn't want that.

T270: You realized that earlier, at least, you really didn't want, at all, the advanced degree kind of thing, which would really oh, set you apart from what, you thought was a normal life.

C270: M-hm. (Long pause) And I don't know ah .... if I had married L , the fellow I was engaged to, it probably ....I don't know whether it would have been an ideal sort, of life ....I mean, I'm sure it wouldn't have been. And yet there were a lot of the things that I wanted in the kind of life we might have had. And so that, ah ....I might have decided that I don't need to scheme and plan for my life any more. That this is the point where I'm going to begin to get some help. (Laughs) I can, well, begin to live out a little bit more fully get some of the things I wanted, too.... and that would .... it didn't work out, and that was the end of that and ....

T27l: You were just at the point where, ah… you felt that you were getting to the spot where you felt you could live out some of the things you really wanted to do, and didn't have to plan so much - it was really mapped out for you, more or less. And that was...scotched.

C271: M-hm. That's it. And then I, when I thought about that too, though...that's still an experience that so many women have, I don't see why ...I don't know, maybe I have a really... I looked forward to it so much. I think ah...maybe I'm more


dependent than I realize. And I don't welcome the role, ah, the task of going ahead by myself, as much as I think I do.

T272: You might have more of a desire to lean than you've admitted to yourself.

C272: I think that’s possible. It seems, ah… I never felt that I was, oh, depending on people a lot, and yet, as I look back on things that happened at home and in college and even at work, I suppose I always had someone that I could ah… sort of look to for guidance, and support. (Laughs – T: M-hm) And ah… I think that maybe that’s one of the things I expected out of marriage.

T273: M-hm. M-hm. Perhaps one of the things you looked forward to in marriage was that there would be a situation and a person on which you could basically depend.

C273: M-hm. (Pause) And it seems to me that ah… I have, well, ah, gone ahead by myself as long as I wanted to. Or as long as I felt able to, almost, and I, I wasn’t ready to go home and depend on my family. I, I… well, I really didn’t want that, and sort of resented any interference that they might have had in my plans, and, and yet basically maybe I didn’t want to go ahead on my own, either. At the same time…

T274: So that you didn’t want to depend on your family, but still perhaps you were tired of being – of exerting independent effort, and were hoping you could, ah, depend on someone… (C: M-hm)… in your marriage. Is that it?

C274: I think that’s part of it. Ah, I don’t… I mean, I didn’t feel in the marriage, that everything would be ah… that there would be no need for myself to… for me to assume responsibility. I knew that would happen. But it seems to me that if I could have, ah, responsibility with someone, ah, who was backing me up on things, that that would be…

T275: That is, you were quite willing to take responsibility and a second role, if you felt someone was the primary person, is that ah…

C275: M-hm. I think so. Or even that I could go ahead on things if I, if I just saw some support… or some kind.

T276: If you knew you had backing, you could take responsibility.

C276: M-hm. M-hm. (Pause) I don’t seem to be following any, any pattern in these interventions, I mean… if seems I don’t know whether I’m going in any positive direction. Of course you can’t tell.

T277: It bothers you that you don’t see any (C: Laughs) any nice pattern in it.


C277: I don’t really… I ah, well, I don’t know. (Laughs) It’s that occasionally I feel as if I’m going ahead, and then I don’t…

T278: You aren’t sure in your own mind whether you’re really making progress, or not. Sometimes you think you are and sometimes not.

C278: M-hm. At this level, I don’t know whether… but maybe I’m not going deep enough. It seems I could go on this way for… months and months – and I don’t know whether I’m really working hard enough.

T279: You feel you ought to be going deeper and that perhaps you’re not putting enough effort into it to go deeper.

C279: M-hm. (Pause) It seems as though I’ve been talking off the top of my mind, and don’t know whether I should or not.

T280: Feel you’ve been talking off the top of your mind when it should have been coming from deeper somewhere.

C280: M-hm. (Pause) I don’t know, I may be getting at some deep thing.

T281: Hard to know isn’t it? (Pause) I think all that I know is that people who work along as honestly as you seem to be trying to do, have a good chance of getting somewhere.

C281: (Laughs) Well…

[number 282 omitted in original transcription]

T283: Our time is up now.



The Case of Miss VIBSeventh Interview(Three days later)

C284: I’ve been thinking since I was here last time about ah, what the effects are on me of talking about things. And ah, one of the things, it seems to me is that, ah, talking about things makes them a little bit less fearful and awful to me. (C: M-hm) And, well, I think the instance of… the business about my parents and all, I ah, I seemed to be starting to feel less ah, ah, well, I wasn’t feeling hostile toward them, I don’t think, but I was feeling that they didn’t matter anymore. And it seems to me that over the weekend I’ve done more thinking about that and my whole attitude about… well, first every time I thought about my own attitude, I was just appalled at the way I had been acting. And ah, now it seems that I, I’m able to accept what I’ve done a little bit more easily.

T284: That is talking about it makes you less fearful of your own attitudes and of what you've done, is that ah…

C285: I think it has .... it does....

T285: You think you can accept a little more some of the things you have done.

C286: M-hm. And I guess the next step is now to do something about it..., in the right direction about it. Ah’ there’s- there’s another thing that has been sort of worrying me, too. I think I’ve talked about it before, but that is my ah, feeling about time. I used, I used to always have a feeling if, if ah, well a certain thing was going to happen, well, it was happening inevitably and I had to get ready for it and .... or I had to be prepared for it at a certain time. Well, I still don't have the feeling of urgency about getting things accomplished ah, at the time I should. It seems that ah, I’ll know that I have an obligation or a responsibility to ah, be met at a certain time, and yet I… I realize that, and yet as time passes, it doesn’t… I don’t get any… I don’t get that feeling of urgency, or ah, sort of the push I used, to get about things.

T286: Time doesn’t seem to make the same demand on you that it used to, is that it? (C: Mhm) I mean, you feel you had to get something done when it was ah, demanded by a certain time, but now, that doesn’t seem so urgent.

C287: No, it, it, doesn't. I think maybe at the time I worried too much about trying to meet the dead line, or get things done on time. And now, instead of worrying too much about it, I don't have a healthy anxiety about it even to make me go ahead and do things. (T: Mhm) I don't know.


T287: From going to one extreme and having too much concern perhaps, to one where you don't have any healthy anxiety about ordinary obligations.

C288: And I, I have a strange feeling, I don't know what it is, that ah, while I know that something is supposed to occur on a certain date, ah, well, like knowing that I had a paper to turn in, or something and time ...each day I know it’s a day nearer to it, but yet I can't ah, comprehend that I'm actually going to get to that day, and, and have to really race it.

T288: That is, intellectually you have all the facts, but they don't seem to ah, have the meaning for you that that day will really arrive and that you'll have to produce it on that date, is that ah…

C289: M-hm. That's something that’s happening and I don't understand it. I had that, well, since this summer when I was taking my exams, I had that feeling all the time. (Laughs) I, each week I knew that was one week nearer the exam, and I ... but it just didn't seem real to me that the day would actually come and . . . when I would be unprepared. I mean, I had the exams to take, and wouldn't be ready for it. And yet, I was aware of each passing day.

T289: You knew the elements of it, but it didn't seem like a real reality to you ....that it would happen.

C290: M-hm. And that's one thing I don't seem to be ah.... getting any further. Ah....I don't know.

T290: It’s still true.

C290: Mhm. ( Pause) I, I don't know but the whole, the whole business of time, and the passage of time is something that is ....is just not going along in a very real fashion. I ah…even from one part of the day to the next, or from one class hour to the next class hour, or from one meal time to the next meal time, I know that the time is coming, ah, but I don't do anything about it. I, I…

T291: Kind of unreal, is, that it? The passage of time and the handling of that problem. Is that...

C292: M-hm. It seems that ah, I don't ... I've always ... well, usually when I was at work, or at school, as long as I can remember, it seems as though I've been sort of rushed. And ah, having to do a lot of things in a short period of time. Every year when I was in college I worked, except one year, and I, ah, took part in a lot of school activities so that my time was always ... well, well taken up, and I did my class work, my studying and all .. . and this, when was working, well, we had long hours, large classes, and lots of other responsibilities besides our classes, and oh, it seemed I was always doing something else. Ah, going to clubs or meetings of


various kinds, or doing something that meant that I never had a whole lot of time just to waste. And, I've always .... it seems to me I've always worked under pressure. I've always rushed and hurried, And gotten things done. Even as far back as high school I used to work after school. And we had heavy homework, assignments, and ah I had to use every bit of time ....I mean a five minute period between classes I'd get part of an assignment done, maybe. So that is different from what I’ve usually done. I've always followed a pattern of, of ah, using time just to the fullest.

T292: You've always felt that there was hardly enough time and you've had to utilize every scrap of it to get your things done. And that's quite different from your present attitude.

C293: Mhm. It is. It certainly is. (Pause) I, I just haven’t had too much time to waste, at all. And now I find myself wasting time when it's important that I shouldn't be wasting time.

T293: You feel that right now you really waste a great deal of time that you actually can't afford to waste.

C294: M-hm. And I know all the, all the mechanics of not wasting time. Well, I know I do know how to plan to use the day so that you get a lot done,...

T294: That is you realize that it isn't any lack of experience or knowledge, in how to utilize your time, that you really know.

C295: I think I do. I haven' t always made good use of my time most efficiently, but I got lots of things done, and things that were important to do, I've done... at least things that were connected with things I thought were important and all... I just don't know what it is. I find myself, for instance, wasting time. I have often gotten up and done an hour or two hours' work before breakfast. And ah, now I usually don't get up for breakfast, even. I just waste time and ... I don't know... and I don’t know, ah ... don't know what it is…

T295: There's a very sharp difference between the way you used to use your time and the way you do now… the way you fail to utilize your time is that it?

C296: (Laughs) That's it. And I still find myself doing things that I’m not especially interested in, ah, oh, well, simple little things like all, this business of eating lunch with someone who takes a long time, well, and someone that I just happened to sit at a table with, without taking out at all.. Well, that is something I wouldn't ordinarily do. If I'm in a hurry, I wouldn't sit around and waste time ... keeping up a conversation just to be talking. And ah, people ah, people make little demands on my time, that I can see aren't very valuable… I'll accede to 'em and go ahead.


T296: In other words, you just let your time get used for purposes that don't mean very much for you, is that what you mean.

C297: M-hm. (Pause) I, and I just don't see anything ah, I can't see any cause behind that. I can't see why I'm doing that now. Unless, ah, I don’t know, maybe it's just a part of the general change from what I used to do to what I do now.

T297: You don't ....you haven't been able to see any real reason for that, which ah ....

C298: No, I haven’t And I haven't ah... I mean some of the things I've done I can see, or what seems at least, to be a superficial cause, but I just don't see any cause there at all.

T298: You've been able to see causes in some things to a certain extent, but as far as ....

C299: It just doesn't seem to be tied up with anything else that I had thought about myself, as far as I know. I.... don't know. (Pause) And it cer-, I mean it's something that ah, is most ineffective if I...well, if I'm going to get anywhere at all, I'm going to ...

T299: It really annoys you somewhat to be using time so ineffectively.

C300: It does. It really does. And.... yet I don't seem to do much about it. (Pause) .1 don't know whether it's a general disintegration, or what ... of constructive abilities or what it is. It seems....

T300: You wonder if it's part of a general falling to pieces of your, oh, ability to do things, eh?

C301: It seems like, to me, ah, I don't think I have ah ... well, this business of being concerned about getting things done and, and meeting responsibilities and all ah, that was a sort of an external or directive thing. It still probably wasn't internally, ah, well it probably wasn't really something that grew out of me. It was more of a meeting external demands. And it probably was a rather superficial part of me, instead of a real part of me. So...maybe the change isn't so much of a real change in me as a matter of losing those external directives.

T301: You feel that it might be somewhat the same you that it has always been only now, for some reason, you don't respond so much to the external demands for getting things done on time, and so on. Is that ah... It might be that the earlier doing of things on time was just ah, not so much in yourself, but responding, to what others ...thought ought to be done.

C302: (Pause) Well, it seems, as I look at it now, it seems that that was probably part of the whole pattern. I followed of meeting expectation of others, rather than having a very firm and strong ah, conception of what I really wanted in myself.


T302: Perhaps it all hung together in one piece of trying to satisfy others rather than have some strong set of internal standards or values.

C303: (Pause) Well, somehow, something is apparently making me ah .....find it less important to ah ....to measure up to the standards that other people set, or that I think other people have set, that's probably more it, I don't know which it is. Yet I still haven't substituted some of my own. And that's what I need.

T303: That is you find, for some reason, you don't particularly give a damn any more about the standards that others set, and yet you really haven't replaced those with any ah, anything you would be sure you want to stand by, is that it?

C304: (Pause) Well, that doesn't seem too ....wholesome either, ah, because it seems that at this point I'm just floundering around, and not ah, striving in any direction, I don't know...

T304: The feeling there that it's not one thing or the other.

C305: (Laughs) That's about it.

T305: You feel that isn't too wholesome a state to be in.

C306: No, certainly not. I still ah, get the feeling sometimes that now maybe I could start off doing things better if ah, the past hadn't gone before. I mean, it seems that sometimes I could ah, well, really stand on my on feet ... to do....ah, have some of the kinds of experiences I want to have, and do some of some of the things I really want to do, and not be too concerned about how it looks or about what other people think about me, or what I should have done, I should do. But it seems I'll always ah, . . .I keep looking back too much, instead of looking forward.

T306: That is, in some ways, you feel within yourself kind of a readiness, to, to do some launching out, to do the things YOU want to do, in the ways you like to do them. But you feel.... held back, is that it, by, by a lot of it that’s gone before. Is that what you mean?

C307: I think so. It seems that ah, ah, I've just become so enmeshed in other people's expectancies, that it's hard to break away, and ....

C307: It' s really woven a whole network of what other people expect, all around you to a point where it's awfully tough to get out of that network. Is that it?

C308: Yes. And, ah, and it still seems that one of the things that I'll have to do before I can get out of it is just to realize that I can't keep up with all these expectancies, and ah, well, just take it for granted I didn't, and I, I can tell people so, and know that I probably need to go on in my own direction.


T308: In other words, doing something about it would involve accepting the fact yourself that you haven't been up to expectancies of others, and also letting them know that you hadn't and really didn't intend to, is that it?

C309: It appears to me that's what I’ll, I'll have to do.... before I go on. I don’t know why it should be so important, I mean, to let other people know. (Laughs) But that seems like ah, one of the things that will have to happen somehow. I mean, that ah, well I haven't done some of the things I was expected to do, and that will have to be known and taken for granted, before I can go ahead and do whatever I eventually will do.

T309: You feel that somehow others have got to know what your attitude is toward their expectancy and have really got to face that before you can move out on your own .... a little more independently. Is that it?

C310: That's what it seems, And ah, it seems that I should have, ah, integrity enough to ah, let people know .... I mean acquaint people with, well, my shortcomings, or whatever. And, and my ah...If I ever get a new job, to ah, be myself more, instead of doing ....what …I’ve been expected to do.

T310: You feel it would involve a very definite sort of honest feeling of integrity if you were to try to let them know that you hadn't measured up in certain things, and that you don't expect to ... that kind of thing.

C311: M-hm. I think so. Ah, it seems if I could take responsibility for.... well, of course, if I just ah, accept myself, plainly and fully, and then, ah, if I could be casual about it and not be too worried and upset about it. If someone asks me what I’m going to do next year, just say, "I don't know," or that I probably will have a job somewhere, or ... instead, of being worried that they'll find out I, I'm failing in all my class ... not doing too well.

T311: You think that if you accept the actual situation more deeply, in yourself, then perhaps you wouldn't be quite so worried about what they might think in regard to the situation.

C312: M-hm. (Pause) I think as I ah, understand more about ah, the prospect of it, or what actually is happening, that I'll accept it more... maybe. (Pause) If I keep thinking of myself in terms of, ah, what I used to do, and the way I used to do things, there doesn't seem to be any reason why I shouldn't have come to this year all right. If, but If I can get a more realistic picture of myself, and see, ah, well, how I really operate, it'll help me to understand, and I might be able to accept more what is happening, or what has happened.

T312: In other words if you keep comparing back with what ah, ah, you were sometime ago, then there's always that comparison. But if you can accept more fully your


present situation, then you might be able to understand it better and perhaps move forward better. Is that…

C313: I think so. And...it might be that I'll discover the same self operating all the time. And....I don't know whether that would be easy to accept, or not. (Laughs)

T313: (Laughing) You don't know whether it would make it more difficult or less difficult.

C314: That means that revising the picture of myself that I've been carrying around.

T314: M-hm. That is, if it has been pretty much the same self all the time, then it would demand a fairly sharp redrawing of the picture you hold of yourself.

C315: M-hm. (Pause) As I look at it. (some words missed)

T315: You feel that's the direction you’re thinking is taking, but you’re not (C: Laughs) sure whether you’re happy about it. (Laughs)

C316: That's true ...well, it means ... it seems that I've been a rather immature person all along, you know. Not too flattering, but ... but really, ah, I think that perhaps I carried a veneer of maturity, and apparently I didn't wear it in situations where I couldn't operate so that it was all right.

T316: M-hm. Not too pleasant to look at, but you feel as though maybe it has been a crust of maturity over what was really immaturity, and that ah, in situations where you've found yourself you’ve always been able to get along on that veneer basis.

C317: (Pause) It’s funny…when I was coming today, didn't know what I was going, to talk about (both laugh). It seems that I ...each time I come I say, “Don't have anything to talk about today,” to myself before I come here. (Pause)

T317: You really feel that ... there's nothing you have in mind.

C318: (Laughing) But I, I seem to do more thinking I guess.

C318: You do your thinking as you go along in here.

C319: It seems that way to me. I, I ah.... remember, ah, the questions, and I think about them in between. I don't ah, sometimes I think of things I'm not going to say (laughs), then I feel, I mean, then they come out, sometimes. But I ah, I feel a little bit more direction in here than I do...(T: M-hm.)... otherwise.

T319: That is, you feel most of your thinking in between times is either over what we have covered or over things that, after all, you'd better not .... (S: Laughs) ....bring up, and so on, rather than ah .... rather than your thinking carrying you forward. Is


that ah....

C320: It seems to me that's what happens.... sometimes I think ahead, and try to see, but I, I never, well .... this business of being immature, I don't think I would ever admit that to myself, by myself ....I mean alone .... in my thinking about it alone in my room, for instance.

T320: It's not something that you can look at straight, alone.

C32l: That's what it seems to me. Its a difficult thing to think of. It ah,... (Pause) it also means that there's a big job, ah...I mean there's a lot to be done. There's a (pause) a new way of looking clearly at older and, and inadequate ways of, of ah, reacting and, beginning to build up a new pattern of behavior.

T321: It really requires a large size job. (Pause) It implies a rebuilding of your ways of attention.

C322: (Pause) I think it does. (Pause) And if I, if I've been thinking . . . that I’ve been acting in a mature way, and ah,..and I really haven't ....the way back to acting maturely is going to be more difficult than I thought - I mean, ah,... well, fitting into situations that required a certain amount of maturity, ah... I've had to do that. I mean I've been in situations that require maturity, and all, I’ve done it up to now. Ah...in a way that probably protected really, from this business of, having to grow up, completely, and all... now the next step might be a painful one. I mean it might be ... it's going to be less enjoyable.

T322: I wonder if I understand that, is it that possibly being mature might be considerably more painful than acting as if you were mature, is that ...

C323: That 's.... I, I just wonder if I might have that difficulty because ah, oh, I don't even know quite what I'm saying, but ah ... it seems acting as if you were mature ....gives you the ....well, the approval of others as a mature person, but it's still a ....

T323: You get all the profits without the expense.

C324: (Laughs) That's It. And ah, being quite mature, and quite independent might mean that you ah…don' t have any place of refuge in times of stress and trouble.

T324: You'd really be out there with the wind blowing around you, hmm?

C325: (Laughs) That sounds quite possible. But if you are, ah, completely mature .... you should have a, some stamina of character, or some, ah, ah .... well you should have integration enough, so that you get your satisfaction ....ah, from yourself, perhaps, instead of from the approval that comes from others.


T325: Perhaps more of the satisfactions would have to he inner ones, rather than all, the satisfactions coming from the approval of others.

C326: It seems to me that ... don' t know how it will work out... I should think that you would have a, a clear sense of direction and a pretty clear sense of your place in the scene of reality, and, and rather closely integrated self, that ah, you would see ahead ... ah, things, that are to be done, or things that you would want to accomplish, and as you accomplished them you'd get satisfaction at seeing and ah, your ah, self, living out itself.

T326: M-hm. It would be satisfying to see yourself achieve the things that your self had planned.

C327: M-hm. (Pause)

T327: Seeing yourself live out yourself might be satisfying.

C328: (Laughs) I, I think it could be. (Pause) And the more I, I ah, ah... well, it seems to me I don't know…quite how to begin things... I haven' t come to the place yet, I guess, where .... feel I know, I think I know what the next step ought to be. And it seems if I go ahead and do something positive at this point that it’s an intellectual thing like ah... I could write out a schedule for my day ....the way and I could spend my day ....and I could probably follow it. And ah, I still don't feel, honestly, that I'd get anything by going at it in pieces and…

T328: You feel you could plan it, and you feel you could do it, but you still feel that it's still artificial inside. Is that…

C329: M-hm. It might be, though, that the way to get started, to have me really feel it, is to start following some of the patterns. I don't know.

T329: You're not sure how to, how to tie up the real sense of conviction about it with, with doing something about it.

C330: And I still ah, am worried about well, this separation between ah, what I know and what I do is very bad.

T330: You feel that that is an awful separation .... between what you know and what you do.

C331: (Laughs) It ....I don't know....I guess, bridging that gap is .... somehow getting conviction and getting ah, ah, a very strong feeling about myself as I really want to be, is important. And before I get that, I don't feel as though this separation- well - it's normal, perhaps, but, well, it just shouldn't be… I don't know… how it seems. It seems ah… well, I wonder sometimes if I have the power of just integrating those two things.


C331: You really wonder whether you can tie together what you know and what you do ... and, and I'm not sure I understood, but I take it you feel that, you certainly couldn't do that unless you were pretty deeply sure of what you wanted to be. Is that . . . partly what you were...

C332: I think so. (Laughs) Ah, I think I ought to ah, well, to actually... this business of being quite mature... is important. And I ought to start working on that. And it seems to me if I ah, grow into maturity that will bring a firm... I don't know why it should be firm... but a rather sure idea, ah sure concepts of what I, what I want to do, and what I... what sort of person I'd like... I can be.

T332: If you once start growing in the direction of maturity then perhaps some of that assurance about what you should do and be, and so on, would develop.. I see our time's up. Do you want to come in... oh, ah, I was going to say Friday I'm going to be out of town. Ah, is a week from today too long a time?

C333: I don' t think so.

T333: All right. If you should want to see me before then, call in and I'll see if something can be done. Otherwise let’s say Monday? O.K.?

C334: Yes, Thank you very much.



Case of Miss VIBEighth Interview

C335: I've been thinking some things over between ah, since last time, and ah, it seems to me it's about time I started making some definite plans to do something. Ah, I ah, I don't know whether it's the urgency of time, and I realize I just have to do something soon something before the quarter is over, or what, but it really .... I mean right now, it seems to me I don't see why I can't start planning things, and doing some of the things I know ought to be done.

T335: It might just be the pressure of external circumstances, but also you're raising a question, internally, “Why can't I decide what to do and do it?” M-hm.

C336: M-hm. I ah, well, from the last couple of weeks I've been studying more .... I mean I've been more systematic about getting things from the library, or going to the libraries, and, and reading some of the things that I know I need to read. And I've been ah, sort of allotting the few weeks I have left to divide between ah, a term paper I have in one class, and the reading I have in another.... and I, I don't know, whether the absence of a, oh, an awfully, ah, rushed feeling is a good thing or not, but it seems ah, that I'm expecting to get, to come to the end of the quarter, with a certain amount of work done. I don't have any notion that I could get very high marks in my work. I have ah, two term papers to do in classes. Well, I don't have an urge to .... I mean I don't have the feeling that I must ah, turn in a better term paper than anyone else does. I don't , I don't expect to .... get, perhaps an 'A' on term papers, but I have a feeling that I'll get 'em done somehow. But I don't....

T336: That is, you feel you're not shooting awfully high, but somehow you have a kind of a premonition that you'll complete the work in, in reasonable satisfactory fashion. Is that…

C337: That's the feeling I have at this point. I don't know whether that's an optimistic .... I mean overoptimistic .... although I haven't been feeling optimistic recently, so I don't suppose it is. But I, do have that notion, that I well ah, well, I reading, and, and instead of just, oh sitting in my room all afternoon, thinking about what I haven't done in the past, I'm finding it a little bit easier to get out and do something.

T337: You feel that actually you are in the process of doing something about someof these things.

C338: Yes. I think it's, it may not be any bigger part of my problem, I don't know, but it's something I have to do. And I, I seem to be starting to do a little bit of it.


T338: You feel, then, that rather than just withdraw into your room and worry about the past you really have been going out and doing something about the present. Is that ah…

C339: I, I have in a small measure. I've ah, well, studying and going to the libraries and doing things .... I've been doing more of that. Well, that's silly (laughs). But it .... for, oh, weeks at the beginning of the quarter, I didn't go into the library at all and I didn't go into the Department Library .... I spent so much time there this summer, it seems I, I just didn't want to go back. Well, now I'm seeing more people and people are saying to me, “Have you been here all along and .... (Both laugh). Apparently ah, maybe I'm not withdrawing quite as much. I'm still not doing too well, though because I went to .... I finally made an appointment with Prof. ______ so when I was in the office, ah, Mrs.____ came up, and I still didn't talk to her. I... .but I'm beginning to feel now, that maybe I will .. . . go and talk to her.

T339: In other words, you're not satisfied with what you've done, entirely, but you feel you have taken one step at a time, and have been able to see Prof. A____ even if you didn't feel at that time, able to see Mrs.______

C340: And that sounds silly too, I mean, ah, there's no reason why I shouldn't see her. The only reason is that she started .... I started going to her at the beginning of the year to be on my thesis committee, and I was planning to do a thesis and I just stopped it. And never went back.

T340: That is, it seems silly to you that things like this would seem like achievement, is that it?

C341: M-hm. Or it seems ah, that is true. And with regard to Mrs._____ it seems that I have anxiety about seeing her .... too. It seems silly that a little thing ... I mean something.... that there should be anything that ah, would seem an obstacle to ah, carrying on a contact with her. And... I don't know.

T341: It's hard to believe there would be any feeling in you that would block that.

C342: I don't know whether the conversation would be helpful. Before hand, I can think about it. I don't see that ah, ah, now the, well, it's not a difficult thing to do ... to go and see her at all. And ah, yet I still, it may be that I feel better because when I think About it ... I mean when I think things through now, I'm beginning not to have the great feeling that I'm thinking in one world and living in another! (Laughs) I really, ah, ah, am beginning not to have that feeling as much as I did.

T342: That is, the world of thinking and the world of living are a little more nearlythe same world at this point, is that ah…


C343: It seems that, to me now. Ah, I've I still ah, oh, find myself, going back sometimes, and ah, thinking, why didn't I do this, or why shouldn't I have done some that, and I suppose I well for a long time, but it doesn't seem as, quite as dreadful to me now, as it once did. I don't know whether that's just a repression, or not, but I, I can ah, see things in the past a little bit without ah, oh, without the feeling that I've done an awfully dreadful thing.

T343: You can look a little more at the past without being overwhelmed by yourfeeling in regard to the badness of all you did or didn't do.

C344: I can a little bit. I still ah, I still feel ah, a need for a more ah, motivation (?) Not only be able to think about things but to go ahead and do them. I, I or something to doing everything I need to do. And sometimes it seems as if I ought to be able to sit down and write down the things I ought to do, in all areas of my life, and go ahead and do them. And then, that doesn't seem so realistic, either. If I ah, over a period of time have been going away from doing things, I suppose it'll take some time to grow back into doing things I should.

T344: You feel that on the one hand you're not living up to all the things you really should be doing, but on the other hand, you feel that it's more realistic to grow gradually into that. Is that…

C345: (Laughing) Maybe that's it…what I was saying. I don't know whether that's procrastination.

T345: You're wandering if you may be fooling yourself in that area.

C346: I don't know. How one of the things that I was doing ah, something that had worried me was getting, well, living at the dorm, it's hard ... not to just sort of fall in with a group of people ah, that aren't interesting, but just around. Well, I ah, found that I had been spending a lot more time with a group of people that I didn't find anything .... All of them are pleasant people, and there were certain activities I enjoyed with them, but well, there were a lot of things that I didn't have in common. And we had gotten in the habit of eating breakfast together, and lunch together, and dinner together, and sitting around a lot, probably in the evening. So, now I find that I'm ah, able to, ah, at least I’m getting away from that group a little bit. And ah, being with people who are a little bit more stimulating, and people that I really find I have more interests in common with.

T346: That is, you've really chosen to draw away from the group you're just thrown with by chance, and you pick people whom you want more to associate with. Is that it?

C347: That's the idea. I, I ah, I mean I'm not doing anything drastic. I haven't taken any great steps by leaps and bounds. But, well, one of the girls lives on my floor and she would come and knock on the door and say, ah, that she wanted to eat lunch, or let's eat lunch at twelve, or all of us are going down to eat at twelve. Well, it


used to be hard for me to say, “Well, no. I would like to eat at twelve-thirty, ah, so I can eat lunch and go to my one-thirty class.” And so I'd stop whatever I was doing and drag down at twelve with the group. Well, now I say, occasionally, "Well, that isn't convenient for me. I'd rather eat later,” or, I'd rather eat earlier." Well, all, before it was easier for me to say, "O.K., I'll go ahead and eat, now." And then another thing is that all, with the group of kids that I was eating with, I felt that I had just sort of been dragged into the group, almost. They weren't people.... one or two of them were people that I really liked, and they had sort of pulled me in with a group of their friends that I wouldn’t have picked, myself, especially. And all, so that I found that all my time was being taken up with these people, and now I'm beginning to seek out people that I prefer myself, I mean people that I choose, myself, rather than being drawn in with the bunch.

T347: You find it a little more possible, I gather, to express your real attitudes in a social situation, like wanting to go to lunch or not wanting to go to lunch, and also to, ah, to make your own choice of friends and people that you want to mix with.

C348: So, that seems to me I all, that also isn't going ahead by great leaps and bounds, but I ah-

T348: It's a slow process…

C349: But I ah, I think I'm getting to that. All and I don't know whether ... I mean at first, all, I tried to see if I was just withdrawing from this bunch of kids I'd been spending my time with, and I'm sincere in thinking that ah, it's not a withdrawal, but it's more of an assertion of my real interests.

T349: M-hm. In other words, you've tried to be self-critical in order to see if you're just running away from the situation, but you feel really, it's an expression of your positive attitudes.

C350: I, I think it is. But I do think ah… I ah, still haven't done anything .... I'vebeen thinking about all, what's going to happen at the end of the quarter. I stillhaven't, haven't all ....I don't think I've been hit too much by the ah, reality of that situation yet that my scholarship is out, and I don't have money myself to go ahead to school. And, and I've sometimes had the feeling that one morning I'll get up and .... oh, investigate possibilities of part-time jobs, or do things that might add to my going on to school further. (C: M-hm) And ah .. . . sometimes I still feel like, oh well, whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and I'll just keep going till the end of the quarter and see what comes up.

T350: That is, you've played a little bit with the idea of doing something about meetingthat reality, but for the most part you've been inclined just to let that ride andsee what happens. Is that...


C351: I was trying to ah, think about possibilities and it seems ah ... that if I ah, leave now I will eventually get a job someplace, I'm sure. Ah, if I stay here I, I have the feeling ... and I don't know why I have it ....but, that I haven't learned a whole lot here. Well, just being sort of objective about it, I came first in a workshop. Well, I think the workshop was awfully helpful in getting me interested in the S_ Department. I mean, the whole idea of S _was new to me and the courses were new, and that was stimulating. And Dr. ___ and all.... the emotions and the educative process ... that was stimulating. Well, just the general atmosphere of the department intrigued me, so I was really interested in the S_ Department. Well, that's.... I think perhaps that's all I got from the seminar. I ah, I'd learned some factual things, but I suppose I'd been incorporating them and using them for several years, so I don't realize what specific things I learned. Well, then I came back, and as I mentioned, I was doing this long research problem and as I went along ... all that whole year I took two courses. One first quarter, and one second quarter. Well, the rest of the things were ah, research courses where I was not getting content material, I was just signing up for the course, and then going out and doing the study. Well, then I came back the first quarter this year. Well, that was the first time I really felt that I was actually, with all myself, attending the University of Chicago. I had three full courses, ah, that took up a lot of my time. Well, I still didn't study too much, but I did feel I was really here, and in classes. And ah, ah, then the next quarter, I had ah, I had a course from Mr. Z ___, and ah, I didn't, for some reason, I always expect so much from a course, and well, I guess that statement sounds as if ah, in that course I thought I was going to get a lot ofacquaintance with ah, methods of studying personality and culture. Well, we didn't get too much of that. At least I didn't feel that I had learned too much in that course. And it was I’m sure, my fault for not doing enough reading. And then in the, another course I attended the lectures and all, and I think I learned something, I mean I have the feeling that I was applying myself and learning, but I didn't write the paper. And ah, oh, another ... I signed up for a seminar ... Well, the.... it wasn't.... I don't know whether anyone else ever signed up for it or not, but there was no real seminar. I would just see the professor individually a few times, till finally I just stopped going, and I didn't well, I did some reading, and I don't know, that sort of thing just fizzled out. Well, all along I, I don't know whether I just haven't selected courses where I was able to learn or whether part of it was just not entering wholeheartedly into things myself. But I feel ah, that I just haven't learned a lot. And I wonder, now, ah, if I stay .... or try to stay here another year, ah, how ah .. . . what would I.... it's not clear to me what I would be doing.

T351: You feel up to this point you've gained from some courses, and haven't gained much from others, but all in all it's been a little disappointing, whether due to the courses or to your own lack of wholehearted effort or what. It was not too good. That's why you wonder if some more of same would ah, be very attractive.


C352: Well, that's it. Ah, I'm sort of bothered all along with my not having a clear sense of direction in selecting courses, and following a logical pattern so that I would get a group of courses, I mean that would seem to make sense to me. Well, the first quarter I thought I had that. I had two good courses together, and I thought ah, I was so happy to be getting courses in that area, and that's part of it. And the other part is my lack of really wholehearted participation. I mean, I haven't done ... put myself wholeheartedly in courses. Because ah, well, in Mr. Z 's course in Personality and Culture, ah, all the materials are in it, and so on, and that was the whole area. Well I think I read, I did read a little bit in that area, but that is the whole area that still I'm not quite up to par. Well, that was certainly something I could have done, and ah, the thing is, when I approach courses ah, I ... well, at least some courses, I get, I have a feeling that part of this is familiar to me, and ah, it doesn't present such a great challenge for me to do more. And in the course I'm taking now, ah, from Dr. Y_____, ah, everything we've had in class ... we've had theories of development, but not recent ones. And then we had ah, or, Piaget's work. Well, now, I've been hearing about Piaget off and on, ever since I've been in college. Ah, I, one person gives a summary of him and his work, or a certain part of his work, and they'd read this and maybe just one chapter or maybe two chapters, and, well, I'd skip through that and ah, I, I've been knowing one or two things about Piaget as long as I . . . . well, since I was in college. So then they finally got through that, and we came to Freud. Well, I've been knowing a little bit about Freud and his work since the second year I was in Psychology, and I .. . .so that some of the things struck a familiar note. And, and ah, so ah, for some reason, it seems like I've got a smattering of notes .... either isolated items, or I just have a, a, a smattering of knowledge about things in general, and I'm not stimulated to .... 1 mean I don't feel motivated to look over that stuff again. Well, now, that's one thing that worries me about going to school some more. When I still have that feeling, I wonder, I wonder if I'll still have this feeling that all this is something .... well, it's not new .... I don't know too much about it. I don't know very much about it, but for some reason it's, I'm not .... well I just don't go ahead and dig further and get a good picture of it.

T352: That is, having these various ah, smatterings, makes you wonder whether going ahead in course work might not just seem to you like here's some more of this same old stuff. Is that ah....

C353: I ....... ah, that's the feeling I have… I mean…

T353: You feel you haven't gone deeply into some of that, but still you feel as though you had had a part of it before.

C354: That's it. Well, I, I ah, think it's so funny I ah . . .nothing is moving me and it doesn't compel me to investigate and find out what it's all about.

T354: You don't find anything in any of it that really calls you forward into looking more deeply into it.


C355: That seems to be it. Ah, I don't suppose that would hold for everything I've been doing. But in general it's a feeling I had. And I had it so long I don't know what it is. Whether it.... and as I look back I can see .... ah, some of the things I remember, I don't even know how deep they are. They probably aren't very deep at all, and they probably ah, don't mean a whole lot. But, just for some reason, having that feeling .... ah, I've had this before .... well, ah... and I've just gotten a smattering. Now, today, for an example, in the class I just came from, ah, the Professor was discussing Aichorn's ideas about delinquency, and ah, his book Wayward Youth. It was on our reading list in a college class about ten years ago, but .... I'd been hearing abut Aichorn, and ah, when he started to introduce the topic, he said he wasn't going to give us ....he wouldn't talk about French and Alexander's ideas about delinquency, but he wasn't going to do that, he was going to do another ah, ah, psychoanalytic approach to delinquency. And I said, "Oh, this is Aichorn." (Laughs) Well, he hadn't said anything about Aichorn and we hadn't any reading to tell us that .... and I had, hadn't thought about Aichorn since college days, I guess, except French and Alexander mentioned him, but I do have .... so often- and and at that time I didn't even remember the name of the book, so then he was getting ready to say, well, ah, you know the book with the title that has been translated into English. And I thought, "Oh, that's Wayward Youth. (Laughs) And ah ....so it just took a little bit of the edge off of the ....he was going to tell us.

T355: Sometimes even beforehand you know what's coming and it fords up before he's even said it.

C356: (Laughs) That's what…that's what I do. And it's not really true. Because I'd never realized what I'd just been hearing about it, and knowing that it was written, and that's about all I knew. And that it was psychoanalytically minded. Well, now, that ....

T356: You feel that's kind of a vicious example because you didn't actually knowthe stuff, and ... except very much at second hand. And ah, the notion that that'swhat he was going to mention seemed like ah, old stuff.

C357: M-hm. Ah, yeah and I mean I think ah, the very ah, viciousness of that example probably brings out more forcibly what I do. I think if I felt it were a little more justified like Piaget .. . . something I'd read .... one of his books, at least .... and summaries of some of his stuff .... so I can see there a little bit why I'd do that, But now, with Aichorn, I had never read the book, and never seen it, and, and yet I thought, "Oh, my goodness, this is Aichorn." (Laughs)

T357: You feel that in that instance, really your own attitudes in it are, are somewhat unreasonable, but you have them.


C358: Yes. Well now, I wonder if I've been going around doing that, (Laughing) getting smatterings of things, and not getting hold ... not really getting down to things.

T358: Maybe you've been getting just spoonfuls here and there rather than really digging in somewhere rather deeply.

C359: M-hm. That's why I say and with that sort of a foundation, ah, well, it's, it's really up to me. I mean, it seems to be really apparent to me that I can't depend on someone else to give me an education. I'll really have to get it myself.

T359: It really begins to come home there's only, only one person that can educate you.

C360: M-hm. (Pause)

T360: ....a realization that perhaps nobody else gives you an education.

C361: (Pause). I have all of the symptoms of fright now. (Laughs)

T36l: Fright?

C362: Fright. M-hm. Fright.

T362: Fright. That, that is a scary thing. Is that what you mean?

C363: M-hm. (Very long pause).

T363: Do you want to say any more about what you mean by that? That it really does give you the symptom of fright?

C364: (Laughs) I, I ah, (Pause) I don't know whether I quite know. I mean I ah well, it really seems like I'm cut loose .... (Pause) And. it's it seems that I'm very ah, very, I don't know .... in a vulnerable position, but I, I'm ah, (Pause) I brought this up, and it ah, it's ah, somehow it almost came out without me saying it. It seems to be - it's something I let out.

T364: Hardly part of you

C365: Well I felt surprised.

T365: “Well, for goodness sakes, did I say that?" (Laughs)

C366: Really I, I don't think I, I had that feeling before. I ah, I mean as yet. I've ah... . well, this really feels like I'm saying something that ah, is a part of me, really, or ah, (Pause) it feels like I'm ah, sort of have ah, I don't know. I have a feeling of


strength, and yet, I have a feeling of, of a ....realizing it's so sort of fearful .... of fright.

T366: That is, do you mean that saying something of that sort of gives you at the same time, a feeling of, of strength in saying it, and yet at the same time, a frightened feeling at what you're saying, is that…

C367: M-hm. Ah, I, I'm feeling that. For instance I, I'm feeling it internally how .... a sort

of a surging up, or force or outlet. As if that's something really big and strong. And yet ah, well, at first it was almost a physical feeling of just being out alone, and sort of cut off from a... support I had been carrying around.

T367: You feel that it's something deep and strong, and surging forth, and at the same time, you just feel as though you'd cut yourself loose from any support when you say it.

C368: M-hm. Maybe that's (Laughs)…I don't know, ah…It's a disturbance of a kind of a pattern I've been carrying around, I think.

T368: Sort of shakes a rather significant pattern, jars it loose.

C369: M-hm. (Pause) I, I think, ah, I don't know. I have the feeling that then I am going to begin to do more things, that I know I should do. And, I, and I one thing that I ah, I'm sort of happy about is that I... even though I still procrastinate an awfully lot, but I ah, the procrastination in some instances, seems to be less a matter of just ... well, with regard to some things, just not facing the issue as it is, ah, a lessening of that .... of a sort of a compulsion to meet standards, and to meet deadlines, and to get things done ....

T369: You feel kind of a dawning conviction within yourself that you're perhaps beginning to get some things done. And you haven't felt quite so concerned recently about procrastination, because it doesn't seem to have quite the same compelled quality. Is that… I mean you don't feel quite so much compelled to live up to somebody else's standards.

C370: I have that feeling. Ah, I do. I ah, I know well, there are so many things that I need to do. It seems in so may avenues of my living. I, I have to work out new ways of behaving but .... I maybe, - I can see myself doing a little better in some things.

T370: At least you can visualize yourself doing somewhat better. (Pause)

C371: If I go ahead and start doing things, it may give me more confidence, or more spontaneity about my behavior. One thing I worried about last time was making a schedule but now I don't feel that's just the way, but I feel I want to build into a sort of spontaneous approach to meeting responsibilities.


T371: You feel it isn't just making yourself do things according to a schedule, but youwant to do things more inwardly, and that looks a little more possible.

C372: It does, I can feel that's going to come, more than I did about the schedule.

T372: I see our time is up.



Case of Miss VIBNinth Interview

(Seven days later)

C373: I'm feeling much better today than I have I think any time that I've been here (laugh) I've uh, sort of been thinking about oh, things that have been happening and it really seems to me that what I want to do is to stay in school and, uh, uh, continue working toward my degree and to do that I think, uh, what I'll need to do is to get a job. I think, uh, I'll, I don't know whether I'll have to get any help from home or not, but I think that it's possible that I may be able to get along without that because I do have a little reserve, set aside now for next Quarter, and uh, I won't have to take any courses, I don't think I will, I thought, cause I have at least gotten an orientation to the field from the courses that I've taken and, uh, some directions in how to organize material enough (C: Mhm) so that I uh, will find that I can go ahead and get ready to take my exams again on my own. (C: Mhm) and uh, I also have a little hopeless feeling about the courses that I'm taking now (laugh) (C: Mhm) for instance the course in the socialization of the child, uh, I it seems that what that has done is to introduce me to maybe four or five areas where maybe my knowledge is sort or weak, and uh it's going to be helpful to me to do reading in those areas and also have a core of meaning around which I can organize what I've been reading.

T373: So you've been sort of making a decision about what direction to go and about what to do next quarter, and about financial support, (C laughs) and evaluating your present courses, and so on.

C374: I think so, uh, I don't know how much is awfully clear yet, but I do have, uh, a few interests, I mean it's been developing, I suppose and interest in my work and, uh, perhaps one thing is that I've really been working rather hard on a term paper for genetics. And uh, in going, I mean I've been pretty, uh, punctual and careful about going to the library and going ahead on my own, well I took the reading that Dr. R. gave us and most of the material was old, oh before 1930 so then it was necessary for me to look up material myself, although tracing down things and finding some stuff that I could read (C: Mhm) has been really sort of exciting to me.

T374: In other words, taking quite an independent and orderly procedure in working on that problem has really turned it from a chore into being something quite exciting.


C375: It has, and it seems to me if I could do that in that area I could do it in others (short laugh).

T375: That would give you confidence in other areas too.

C376: I think so, I think it has. I still occasionally get feelings of uh uh, well I suppose of regret that I didn't go further along this year, and then I wonder, I mean if I had been able to rush through and get things done I still would have had this same sort of coming to terms with myself to do at a later time.

T376: So that on the one hand you can't help but still feel bothered that you didn't use the year better, and on the other hand if you had gone through the year on a sort of false basis, you would have had to meet this sometime or other.

C377: I think so, I really uh, I really seem to be getting a little bit newer understanding about myself, I think I uh, may be beginning, well of course I was somewhat worried, it seems as if I were so completely disorganized I didn't have any real self to get acquainted with, but I think that I'm beginning to see that I do have some individuality, and I was doubtful as to where I really wanted to go on in school and what I was doing because I was sort of forced to and now uh, for some reason, I don't know how it has happened, I don't feel a pressure and a tension that I did before and I can sort of stand off and look at myself a litt1e bit better, and it seems that that is one of my real interests, one of the things I did want to do. And--

T377: If I get that, you've sort of been shaking hands and getting acquainted with your real self, and you find that your real self has some idea about where it wants to go.

C378: I think so (short laugh), .(T: Mhm) It seems that way to me, uh things aren't all too clear, I mean there are so many little, uh, things that still need to be cleared up.

T378: There are still some real problems and real puzzlements in your picture.

C379: I think so. And I seem to, uh, begin to see that, uh, I think I was overwhelmed by a whole lot of separate little individual problems, well all of them aren't little, some of them are very big, and I'm beginning to see that maybe it was me reacting to a total situation all the time. Uh, and the problems are, are things that are, well, not unrelated, I mean they are part of my way of, or the, way I was trying to go at things. Not a hopeful way, or not a very sensible way, probably, (T: Mhm)

T379: That is, you feel a large part of the situation was, a method you had adopted in attacking situations.

C380: Mhm. I think so. Uh and, uh, I don't know why I had the feeling that I was just completely overwhelmed, I suppose the big thing that has to be done, for instance,


I have this research paper from year before last, (T: Mhm) that has to be finished, and uh, right now I can’t finish it, I think that the simple thing to do is to finish my courses and, uh, get as much as I can out of reading in the courses that I'm doing now and I probably won't have mach time, to work on that until the end of this quarter, and it's a big thing that's got to be cleared up so that all of my – I mean. I don't feel that I've done everything, or even done a whole lot. But I don't have the feeling about that paper that I did before.

T380: In other words, there are still a good many things to be done and some of them quite heavy burdens, but you don't feel quite the same way about it. Is that what - it doesn't seem so over-whelming?

C381: That's it. It seems that I can, well I have to realize that I'm just one person with so many - so much ability to do, to get things done, I mean I don't feel that I'm, uh, incapable, of doing them, but I mean that they will have to come along at an orderly time of sequence, and that-

T381: You can only do what you can do, huh?

C382: That's the feeling that I have now and I don’t seem to be too much worried about it. I realize that it's uh, that it was an obligation to the association that gave me the scholarship that I didn't fulfill at the time and that I contracted to fulfill it and that's not at all good, but it hasn't been done up to now, and so I can't change the past, but what I can do is, uh, go ahead, and I seem to have more of a desire to go ahead (laugh) (T: Mhm. Mhm) than I did before. For some reason, I don’t know—

T382: It’s kind of strange and difficult to explain, but anyway you do feel more able to go ahead.

C383: I do, uh, it's, it seems that I've, uh, gotten more motivation, I mean I don't feel this business of just saying, now this has got to be done, I'll do this today and this tomorrow, but I feel a more, uh, well sort of maybe I'm too hopeful when I say it's me that's making them go.

T383: Mhm. Mhm. That it isn't just a question of being able to drive yourself to do so much (C: Mhm) but more of an inner feelng, uh, that gets things done, is that what--

C384: That's what it seems to be (T: Mhm) I, uh, I haven't made any too great strides, I know that, but even little personal things like cleaning out my closets, (laugh) (T: Mhm.) washing my clothes, and beginning to take more interest in myself, I think that’s hopeful.

T384: Such things may be small, but they mean quite a bit to you.


C385: I think so, and uh, I was so completely neglecting those things before that it's, uh, it makes me feel good that I m beginning to pay a little more attention to those things now.

T385: It makes you feel really that you've made quite a shift.

C386: I think I'm beginning to think so. Uh, as I say, I still have a lot to go (laugh) I’m going home for the holiday, and uh, my mother and father have a wonderful attitude about everything. I suppose I'll handle that situation like, I don't know- I finally established communication, with home again (both laugh heartily) and, uh, so I told them that I had been feeling so depressed and in an awful state and that I was feeling better now and all, and uh, I was sorry that I hadn't written them in so long. I think though, --my mother wrote back and my father that I shouldn't apologize when things had happened, and, uh, that was the only reference she made to it not to, just don't apologize, don't be apologetic about what has happened.

T386: You just feel they have taken an awfully good attitude on the whole thing is that it?

C387: I think they have. It seems to me they have, - what worries me a little bit, when I go home I’m afraid, I'm not afraid as such, but I hope they'll still be matter of fact and not too, uh, (T: M-hm) sentimental about it.

T387: Mhm. It bothers you that they might be over concerned or over sentimental, is that it?

C388: I think, uh, I'm afraid that they'll, uh, it seems what I need to do is to be, I mean to recognize and accept love from my family but to be a little bit more objective about them too, and I'm, I don’t want them to, uh, just wrap me up in such an embrace of love that I'll (T: Mhm.) feel either dependent or helpless again.

T388: Mhm. Just don't want to be smothered in a cotton blanket of affection is that it?

C389: That's it. Uh, I, I mean in writing and over the telephone they have been really, uh, uh quite mature themselves about it.

T389: Up to this point you don't have any criticism of them on that score, but you're a little bit afraid of what might happen (Vib laughs) when you go home, is that it?

C390: I am, I suppose a lot of it will be the way I act too. Uh, but uh, simply because I'm approaching thirty I shouldn't think they'll stop feeling affection (T: Mhm) but, in, it's the thought of affection that seems to smother me sometimes, and I uh, -


T390: You feel a little bit resistive to the kind of affection that they have shown or that they might show, although you realize that quite a lot of the situation may depend on the way you react to it, is that what you are saying?

C391: That's it, I uh, I think I could go home and act, uh, quite normal, and uh, nothing would happen. But, if I would, if I act like a lost child returning to the fold (laugh) well it's just going to be that I'll, I don't know whether I can keep the picture of myself I'm beginning to evolve.

T39l: In other words, if you can keep the picture of yourself that you are beginning to evolve, it will run okay, but if, if you get to---be the lost sheep returning to the fold, (Vib laughs) then, uh, that's another thing.

C392: That's what I think. I really think I'm going to - to think through that whole problembefore I see them again (T: Mhm) And as I said they acted quite, uh, sensible about this whole business as far as I can see. I mean, at first, uh, they used to write me that they were staying awake nights worrying about me, and uh, all their hopes were wrapped up in me and things of that sort. They finally stopped doing that and, uh, it was much better after they did. Well, they haven’t been doing that for sometime, and, uh, I just hope that when I go home that they'll--- well I think it probably depends on how I act. If I, uh, appear to be, uh, quite self-directing I'm sure they'll respond to that.

T392: In other words, you can't help but fear that they might be too over-concerned again, but keep coming back to the point (Vib laughs) that if you seem to be quite independent they'll respond to you and respect that.

C393: I think they will. The more I think about the way they have come through (laughs while talking) I begin to think they will. That's uh, that's something that I suppose it's just the way they treat us all alone and uh, but they have really been quite, uh, considerate and, uh, shown great forbearance in these things and I think it's going to be that I'll have to set the tone myself for things.

T393: That is, that you will be primarily responsible for the kind of relationship that it is.

C394: Mhm. (short pause)

T394: I take it you feel from your past experience in other situations that they'll, they'll probably measure up to whatever tone you set, is that it.

C395: I think they probably will. There might be some lapses, but I think that I could reach the-direct the thing somewhat. (Pause) Another thing that doesn't worry me, I only think I brought this out as one of my problems too much before. But the business of getting married which I thought was awfully important for awhile, it doesn't seem to worry me too much now. Uh, for instance, there's a fellow who


lives at the house, uh, who has shown some interest in me and he’s a person who has enough desirable qualities so that at one time I would have been awfully excited, well at the same time he has some that aren't too desirable, and I think, uh, I think, it seems to me that I'm going to be able to not let wanting to get married be the primary thing with this sort of a relationship (T: Mhm.) Uh, so that I can, well, react to him as a person with some good points and some bad points.

T395: Sort of weighing the good and bad elements rather than just being swept off your feet by the fact that here (Vib laughs) might be a chance to get married, is that it?

C396: I think so. Well, what it is, I guess at this point, I don't see how I'm going to do it, I mean. I don’t know what is going to happen in the future but I don't seem to be too worried about the future. It seems to me that for a long time what I wanted was, uh, someone to uh, to really lean on (T: Mhm) someone that, uh, oh, would give me a certain amount of protection I suppose (T: M-hm.). Well, it just appalled me at the thought of going on to 35 or 40 and so on, still fighting battles for myself (C: Mhm.). Well, right now I don't have that feeling, I mean it may just be the thing that’s fluctuating back and forth, but right now, uh, it doesn't seem so, uh, I mean I don't have any, compulsions, that I must get married at all costs.

T396: In other words it might be a temporary, uh, mood on your own part, but at least at the present time it doesn't seen quite so necessary to get married in order to have someone to lean on, (C: Mhm) and you feel a little more able, if necessary, to go on without someone to lean on.

C397: That's the way I feel now, uh, I don't know what considerations might arise (T: Mhm.) but it does seem to me that I feel more that I can handle my life myself now. There's still, I mean there are whole lots, of considerations that I can see where I would enjoy being married too, and I think the whole business of having a family has sort of affected my ideas about marriage, too, I mean I'm not expecting to make up a whole family of children any more, probably not, and so, I don't know, I can see that there are different ways of living, (T: Mhm.) and, uh, that there isn't just one formula that every life has to fit in, to be happy.

T397: It's not that all your values are bound up in that one pattern, it's still a desirable pattern, but you can see others, is that it.

C398: I think so, it seems I'm beginning to see that it seems to me that the one thing that, uh, since the last interview that I thought about was, uh, this business of not, uh, somehow depending on others to give me a lot of knowledge, but if I am going to get them myself. (T: Mhm.) Uh, that, uh, it seemed to me was an awfully powerful thing because it kept me thinking, and, uh, I've said it before so many times, but never with any real, meaning.


T398: Absolutely nothing new in the idea, and yet somehow this time it really meant something clear down deep.

C399: I think it did. Uh, it really did mean a lot. Well, uh, I- think that has, as far as my thinking in the direction, of ways and things I can do and how I can make use of the time that I'm here, I mean time that I'm here at the University, and what things I can get out of it, and also it has-- I think I must have had the notion that when you came to school, or when you came to get to get a Ph.D. at the University o Chicago, you just got awfully stuffed with knowledge so that you went out into the world knowing completely, just a person who knew everything about everything, in your field, at least. Well, I can see, that this completeness I was thinking isn't coming through education, I mean isn't coming through getting a Ph.D. and that I can, that if I am successful in getting a degree that there will still be avenues of growth open to me (laugh) and if I don't get it I can still go on learning on my own.

T399: Let's see if I understand that. That is, initially you sort of felt that if you got a Ph.D. you would be a walking encyclopedia and pretty much a finished job (C: Mhm.) Now you feel that if you, get a degree there will still be room for growth, uh, in learning afterward, and even if you don't get a degree there's plenty of opportunity to continue learning is that, uh, -

C400: That's it, I think that's, I mean that's one thing that I realized just during the week, I don't know why I was fastening onto a Ph.D. as the, as a like a sample in Good Housekeeping, that was complete and but I think that's what I was doing really, and I can see now that that wasn't a realistic idea at all.

T400: You feel you were - it was kind of an artificial view of the situation.

C401: I think it was. And, I don't know uh, it may be some of my inadequacies along some other lines made me think that was one way I could gain completeness, but I don't seem to have that compelling thought about getting a Ph.D. at all costs, yet I still, I mean it's different from when I first came in, I decided well maybe I just don't belong here at all, I still think I want to go on to school and study and I still think I will work toward my degree if I ever show enough promise to get through the exams and get admitted to candidacy.

T40l: In other words, you just sort of accepted it more as one step in a process rather than just the final finish of something or other.

C402: I think so. Uh, and that seems to give me a better feeling about it. I don't feel so worried about it now, and when I first uh, I don't know how I thought a PhD would change me, but I think I was resisting the idea of just being, I mean I wanted it, I was thinking of that as a goal of completeness and on the other hand I was afraid it would keep me away from some of the other things I enjoy. So I was wanting it and yet not wanting. Well, now the important isn't that I get the stamp


of a Ph.D. put on me but uh, that I begin to learn some things and go out of here feeling pretty adequate along some lines, but still with enough motivation, enough background to continue expanding along other lines independently (T: Mhm.) all around, I just don't seem as driven as I thought I was before.

T402: Don't feel as though you are compelled by so many inexorable forces.

C403: I don't. (laughs) and that was an awful feeling.

T403: Mh. It isn't any fun to feel driven.

C404: It certainly isn't, it was a most miserable feeling. I, uh, I don't know, it seems that I that I perhaps if I'd come in for counseling earlier I might have saved myself some of the agony. (laughs) I don’t know. Really, I uh, I do feel more like a normal person now, I think, I, uh, I mean there's so many little things that have to be straightened out, I know--

T404: Plenty of little things to be ironed out, but still basically you feel more normal.

C405: Yes, I do. I can remember when I first--I didn't—the only thing-was that each day would pass (laugh) and, uh, now I, I'm seeing, I'm looking forward to the next day, really, uh, a little bit more, and, uh, also find I’m getting out and mixing with other people and. doing things a little bit more like I used to instead of being so withdrawn. That is beginning to disappear.

T405: Mhm. It seems you really, are leaving behind to some extent that withdrawing kind of reaction.

C406: Mhm. I am trying to think over some of the things that have happened, well perhaps some of the reasons for things that have happened. I wondered if now, well not accomplishing a whole lot with my last year, at least not making wise use of my scholarship, I don't know whether that's uh, it might have been that really in the beginning I didn't want the scholarship. It seems to me, I think as I- I don’t know, as I look back over the years, not too many years, but over the other fellowship that I had and that was such an unpleasant experience all the way through and, uh, somehow it builds up in me more and more a feeling of dependency and I wonder sometimes if that was part of what carried over into not using this scholarship very well, that uh, well I don't know how I would get the money otherwise except working for it. But it seems as if I was so sort of tired of taking things from people and in a way having people dictate terms of how I would use my time and my life.

T406: Just that in some way you may have been a little resentful of the dependency that was implied in a scholarship and, the fact that it puts your life to some extent in the control of some other group of persons. Is that it?


C407: I, uh, it seems to me that that could have been there. And, of course, that, I mean, all along that was warped thinking. (laughs) But I just wonder if that wasn't part of it. I mean some of that was in it, I know.

T407: It may not have been very sound, but at least it was there.

C408: I think so. That's another thing that I'm beginning to accept and that is, uh, that Ican have-- that I have-- I mean that I'm not always right on things I do, or in my reason and motives, that uh, I don't know, it seems uh, I just,-well -I knew I made mistakes but I thought that fundamentally I was going along in the right direction up until things began to get too serious. Well, now I can be reconciled, or at least I can accept the fact that, uh, I'm not at all perfect in the kinds of things I do and my reactions so that. Well, instead of just fighting against it to realize that I am able to make mistakes.

T408: That is intellectually you have always accepted the fact that of course, you make mistakes, but somehow now you really accept it and can recognize that you might be right or you might be wrong on some points, is that what you mean.

C409: Mhm. That's what, I mean I seem to be doing that at this stage. I don't know whether that's growth or not but it does, uh, it makes me feel less uh, unhappy about what has happened and about what might happen in the future.

T409: Mhm. Mhm. That is you don't feel that what has happened in the past is quite so horrible but just the fact that you did at times make mistakes and will probably make some in the future.

C410: That's the way it seems now. I don't know whether that is colored with the fact that time has elapsed and I can begin to--I'm not as close to it as I was, that's part or it too, I think, but really, uh, it doesn't seen awfully horrible at this stage.

T410: Not quite so overwhelmingly bad for awhile.

C411: No, it really doesn't. Oh, I was in an awful state for a while, for a long while, I meanI still have a lot of things to straighten out, but feel more like I am capable of doing them now.

T411: Plenty more to do but you feel very much differently about your ability to do it.

C412: I think I do.

T412: I guess our time is about up for today.


C4l3: I was uh, I don't know whether I--I mean I know I haven’t reached the state of complete maturity probably, but I wonder if I, uh, am beginning to be at the point where I can sort of go along on my own.

T413: You aren't quite sure but you almost feel that from here on in you could paddle your own canoe, is that it?

C414: I seem to have that feeling, I don't know, uh, I wouldn't want to feel, I mean this has been such a valuable experience, it's been so helpful. I wouldn't want to feel that I'm beginning to cut it off too soon, and it seem to me though that I am getting to the point where I ought to be able to ahead.

T414: OK.You just say how you'll like to leave it. Of course, however you leave it, if you should want to come back at any time why feel very free to do so, but for the present you could either leave it with no appointment, or you could leave it that you would phone in if you wanted one, or, uh, we could make one and you could cancel it if you don't want it, or anyway that you want to have it.

C4l5: Do you think I could call in (T: Sure.) I will call early enough so that if I----

T4l5: I tell you what I might do, I'll sort of save this time next week for a few days, if I get pressed I'll fill it up, but I'll save it temporarily and if I don't hear from you towards the end of the week then I'll know that you probably feel that you won't need it, is that OK?

C416: Well, that will be very nice. I think that one thing I have to do something about very soon is this business of a job for next quarter and I think I’ll start working on that this week and, uh, I think I'd like to see how things and that I could call in in a day or two.

T416: OK. And then sometime fairly soon, we'll probably ask you if you can give us some time and come back and spend some time with the psychometrist.

T417: Yes, I didn't feel that I did very well on the TAT. I don't know how that recording was, because I didn't have any time between each story and they probably all ran together.

T4l7: I haven't inquired, I don't know anything about that.

T418: Maybe I could talk with him about that.

T418: All right.

(Later. Cancelled tentative appointment for the next week. Feels she probably will not need to return.)



The Case of Miss VIB

Tenth Interview(First Follow-up Interview)

(Six months later)

T419: Well, I. don't know--

C419: Well, there were two things I thought might be of--I don't know if it would be of any interest, but might be worth doing, and one is a sort of a follow up of how I went through my exams this time. (T: Mhm) I mean it would be a sort of a comparison to what I did last time, and, also going home at Christmas time, and again at Easter, which are two different-I mean they could be compared with when I was home before. And another thing--I don't know if it would be of my help at all, but some of the things I didn't talk about at first. (Laughs) I mean I thought if you want to have an example of a really disturbed case. (Both laugh) I don’t know if that would be of any value at all.

T420: I really would like to know any of those things that you care to talk about.

C420: Well I uh--I guess I'll start on the symptoms that made me feel certain that uh, at least some psychiatrists or some medical people might have thought I was in a really bad state, that these are things that happened, from retrospect, during the summer, and before I came in for counseling, especially during that month of September. Well, uh, a lot of then I didn't even talk about, because I was afraid I'd get sent home from school, but in September there was that whole month, when we didn't have any school, and I was supposed to go home, and I had my railroad fare in my room to go home, and I didn't go, and I had told everyone I was going, so I just stayed out of sight for about--well, it was really a period of at least two weeks, when everyone thought I had gone home, and I hadn't gone anywhere. And it happened that the maid on our floor had gone off for her summer vacation so there was a new maid who didn't know me. (Laughs) And if the old maid had been there I don't know what I would have done, but this new maid--uh, she didn't notice that I was just in my room not doing anything, so I got away with it. Really for about two weeks. Well, I had told them when my exams were over, and after exams I wasn't taking any courses, so that I could have gone home before the end of the quarter. Well, then I told them I. had--my mother and father--I had to stay till the end of the quarter, and I didn't, so I just stayed. Well then when, the quarter ended, uh I didn't tell them anything else, and I didn’t write to them all that month, about. And uh, they called about--I guess they called every night,


after a while, when I didn't write, and they called about the end of the quarter to find why I hadn't written. I still - I mean, I had already stopped writing very much. And uh, I was out, but I got the message, so I called back, that time, and I needed money then. I was on a fellowship and the check hadn't come for the first month. Well it always came on time, but I had just been on it a short time. And I didn't have money for the meals. Well, all I had to do was-I mean that was what made me decide to answer. I said, “I’ll tell my father I need some money." So uh, I called and talked to them, and I just couldn’t make myself tell him that I needed money. So, I hung up the telephone, and still didn't have any money for supper. (T: Mhm). Well I don't know—I don't remember what I did really, but there were two or three days when I actually didn't have any money for food. Well then my check came, and that was a hundred dollars, and I had—they had sent me railroad fare, and I didn't have any tuition to pay. I think I paid thirty dollars or something room rent for just that month, so I had all that money. Part of it I did put in the Bursar’s office, but I had at least, seventy or eighty dollars in my room during this time. And when I wasn't uh—I mean just didn't go anywhere. I stayed in my room all day long, and then at night after--I'd always--I knew when the halls weren't going to be very busy, and so I'd go and eat at some little strange place where nobody would see me And uh, I ate just one meal a day, and that was after dark uh, then--

C421: You really just hid yourself away.

C421: I did. And after that I uh--sometimes I would go down to the gift shop in the afternoon, when I thought everyone was out, and usually I picked a pretty good time, because I never saw anybody, for about two weeks, that knew me really, and buy about oh, fifty cents worth of candy. Well, at least a quarter's worth of candy, and then I just ate candy for two or three days. And I did that consistently. I really didn't have a full meal during that two week period, and I say two weeks--it was some part of the month, I don't know just how much it was. And uh, I --my best friend, a girl who would have known about this was in the hospital, and uh, all the people that I usually eat dinner with and everything, I just stayed out of their way. And oh, I was telling about the calls from home. Well, I would uh--they called at least two or three times--I mean after a while they started calling twice in one night. Well, I wouldn't answer the buzzer, and I would stay out of my room--there' a a women's lounge on the floor, also since that was the vacation month there weren’t many girls in the building, so I would go down to the lounge, and usually there would be no one I knew, and stay until ten o'clock, because after that they couldn't call any more. And uh, I'd come back. Well then I'd get messages that they had called again, and it's so--I can't really recreate the feeling I had, but if I ever happened to be in my room when the buzzer rang and I –could tell by the insistence that it was probably a long-distance call, it was--the only thing I could think of--it isn't quite that internal feeling, but these thrilling, moving pictures you see, where water is seeping up into the room, or the walls are closing in or something of that kind. Well, that was somewhat the feeling I had, but it was still--I just--I really--can't recreate it. (C: Mhm) When that buzzer rang and I was


sitting in that room and I just wouldn’t answer it.. So uh, well that went on, and know--I could just see my father, just withering away and dying, and my mother too, and--but I still wouldn’t write, and I wouldn’t answer the buzzer when they called. So finally uh--I, I don't remember this very clear, but finally in, the end my mother did come, and I still - so I said, "Well, this is a chance to just get everything off my chest and tell her that I failed my exams, and I 'm no good," but I just couldn't tell her anything. I never did. I never did tell her anything at all. And I was trying to think of some of the other things I did, but--oh, I would stay in my room just lying on the bed, usually, until I got tired of that, and I'd get up and sit in the chair. (Laughs) And the times that were worst, was after dark, because I didn’t want to turn on my lights., because someone would see I was there. (Laughs) So then I rigged up all sorts of queer contrivances, so I'd go in the closet., and--with an extension cord and pull the curtain down, and turn the light on so I could read. Or else I would cover the bed with a blanket, and let the blanket hang, down to the floor, and put the lamp under the bed, and read under there. (Laughs) And uh, all these things kept me busy, I mean--

T422: In a sense they gave you something to do.

C422: Yes. And I, and I didn't--oh, another thing I did, I didn’t keep clean at all. I remember when I became engaged about three years ago, I had had so much fun the day we went down and bought the ring, and I dressed in new clothes from the bottom to the top, so this slip I had, I still had it. It was a very pretty slip of lace and all, so that—the first part of, that month I just--I really wore the same clothes, and then I'd take off my dress--just my dress-and lie down on the bed at night for a few hours and get up. Well, and then sometimes I didn't take off my dress. So this slip got so dirty, really, that one day I just stood up--I mean I had done that for oh, days and days and days, and ... I never washed or took a bath. (Laughs) And one, day I just stood up and I had—I guess that was one of the nights I had taken off my dress, and I pulled the slip off of me and just tore it into little shreds. I was thinking about—for some reason I was thinking about_______ when I had been engaged, and if we had married this probably never would have happened. (T: Mhm) So I tore the slip off, and just tore it into bits and threw it in the wastebasket. (Laughs) And I never washed any clothes, and once or twice when I went out I would--I still had all this money--I mean it was not a lot of money, but it was certainly adequate money to buy food and clothes. (T: Sure) I would buy a clean pair of stockings, or whatever I needed, because I didn't wash anything, and I just threw them in the waste basket after a while when they got filthy. (laughs) And I never went to the bathroom except late at night, when everyone else was in bed, and sometimes around two o'clock or three in the night, I would open my door just to get some air in my room, because I was so tired of being in there by myself. And uh, and then also I was so sure I couldn’t live any longer. I just knew I was insane, so I planned all these devious ways of getting rid of myself. (T: Mhm) And uh, we had neurology, and we had dissected, we dissected this little pig. Well, it seemed that it was a very simple matter just to take this little dissecting knife, and slice the pig up, so I thought you could easily cut your wrist


with it. (Laughs) I planned to do that, and I'd always make devious plans—that was another thing that kept me busy during these days. I would make devious plans about how I would do it. So I decided a razor blade was a simple way, and I would do it at some time after the maid had been there, in the day time. Then no one else would be in until she came back the next day. So uh, I guess I wasn't awfully serious about it, (Laughs) because I tried it once--I mean I didn't do anything serious at all, I just did like that with the knife. I didn't slice as easily as the pig did, so (Both laugh) I just decided that I needed a new blade.

T423: Decided you were too tough.

C423: (Laughs) I decided I needed a new blade for this knife, so I found a package of new blades, and that still didn’t work. I mean I—if I had done anything serious I would have had scars. That is, I actually tried, but it wasn't as easy as cutting up a pig, (laughs) I found. So I didn't do that. Well, then I would—every time I saw--I read a lot of silly things that I don't even bother to read, like all these silly magazines--I don't mean, you know, real serious ones, but these little things like "Woman's Day," and little superficial things. Well--and then I always got papers to read. I could read one paper for two and three hours. Well, every day I would watch to see if anyone had gotten killed, or committed suicide, and if I found any real interesting ways of committing suicide I'd try that. I mean, I'd think of the possibilities of it. Well, I saw in "Good Housekeeping", I think it was, an article on how many babies smothered in their sleep. So I decided that would be the easiest way, and also no one would know. Throughout this whole thing I was thinking about my father, because one of his friends committed suicide. We were small then, and the man shot himself. It was the most obvious suicide. But one day when we were talking about it, and I said, "Daddy, why---" ---something about it, and Daddy just got so mad. He never admitted to himself that the man had committed suicide. I think that's against the laws of their church, or some thing. So they had a perfectly quiet, decent burial, and all, and Daddy was one of the pall-bearers, but none of the pall-bearers and none of the man's friend-ever said when it was all in the paper that he had committed suicide. (Laughs) So he was so mad at the --when I just said—we were children playing around, and some of us said something about suicide. I thought apparently it was something-he didn't like, or maybe he didn't--his religion didn't allow it, or something, so I realized that, would hurt him a lot. And uh, so this smothering business was going to be an easy way out. Well, I decided that what I could do was stuff cotton in my nostrils, and get two pillows and sleep face down on the pillow. Well, I remember making elaborate preparations for that, but I never had quite enough courage to turn over on my face. (Both laugh) So that didn't work, but--and those are the two that I remember, but I'm sure I thought of many ways--oh, I had a lot of sleeping pills. I don't know--over the past two or three years I had been sick, and I had gotten all these different collections. I never used them maybe more than two or three nights, and then I'd have a gang left over, so I thought of dissolving them all in water, and drinking that. (Laugh) I never bothered to do that, and--but that was one thing really—there were two things that sort of kept me busy. One was


planning how I could have a light and read at night without letting it be seen, and the other was how I could commit suicide without bringing disgrace on my father, and, and without causing myself too much pain. (Laughs) And those were really serious. I mean just as seriously as I'm working now in trying to plan a thesis proposal, would work on those.

T424: Really settled down and planned carefully.

C424: That's what I did really. And well--oh, but the night in--the night between the exams, when I did take the prelims before. That was the night that I just thought I would die, really, just by holding my breath. (Laughs) But I didn't. Uh, because I knew I had failed completely on the physiology part of it, and then the next day, well, I could have done better, I suppose, but I just didn't do anything. I was numb. I just couldn't do anything. So uh, that is--I mean that happened before this month that I'm talking about (Yes) but I'll talk about that now. Well during the prelims, all the time coming up to study for the prelims, I just knew I wasn't going to pass, and I was really in a sort of a numb state, and I went to these study groups, and just sat up there and all. And so the prelims came, well, Dr. M____ met me one day and said, "How are you getting along Miss Vib?"and I smiled and said, "Oh, fine," and went on. So then I was trying to decide, how was I going to get--it never seemed real to me that I was going to take prelims. I I said, "Well, I guess I'll go home." (Laughs) So I went to the Bursars office, and I hadn’t received my railroad fare yet, so I drew out thirty dollars, I believe, for fare home. Well, then I decided if I'd pack, that would create suspicion and people would say, "You're taking your prelims. Why are you packing?" So I decided the best thing to do would be not to pack. In fact, I wouldn't even wear a coat. I'd just go to the train. (Laughs) So I was walking--I left the Bursar's office with the money in my pocket, and was walking down_____ to take a street car, and C_____D______, one of the girls who was taking prelims, hollered out the window at me from one of the dorms, over there, and said, "Hi. What are you doing?" I said, "Oh, I'm going to get a coke." (Laughs) So she said, "Well, may I join you?' so then I realized that C____ saw me, and I couldn't go home, because she would say, "Well, I just saw her yesterday." (T: Mhm) So I sat and had a coke and then went home. (Laughs)

T425: You sort of kept--

C425: So then I went to the prelims. Well I-- the first morning, I took them--I don't remember exactly what happened, but anyhow, I know at one time during the prelims, I left the room, supposedly to get a drink of water, so instead of doing that I went downstairs, and started to cross the Midway. And D____ K____ was around that time, and said, “Aren't you taking prelims?" And I said, “Oh, I just came out for air." So then I came back, and went up. Well, I was still going to go home. (T: Mhm) Well, then the next day--I don't know whether that was the first or second day, but anyway one day during the lunch hour I started home again. (Laughs) Each day I came back over. So this day I went all the way to


_____street, I met another girl (Laughs) who said, "Aren't you taking prelims?" (Both laugh) I had forgotten the girls name, but she had taken her Master's comps, and she was in my genetics class, so I--later--so I said, "Oh, this is the lunch hour." So she said, "Well, I'll walk back with you." (Laughs) So I had to go back again.

T426: You feel that each time--

C426: Each time--

T427: --circumstances just sort of shepherded you back.

C427: Well, it wasn't a circumstance. That's the way I felt then. But it really wasn't the circumstance, big enough, if I'd wanted to go home, I could have said, "Well, I'm not going right now;" But that apparently I---

T428: It seemed that way at the time. Now you realize that--

C428: That's right. It was just an excuse not to go, I'm sure. But I really--each time--and no reason why just someone saying, "Are you taking prelims?" would send me back if I was intent on going, but I felt each time, "Well, now I can't go home.” So then uh, the last part was the sociology. Well, Dr. M____ --I was in a class of his once, and he got the impression that I worked rather slowly, and so he came in to tell me that if I needed a little bit more time, I could take it, but instead of doing that he came and smiled--(Laughs) Well it looked like a gruesome smile, and said, "Miss Vib, I'd like to see you in my office. "Well I decided that he was just telling me that there's no need of going any further, you'll never get a Ph. D. at the University of Chicago. (Mhm) So, I said, "All right, " and I just--I didn't do any more after that. I—that was in the last part of the last day. So I said, "Well, this is the end." And so I got up and came home to the dormitory, then. And that was when the period of hiding began.

T429: Mhm. At that point you went into complete seclusion.

C429: Complete. I mean, that was--and I don't know why the, the stimuli for withdrawalhad to come from outside. (Mhm) I mean, the excuses for withdrawal had to come from outside. (Mhm) But anyway, when he said, "Come into my office, I want to see you," well, I just went home, went into the dormitory, and hid for the rest of the month. (Mhm) And uh, oh, the night between the prelims, that was one night I really uh--as I said, I was so disturbed, I don't remember the feeling-now, but the girl that I told you was in the hospital later was still there, and she saw that I was quite disturbed, so she came and brought me ice cream and sat around and talked and everything, about inanities, until finally I told her I was going to bed, though I didn't go to bed. And my room was up over a stone court. I was on the seventh floor, and the cement court was on the bottom, and I--during that month when I was in my room I used to stand at my window lots, and a lot of times, and say,


"How could I just fall out accidentally?” but the window was so small it couldn't have been an accident, so I didn't do that. Well, that night between exams--so finally I decided what I'd have to do would be—I knew I couldn't stand and look down on that cement and jump on it, so I said, "What I'll do is sit in the window with my back to the window, and just sort lift my feet and float out.'' Well, I thought that would be easier, and so the night between the prelims I actually tried that I mean, I really got in the window and sat up in there, and uh, for a moment I was sort of swinging down backwards. And then I decided--well, there was just really a minute in there when. I--if I had just let go, I could have gone, (T: Mhm) but I still didn't let go, so I came back, and that was really the nearest to complete self-destruction that occurred.

T430: You feel you were awfully close to it at that time.

C430: I think--I mean, I'm not sure just how much I wanted to do it, or whether I really would have done it or not. But I certainly was in a position if anything had happened even accidentally --I mean, if I could have gotten a sudden cramp or something that would have made me jump, I could have gone right down in that stone court. And uh--but those are some of the things 'I did. I really don't remember all of them, but I'm sure I did a lot of foolish things, but the thing that really so amazed me--imagine anyone living at the dorm for two weeks or more and not a soul knowing that I, was there. I mean that was--gave me an idea of the extent to which I had withdrawn, and so that it--I mean it seems like as if someone had been noticing my behavior, if someone had known the things I was doing, uh, I certainly would have been considered about hopeless.

T431: You feel you really would have been classified as very abnormal.

C431: Yes, I do, and that's one thing that kept me from going home, because I knew if Iwent home I would be shipped off to the insane asylum. I mean, I. felt sure I would be. (Mhm) Because I, I certainly, was acting like it. And uh, it was so irrational. I mean, I was busy, I was busy planning destruction and planning how I could read at night without letting anyone see me. Those things kept me busy, and I don't know why I wouldn't call--answer the telephone. I mean, that - was a horrible thing for them at home, really. I don't know why I wouldn't answer the telephone. I--and then they started sending me telegrams, and my mother and father were going on their vacation, and my mother--she means it, I'm sure, -but I mean she does get very dramatic, and she sent me this very dramatic letter, telegram, about they were starting on their vacation, and they were going with heavy hearts, and so on, and I didn't answer. And I think, I probably told you about the offer of a job I got at that time, that was really something I should have considered, and I never answered the telegram. But just all means of communication with people were just painful to me at that time.

T432: You couldn't stand it to be in contact with people.


C432: I couldn't. And I had really gotten to the stage where if I didn't uh, commit suicide, I was ready to go and just be locked up in a room by myself, just to be alone, and not to have to do anything at all.

T433: You felt that in sense you would welcome that.

C433: Mhm. And didn't--well, I, I really can't remember all the things that I did but I'm sure I did things that were even as silly as that, that I just haven't remembered now, but I certainly know I didn't--for a whole month really, I don't think I took a bath. And -- 'cause I never would go in the bathroom. I had a basin in my room, and at first I used to wash my face, and then after a while I didn't do that any more. And I just didn't do anything that I usually do. And if I ever saw anyone that knew me, I would just scuttle like a scared rabbit. (T: Mhm) And I actually kept up the pretense that I was gone. So then I knew--I was still rational enough to think that my mother or someone would probably come, or else somehow people in the house would discover I haven't been home, so one day, one Sunday I went downstairs and someone saw me, and said, “Oh, when did you get back?" and I said, "Oh, I just got back this morning." And I made up a perfectly plausible story about I had decided to go to _____ to visit my sister instead of going home. (T: Mhm) So that when my mother did come, and she met people, and she didn't know how to explain why she decided to come and see me she said, "Oh, well, Alice didn't get home this summer, so I thought we'd--I'd come to see her." Well It worked-out all right.

T434: Fitted in with her story too.

C434: Mhm. And I, I mean that--whenever I hear anyone say that client-centered therapy didn't work with really disturbed people (T: laughs) I feel like getting up and testifying, because I, I just can't imagine--unless someone were completely uh, dissociated, I can't imagine anyone living out in society and being any more upset than I was at that time.

C435: You really were a very disturbed person.

C435: I think I was. And I don't know what would have happened if I had gone on. And I wanted to come to the Center. I don't know whether I wanted to come or not, but Dr. M___- I - he did ask me to come over to see about the prelims, so I got my courage together and went over. That was early in the month before I had completely withdrawn. And I knew if I didn't make up some good excuse for acting like I had, just walking out without turning in my paper, that I wouldn’t get a chance to take them again. So that's why I said, "Well, maybe I ought to be counseled." (Both laugh) So he decided--I mean, he thought it was--I mean, he didn't say, "Well, I do too," but he said, "Well, if you'd like that--" and so on. Then at least I got out of that. I said, "Well, he won't just say I backeddown anyhow. There'll be some excuse for acting as I did," so uh--


T436: You felt you really proposed it more as a rationalization for your behavior in the exam.

C436: That's what I did at the time. I was really was--I wasn't uh, too sure about it. Well,then as the month wore on, that was uh—I wanted help so much, I did, (Mhm) and I thought--I think I did actually take a bath once during that time.

T437: What was that?

C437: I took a bath once during that time. I decided I would go to see Dr. J_____..

Dr. J___, the psychologist, the psychiatrist, so I bathed and dressed in clean clothes, and I don't remember what kept me from going. I did start getting, ready to go, but the, the getting ready just faded away, and I found myself sitting up in the chair again. I just sat there. But I really wanted help.

T438: You had the desire and the impulse, and even the plan of how to get help.

C438: And I, I didn't like -- I mean, I didn't like Dr. J______(Laughs) I, uh, I went to him once to talk about clinical psychology--oh, a couple of years ago, I was thinking we ought to have more courses in methods, and someone suggested he might help me, so I was going to go over there and observe in the clinic. Well, I ,I just didn't like the way he acted. He uh, -- I suppose I really shouldn't have dressed up so much that day, but I really did. (Laughs) I didn't look like a schoolgirl especially. So he said, "Oh, come around to my office some night." And I--he doesn't just invite people around to his office. He charges them ten dollars a visit, I hear. Well, I really decided he wasn't being professional and so I didn’t go back. And uh, and also, I just couldn't imagine--I knew girls--I shouldn't say this, but I just didn't want to get in a transference state with Dr. J____ (Laugh) And that's what seemed, to me would happen, and also I just couldn’t see myself getting more helpless than I was, and that's what transference seems to me to mean. It, it just seemed like I was deliberately throwing myself into a lion's den, to be mauled as anyone else would see fit to maul me. And I--so I, I just--I never did go. Well, then-

T439: You wanted help, but you were fearful of just becoming a pawn in the situation.

C439: I was. I really--it, it just seemed to me like deliberately going to a dentist and saying, "Please probe in this nerve ending that's exposed in my tooth. (Laughs) (T: Mhm) I, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. And--

T440: You felt it was asking for pain.

C440: Mhm. I did. And it seemed as if I'd just be a puppet of his will, and I just couldn’tsee that. Uh, I can't, I really can't think of anything else, but oh, I remember being thirsty for whole day, and wouldn’t go out and get a drink of water, and I would


be hungry, as hungry as I could be, but I just wouldn't go out and get anything to eat, and I needed oh, to go to the hairdresser, and I wouldn't go, and when my mother finally came I was ashamed of how I looked. My hair hadn't been washed in that whole month, and I didn't have any clean clothes. I got her telegram at night, and I--so I had to stay up and wash and iron the clothes while they were wet so I'd have something clean when she came. (Laughs) And uh, oh, I just--oh, there were people in town--oh, that's another thing, people from_______ that I had worked with sent me notes saying, "We're here for two days. May we call or come over?” And I ignored them, and someone would say, "We will be passing through Tuesday, and expect to call around six," and at six o'clock I’d put cotton in my ears, and just keep—do everything I could to keep from hearing the buzzer. And a woman who was a good friend, who was very nice to my mother when she was in _______ to see me, wrote and said she was going to be in ____ and if I was home if I'd let her know she'd come over. And I wasn't home--I could have been home but I didn't go, and so I didn't even send a letter home to my mother, or at least write her and say that—to let her know when will you be home, so you can see her. And uh so the lady went to ____ and back to _________ without ever knowing, and that--oh, a girl from home, one of the girls that works in the ______, was coming here, and wanted to-see where I lived, and eat dinner out there, so she told me, and I just ignored that too. And it was the month when a lot of people are taking vacations, and I just--I had oh, at least four or five incidents like that happen where people were in town or coming through... and wanted to see me, and I just didn't--

T441: Just disregarded all your social contacts;

C441: Completely. Oh, completely, and a letter that would make me angry or something.I really don't remember the feeling I had, but it was just so ugly. I didn't want toget these letters. I was mad whenever I got a letter, or telegram, or--and a call just sent me in a frenzy. (Laughs) And uh, I just didn't see--for days and days the only person I saw was the maid. And she was new, just after the holidays, so that if I said, “Oh, I made up my own bed today, don't bother to come in," she wouldn't come in. And so, some days she didn't even come in. And I didn't talk to anybody, and uh, really, the two things as I recall now that occupied me most were this planning suicide and uh, how to read at night after the lights were out, and another, avoiding any form of social contact at all. And I worked at those so hard.

T442: Just to plan ways of cutting yourself off from all communication.

C442: Mhm. I kept thinking of--oh, I thought of going into a convent. (Laughs) I said this would be ideal, if I could just find a convent, and just go somewhere for refuge, where I'd never see anybody, and I'd never have to talk to anybody. And really, uh, when I got the note from you saying that you would be here if I'd like to come in, well that was--well, it just made me feel so good to know that apparently Dr. M_______ was still concerned about me. Not concerned, really, but still considering me as a human being, (Mhm) and someone who was


worthwhile. And someone that could be considered as a member of the S_____ department. Well, that just made me feel so good, and then-well, it was the first appeal from any human being that had touched me in any way. 'Cause actually my mother coming all the way here, and going to great inconvenience, and my fathercalling and practically crying over the telephone, and my sister--everyone was so upset, and nothing touched me at all, but that was the first time I got any feeling of responsiveness toward someone else, (Mhm) When I realized that apparently Dr. M ____ and you still thought that--I don't know why I say still--but still both thought that I was a--I mean I was a human being, and I was a student, a graduate student, and a member of the S ____department. And that--

T443: The thought that we thought something of you, at least regarded you as a human being, meant somehow--

C443: As someone who was worth saving. (Laughs) That--it really was, and uh, I mean it just—it was the first contact with any--with society at all that I just clung to, and I was glad to get It. And I, I was really--I mean that--I don t know why--I, I still uh well, I think it was because my mother was too--well, I don t know--part of all my early dependence and everything was all wrapped up in her, and I was close to her too.

T444: That is (words lost) distance would have touched you while her interest didn't.

C444: Mhm. And it really--if that hadn't come, I don’t know, I suppose I would have stayed in school--I don't know what I would have done. I--but I, I-it was the thing that made me decide, "Well, maybe I really ought to comb my hair today, and put on lipstick and act like I'm a human being again."

T445: Mhm. I've forgotten. Did my letter give you an appointment, or did you phone?

C445: No, it didn't, it didn't. It said, "If you—I don't remember, but it just didn't giveAn appointment at all, it just said to call or whatever the number is and I did callfor an appointment. But I--I mean uh, I don' t know whether it was intended—I mean it was just a statement that--I, I don't remember, but I think it said Mr.____ has said you might like to come in or something, and you can call . Well, M_____ had said that a month before, and I said, “Well, apparently they still continue an interest in me." (T: Mhm) And uh, they still think that I'm material for graduate work at the University, apparently, or else they wouldn't be concerned whether I came in or went home. And it—the letter itself didn't say, "We want you to come. Please do come," or anything at all, but it was—it just felt so warm to me somehow. (Laughs) And I don't know what it--I mean really there wasn't anything in it that could have expressed a lot of warmth, but it really was warm letter--I felt that. I mean I remember that feeling. And, and it was the first time that any overture had been made from the outside that I had responded to. And I--and I don't know why that was, either. I mean, thinking back over it now, I'm not too sure. (T: Mhm) Uh, I was thinking--if there were any of these things that


you wanted to write down, but since you have them recorded, I guess that'll be all right. Or would you like.--

T446: Oh, you mean, would I like you to write them down, you mean?

C446: Mhm.

T447: Well, certainly your telling them to me now is just as good.

C448: I thought so. And uh, then perhaps about- well, the really, almost completely different approach I've made to the exams the second time, and also about going home were two things perhaps I could talk to you about another time, or else write them whichever would be--

T448: Well, you can--yes, we can do either of those. I have perhaps a little more time now than you have.

C449: I have company, sort of expected company. I hate to keep them waiting too long.

T449: Well, we can do this then. Would you want to come in again, and--

C450: Oh, I'd love to, Dr.______

T450: About a week from today. Think you can make it?

C451: Friday isn't--well, I guess it is--the thing is I go to______ on Friday, and uh--I could, I'm always ready to come home early on Friday though. (Laughs) I think Friday at four is--it, would have to be late, that's the only thing.

T451: I see. It could even be later if you'd want.

C452: About four-thirty then? (More about arrangement of next interview) Well thanks, Dr.____, for letting me come in. So long.

T452: Thank you. I'll see you then next week.



The Case of Miss VIB

Eleventh Interview(Second Follow-up Interview)

(Three weeks later)

C453: (C remarks on a change in T's office.)

T453: No, there's been no change that I know of.

C454: Not cleaner--I mean more space. Well, there were two things I thought. I'd talk about today, and then if there were any questions that you could ask me about the last session that would be a- of any information in clarifying things, I'd like to answer those. And the two things that I thought were sort of significant were the taking the prelims again and then going home at Christmas--- was it Christmas or--yeah, it was Christmas, yeah. Well, uh, and you remember that I had, severed all relations with my family over a sort of a long period of time, while--

T454: That was when you went home at Christmas--- was that after you completed counseling? I forget.

C455: Yes, it was over then, and I remember I was working on a paper in genetics, and school was out about--oh, I suppose about Wednesday was my last class, but I hadn't finished the paper, so I had to stay till Saturday. Excuse me. And uh, so I wrote home--I knew I was going home for Christmas, so I told them that I wouldn't-I didn't-- they wrote and asked me when was school out. Well, I didn't tell them when school was out, I told them what day I would be able to come. That was about four days after school was really out. Well, then, uh, I was sort of fearful, up until oh, about when I started going off packing, getting ready to go home. (Laughs) Then it seemed as if I could hardly wait and I kept berating myself for not having the paper finished so I could go on about Wednesday or Thursday instead of waiting till Saturday. Well, then, uh, I went home. Well, on the train I had a very pleasant trip, and it seemed, though, after I'd got about to, I guess, I started worrying a little bit, and I knew my father would meet me, because he always-'my mother doesn't drive, and I kept wondering if he would look older and have any gray hair. (Both laugh) And my mother had described in such graphic terms how he was worrying that I thought he would probably look like he had one foot in the grave. Well, that worried me--I, I was afraid of that first look at him, and I don't know why I was really afraid, but it seemed to me that if he did look ten years older--my mother said he did--I would, it would just be all my fault, and I'd be very unhappy. So I got to the station, and--and also I was wondering how the family was going to greet me, in a way. Well, when I got


to the station he was there, and he did look quite himself, and not at all old (Laughs) And uh, just said hello, and didn't say anything about "Well, why haven't you written?" And uh, so we got in the car and started home, and had the usual conversation about what stores had burned down and what--who had been home since I was last there, and all, so by the time I got home I was really uh, just all right. (Laughs) My mother greeted me uh, very warmly, and everyone else just said hello. Then my sister, the one that's right next, to me, and I think we're probably about the closest, because we've always--we're less than two years apart in age, and we've always been together so much--well, she cried when I came, but I don't know whether she was crying about herself or about me. (Laughs) Because she had been teaching in ______ at a place where she just wasn't happy at all and I think--I don't know--I mean I'm sure she was glad to see me, but I was wondering too if it were part of her crying or sort of relief of her own pent-up feelings.

T455: Mhm.

3456: Well, then uh, Christmas was very pleasant, but there was one thing that sort of helped me along, I guess. My sister, younger than I, was getting married, so that there was too much bustle and business to be awfully concerned about one person. I mean, she was the center of attention then, and uh, so--and everyone was just remarkable, in the family, as I look back on it. I mean, there wasn't any uh, any--I mean it wasn't a matter of just putting up a blank wall and ignoring the situation, nor was there any attempt to sort of sugar-coat things, but everything went along naturally, and then I think my sister's getting married helped a lot too, because everyone was awfully busy. Well, I had such a pleasant time at Christmas, and enjoyed being with the family so much. I really think I sort of appreciated them more than I did before, in a way.

T456: You mean it meant more to you?

C457: Yes. It was--I mean it seemed to be a regaining of all the uh, kinds of--all the feelings I've had before, but this time I uh, I think I appreciated them more for the way they just--I mean, now I can think of home as a place where I'm just accepted whatever happens, (Mhm) without question. And uh- -

T457: It gave you a deeper experience of their real acceptance of you.

C458: I, I think so. I mean, it was the first time I've--well, not the first time, but usually I come home--I've just won a fellowship or I've just (Laughs) gone a whole year in a southern state without getting lynched or something, (C laughs) and so there's a great cause for welcoming me home. I mean, in other words, I don't just come home myself. I come home with something for them to be happy about.

T458: Come home bearing banners, as it were.


C459: That's it. And so uh, this time I came home just stripped of anything and that's (such)? what's real understanding without-- and I never once had that feeling that I used to talk about of being sort of smothered in their (T: Mhm) uh, their attentions, and I, I decided too, that it was uh, my own new way of looking at it, I guess, to some extent. Well, then uh-

T459: That is, you felt the reason you didn't feel smothered was that you were looking at the situation and reacting in the situation somewhat differently,

C460: I think so, and now when I went back Easter, I went home after I had taken exams and passed, I went home for a couple weeks. Well, then I could see my, younger brother, who was--is--I don't know what he'd doing, but he seems to be going through delayed adolescence. he, he got out of high school and went immediately to the Navy and stayed for three years. Well, now he's back home and uh, he's been--I don't know what stage, but anyhow a sort of difficult one. It seemed to me the things that he was resisting about the family were the sort of things I was resisting, too, and now I can look upon them distantly, and, and it seems to me he has a whole lot of freedom in the family if he'd just realize it, but he doesn't. Well, of course I---

T460: You sort of saw your difficulty, your earlier difficulties with the family, in him, but at this time saw them more objectively because they were in somebody else.

C461: I think so, I really do, but--and uh, I, I-- well, anyway, since Easter I just felt again that I was in the family fold. (Laughs) And really enjoying it.. Well now last as I--you know I didn't go home, and I didn't go home--well this summer I told them I would come home. So--well, this quarter I haven't been paying too much attention--I mean I haven't been whole-heartedly devoting myself to study on campus, and it isn't, I guess, entirely the fault of the job in____, but It just seems that sort of being out there, and when I'm out there I'm thinking of what I ought to do here, and when I'm here, I realized I should be going to _______ today because I'm so far behind. Well, that sort of thing, and I just have decided to let myself go along at my own slow pace, and I haven't done a lot, so I decided to stay in school this summer. Well, also, uh, the play therapy course--I thought I'd like to get that, so I wrote and told them that I had decided to stay. Well, my mother wrote back and said, "We expected you home this summer." Then uh, I, thought about it a long time, and I, I don't think-- uh, I don't--I finally decided after oh, almost a week or more, that I would just tell them (Laughs) I wasn't--that I would come home for at least a month of the summer, but that I would like to stay in school, and so I wrote this letter home, saying why I wanted to stay in school this summer, and that I would come home month, and my mother's federated club was having a convention there this summer, and I think that's sort of on her mind. I told her I would come during the time when her club was meeting to sort of be around with her, and uh, so if she would let me know when that-- when her club was meeting, I'd come home then because the courses--if I take oh, thesis writing and things of that kind I can go away for a couple of weeks.So she was away


when the letter came and my father answered, and said--I was just wondering what they were going to say--he said, "We were glad to get your letter with so much information about what you are doing, and I suppose there's nothing I can--no suggestions or anything I can give you, except to say that I will help you financially if you need it this summer, and your mother will be home next week and she'll write." I suppose by the time my mother gets home, and thinks through the letter, she'll decide that it's all right too. Anyway, uh, this time I didn't have-- when they said, "You must come home"--I didn't have the feeling of being uh, smothered and treated as a child. I knew they were thinking that I was tired and needed to rest and so on. Also after a while I realized if I sit down and write a clear letter and state the pros and cons of the situation, they will receive a satisfaction, and I think it's going to work out that way.

T461: In other words you could recognize their attitudes and their wishes for you and so on, could see that they had a reasonable point of view on that, but it didn't smother you nor control you.

C462: No, it certainly--it didn't really. I, I really feel--I mean for the first time, I guess--that I'm sort of living up to my age, (Laughs) and acting uh, with a sort of an independence, and a responsibility for myself, and I think that certainly the letter from my father is accepting it, and I'm sure my mother will, when she writes, too.

T462: You really sort of are up to your age.

C463: Yes. (Laugh) Well then, the other thing that I -thought would be of some significance if you're going to follow up was the going through the exams the second time. (Mhm) Well, It was really a pleasant experience in a way. I mean, I was never--when I came back after Christmas, I had decided I was going to start then getting ready for the exams. Well, the thing that I really had difficulty in was the physical area, because I hadn't had the course in genetics, and I had taken an R in physiology, and just didn't know any physiology, and uh, also I hadn't taken any sociology courses here at all-- well, only one, and I liked that-- and so I didn't know some things like Mr. ______’s course on family. Well, uh, then remember before the thing that just overwhelmed me was the awful maze of material that it seemed I needed to know. If I started reading one book, see references to others, and I'd feel, "Well, its just impossible to get all this done." So this time I decided that the. things I needed most were the physiology and the family. Well, out of all the sociology that we'd had--I had taken a course in between the two exams from Dr. G____, on socialization of the child. It introduced me to some of the sociological stuff, and so I picked out of the sociology the thing that I thought was most likely to be asked on the exams on the family, and then in the physiology I decided I would just live with Carlson and Johnson for three months. (Laughs) Well, it was really--as soon as I came back Christmas, before school started ... I went to Woodworth's and around finding--got a copy of Carlson and Johnson, and I--it was like getting a new dress, almost. I mean, I was so happy to have it,


because during the course I had borrowed one from a person - a woman who had had the course, and I did have the complete use of it, but I had to give it back. So I was so glad to have it. And then uh, I started reading just in spare time, and I had always wanted to know physiology, but it was--I don't know why I didn't learn it, when I had the course, but I remember our first course in Psychology at____ back in the days when I took it, was physiology of the nervous system, the sense organs, and things of that kind, and I just had always had a feeling I needed to know more physiology to understand psychology better, and I enjoyed reading it. And really, for the whole three months I read some physiology--I never did do any adequate job, I think, I mean I didn't do as much as I think I should have done really, but I did study every day, and I did underline and take notes and look up references and all, and I really enjoyed it. Well, then, the other thing that I started was the family. Uh, and I got the book, "The Family," and read that book, and L___D___ told me the parts that were awfully important, like the parts--anyway, this was some of the parts that are very important, so I studied those very carefully, and found that book 'simple reading, and so I read through that. Well, uh, then I, I did have this awfully--at least consciously--this awfully disquieted feeling about "How will I ever cover the material?" (Mhm) Uh, I just decided that uh, I ought to know psychology, so I just didn't study the psychology at all. (Both laugh) And statistics I had--well, I thought I should do a little bit of that, but I had planned to spend about a day or so on that. Well, 'I didn't, actually, and I really should have. (Laughs) And then nutrition. I knew I needed to just sit down and memorize some things, so I made out a few charts of that, and studied that, and uh, all the time I never--I mean I was certain I was going to pass the psychology, not with any great glory but I mean I thought I knew enough to get through and I knew I didn't know enough physiology, so I had to put time on that.

T463: You picked your weak spots and put in effort on the things you felt you needed to get through.

C464: And I did that, and I never worried about the exam, as I say, overtly, but-- (Laughs) and I felt really happy all the--and I took time off and went to shows occasionally and to dances and all, but uh, I had all manner of strange psychosomatic symptoms, (Both laugh) and I really, I mean I really don't--I meant there wasn't any--I felt happy, and well, generally.

T464: You weren't conscious of any tension and yet you did develop symptoms.

C465: Yes I must have had tension, because I had all manner of strange (laughs) illnesses uh, that cleared up immediately after exams were over. (Laughs) And uh, that was the only thing--I mean that, when I look back on it, it seems that that should not have happened. I don't know what I could have done about it, and I knew at the time that it was just--I mean, I thought it was--a little bit of nervousness, but still it was going on. (Laughs)

T465: That's the only thing that you sort of (words lost) over, thinking that shouldn't


have happened.

C466: It is I mean, I really wonder about that. Apparently I wasn't as completely happy as I thought I was or maybe--I don't know... Well, finally I just give up the fight and went to bed. (Laughs) And--

T466: Accepted your sickness and really did go to bed, hm?

C467: And I lived through it all right, and I, I don't know. I--well, I never worried about those symptoms. Of course none of them were awfully serious, but they were annoying and I said, "Well, I'll just take it easy and rest," so I did that. Well, then I always--I usually read physiology in bed or something like that. It didn't matter, but that is one thing that I wasn't too happy about. (Laughs) And it--I suppose in a way it gave me something to occupy my attention and not be too worried about the exam. (Both laugh) (T: Mhm.) And then, there was a period in, in the studying, I mean, near the end of the preparation, when uh, I, I don't know why I got so much attention about my exams. I wasn't-- I mean other people on our floor have taken comps, but it hasn't caused the concern of the whole floor. Now I don't know whether I do it or not, but I had uh--I really-- I don't know, and I've thought about other things too. It's interesting--it seems to me that I never will want for attention, because I always have more than I need. It seems that way, and I don't know why it is. I uh, for one thing, I, let people in on things. I, I mean I don t go around telling everybody everything, but I do- well it seems--I guess just the way I do if I'm in a social group, if someone joins the conversation that doesn't know, I well sort of, you know, make it understandable to them, anyway. I mean, I don' t go back and give a summary from the beginning, but I sort of draw them in. Well---

T467: Sort of facilitate social (C: Mhm) relationships.

C468: And I imagine that's probably the technique I have learned to use--to--going back to that old ingratiation that I used to feel. I mean it really does make people feel more at ease around you if they know a little bit about you. (Laughs) And so anyway it got to a point, at one time, where there was never a moment when my room was empty. Well, that got to be a problem. (Laughs) I had friends who would come down early in the morning and say , "Now you get up. It's time to study." And then other friends would come down later at night and say, "Now don't sit up late, 'cause you need your rest." Well that would go on for two or three hours, then friends would come at lunchtime saying, "You better eat lunch now." Well finally--

T468: You felt you were well looked after?

C469: Well, it really got annoying after a while. I mean there was never any time for--that I--unless I just locked my door and put a sign on it, "Sleeping, do not disturb." but when someone was in there being solicitous about my exams, well


that took up a lot of time. (T: Mhm) (Laughs) So, I had to uh, I really, towards about the last week, I had to sort of close in and just----

T469: Shut people out?

C470: ---shut people out, really, so I could study but I went to the first day of the exam not feeling (words lost) and I think I really had flu, besides. But the first day of the exam I didn't feel very well at all, and uh, so I came over in the afternoon. Dr. M_____ said it would be all right--instead of coming in the morning, and- -but I--and then I went right on through the exams as scheduled, but I, I never had any feeling of tension, and the nights between the exams, that were so unbelievable last time, I don't even remember it. I don't know what I did, but I probably came home and read a magazine or something and went to bed. (T: Mhm) I, I never had that feeling. I do remember uh, the last, three or four hours that I had I was rather uh, dis--I don't know, not disinterested, but. I mean I just got to the point where I felt that this was too much exam, (Both laugh) And so I, I really didn't do as much as I might have on the statistics which I had at the end, uh--well I just got to the point :Of just marking right and wrong by chance. (Laughs) Which wasn't too good, but-

T470: All in all, you felt it was a sharp, very sharp contrast between the first and second exams.

C471: I think so. I, I really do. In, in terms of my own orientation toward the business it was much pleasanter, I really didn't mind it at all. And uh, the only thing I regretted was that I--well, I had as much time as I needed in physiology to write what little that I knew, but on psychology I felt I could have written more on some questions if I'd had more time, and this is another thing-I did--I knew uh, well since I was in college and first started teaching I really haven't kept up very well with professional journals, except as a course required for some specific purpose, so that I knew I wouldn't know recent studies, and that worried me some, but I decided that I could just leave out questions that required specific references and studies, so I did that. There weren't many anyway. And uh, really I felt so controlled through it all. I uh, I just didn't have any really conscious worries at all. And it was a much different experience than taking the exams before.

T471: That's very interesting. Uh, I guess that-- I think that certainly covers that angle of it, and I think there are one or two things that I'm curious about. Do you find, that you think, you - much about the counseling interviews that you had, or not? That is just straight curiosity---

C472: Well, uh…

T472: In other words, obviously you're saying your behavior is different. Now do you find yourself thinking about those, or are those definitely in the past?


C473: Well, it seems to me I, I--when I was in the process of counseling I would think about it from one interview (Oh) Often to the next, or at intermittent times between times, and I remember usually when I left an interview I had a feeling of great uplift, (Laughs) which gradually--I mean it didn't-- there wasn't any uplift and then sinking down, but I gradually--it faded away, and then sometimes, especially before toward the beginning, maybe two or three days beforehand. I would have a feeling of dread. (Laughs) But I'd come back anyhow. Well that didn't happen--I mean, toward the end, I didn't have the feeling of great dread or anything, but I still had this--I really got more and more happy, or slightly happy-- at least hopeful. (T: Mhm) And I felt more uh--well I didn't feel so tied down and, and so rigid and afraid to do anything for fear I'd reveal my (Laughs) (Mhm) neuroticism, I guess. Well then I remember--I think I mentioned it before--at one of the S____ seminars-- then--I--even before I came to you, and when I was speaking about going to Dr. J___ I kept saying, "Well, this is something I'll never get over, even if I get well, I'll always have this in my background, I mean it'll always be a memory, and never be sure that it won't happen again." Well, then uh--but that was before I even came for counseling. Well then, we heard this psychiatrist in one of the seminars, and I think it was M_____ -- did he speak? (Yes.) Yeah. Well then, someone asked him something about learning after a neurotic experience,vould a person learn as well, or something of that kind. He said, "Oh, they learn better because they're more anxious." (Both laugh) And I--that wasn't the exact question, but anyway that was his answer. And I said, "Oh, me, this confirms my worst fears I'll never, never quite be sane." And I thought about it--I remember - who was it? -- Mary Lamb, Charles Lamb, in literature. (T: Mhm) One of them, sister or brother, I don't remember which, anyway, had periods of remission, and I wondered how did she or he feel in those in-between periods (Laughs) Well, that was still during counseling or--I don't remember when M______ spoke, whether it was immediately after or when, but now I--it's like uh-- it isn't- I don't feel that it's something I tried not to remember, but I just really don't remember very well. I couldn't, even as early as when I was writing up the report I wrote for you in one of the courses--oh at least--when was that--? Two quarters ago, I imagine—well, at least that I couldn't remember how many interviews I'd had. I thought, and it seems to me--I mean I tried by using the calendar and all to--and I decided it must have been about five and a half or six weeks, and then I had to come up and see how many interviews I'd had, since I remember I came two-- twice sometimes and once another time, but I--that was really early, and I couldn't remember how many interviews I'd had. And then, since then, uh--at that time I could still remember some interviews, at least enough to identify this as "This happened oh, about the first interview," or, "This happened the last." Well, now, --and since then I don't--well, I can talk about it now- I don't know how--it's been a gradual process, I suppose, but I don't have any uh, any very intense memories about it at all. I, I uh, I can't remember--I mean I couldn't say the date it began or approximately the date it ended, for the whole counseling. I couldn't identify one specific interview, and I just don't have any, any really fresh or intense memories about it at all. I can remember--it seems to me, things I said, but--in one or two cases, and one thing I remember, and not


sure I have it verbatim, but it seems to me that I said, "If I--" I felt near the end, "If I'm going to get an education I'll get it myself," or something like that. (Laughs) Well, that came back to me today. I was thinking over the letter my father had written me, and I said, "Well, it looks like they're accepting my goals, or my standing on my own feet," and it gave me a sort of spurt. I decided well, I'm just going to keep on going ahead. (T: Mhm) I, I really felt that. But as for any--and it isn't like uh-well, it's just--it's like something that has once happened, and it's a part of my life, but isn't any sharply delimited portion of it at all.

T473: If I get that correctly, then you're feeling that you've either shut it out, or that it is very much present with you- it's just that it's something that happened quite -a while ago, and you've forgotten large blocks of it.

C474: I think so. I really think so. Uh, I still have uh--well occasionally I have feelings somewhat similar to the feeling I had--I think I told you about how when I received the letter saying that I could come in for an appointment if I'd like to. (T: Mhm) I had a feeling of real warmth or something. Well, occasionally when I look back on it I think that too. I, I think that's the main sort of feeling I have about it, that uh, it seems to--well I shouldn't say reassure--but it does seem to reassure me, that I am a person of some-- well I don't mean worth, but of some Integrity, and of some, of some worth, I'll say--I don't know a better word. And that gives me a sort of a warm feeling, and that's when I really--I mean in case anything comes up I have that feeling, but--

T474: In other words, the main residue, as it were, in your memory, is simply that feeling, that kind of a warm feeling somehow is tied up with the fact that you feel you are somebody of worth. Is that it?

C475: I think so. And I, as I say, I really-- it's just--well it's-- when I thought of that remark about "They're so anxious," I said "Well, I'll be going through life always wondering, "Will I become upset again?" or something. But I just haven't had it at all.

T476: You just haven't had that fear.

C477: No, I haven't, and. I--and it certainly isn't through any great effort that I've made, because, one thing I have felt is that I, I - as Mr.____ says on a TAT is that I don't deny my impulses as much as I used to. (Laughs) I mean I really - and that makes me happy when I, I don't always stop and say, "Well, now I'm not denying my impulses," but once in a while I'll think, "Well, I did that, I wasn't scared, I just went ahead." Well, I have -

T477: You are more spontaneous, and sometimes you are actually aware of it and sometimes not, but at any rate you are more spontaneous.

C478: I have that feeling, and I think it's a real - I mean it isn't any uh, matter of just


breaking out all over without limits, but it's a willingness to trust myself, because I really feel that I have a self to trust, I think. I just go ahead. (Laughs) (Pause)

T478: Well, that's all very interesting, and very helpful to me.

C479: Well, I uh, hope it can be of some help since it - the experience has been such a help to me altogether, and uh, as you know it suffers from a lapse of time, because the - talking about Christmas and prelims of course. It would have been fresher at that time perhaps, or maybe I wouldn't talk about it at that time, I don't know. (Laughs) But if - and - there's ever anything else, I mean, as you look over the material, if you have any questions or anything, I'd be very glad to answer them, as best I can. And you mentioned tests once. What are those? I took the Rorschach at the end of counseling. Is there something else?

T479: Well, yes, if you are---it can be arranged on a time basis, I think it could be interesting to us if you'd be willing to repeat those (C: Mhm) same tests.

C480: Well, I certainly would and I wonder if this summer would be too late, or would you like to have then before the summer?

T480: No, I think that would be quite all right.

C481: Yes, I won't be going out to_____, and uh, next week I'll probably have to go every day, and this week I go - I mean, I'm through for this week, but next week-

T481: When do you get through out there?

C482: The twenty-first.

T482: Yeah. Well, suppose if you think of it after you're more free and would make an appointment with Mr. ____, he'd be glad to give you these.

C483: Oh, well I'll, I'll do that.

T483: If you forget, we may jog your memory.

C484: All right. Oh, I hope you will.

T484: Okay.

C485: But I'll sure - I'll think of it.

T485: Well, we would appreciate it.

End of Final Session


Documents

Miss Vib Vib.doc · Web viewT305: You feel that isn't too wholesome a state to be in. C306: No, certainly not. I still ah, get the feeling sometimes that now maybe I could start off