The Person-Centered Journal Volume 4, Fall, 1997
Printed in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.
The following interview, transcribed from videotape, is the first meeting of Lucinda, a writer and journalist who lives in Mexico, and Susan Pildes, a client-centered therapist of 22 years. It was recorded in Chicago in October, 1993. The setting was Dr. Marjorie Witty's Advanced Client Centered Therapy class at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. The tape was produced by Carl Aniel and transcribed by Tim Tribiano and Barbara Bogosian. Requests for copies may be made to Susan Pildes, 2519 W. Hutchinson, Chicago, Illinois, 60618; or by e-mail at: spildes@wwa.com.
T: Lucina, you want to just start in with something that you've been thinking about?
Cl: Yes, I do. When Marge first talked about this, I thought at the time, that I had no problems and that was true in the sense that right now is not my hardest time. When I'm up here in Chicago, I have relatively few ... it feels like vacation, I'm kind of camping out. And now as the time approaches when I'm supposed to go back to my life, then I have various kinds of ... feelings of kind of ... impending ... well, doom is too much, it's certainly anxiety. (T: Um hum.) But in some way I just want to stay forever and do nothing whatsoever, it makes me, at this point even, less productive. Most of what I was supposed to do last week I didn't do, and this is unusual for me and I just put it forward on my agenda for this week ...
C2 Yes I'm starting to get anxious, that's exactly what's going on, I'm starting to worry. There are certain things I focus on.... Now I know that when I go back ... I mean that this is a cycle that is very very common when I ... then when I go back I do see things that I love but a lot of the time I can only remember the feelings of responsibility ... the water company, Leonor has been receiving water bills that are greatly in excess of what you could be possibly be using. I've been in there 50 times. I promised her when I come back in November that I would go talk to the water company again, and we will again get nowhere, and you know other things of this type. Leonor has been ... This Leonor is like my surrogate mother-in law, she is the grandmother of my 6 kids that are still in Mexico. She has had pneumonia while we were away. This is another part of the cycle. As soon as we leave she gets a heart attack or pneumonia or something.
T2: So she's there—just get this part straight—she's there with all the children, (Yes.) and you're here by yourself ...
C3: No I'm nor here by myself, I'm here with two children…
T3: So you have two children [gestures two fingers].
C4: ... who have no problems--for me it's nothing.
T4: So you have two children here and six back there (C: six back there) ... okay and the thing that is moving you forward at this point are the worries about the things that will come up once you walk in the door in Mexico.
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C5: Right and it happens all at once. The initial impact is ... there's no way to ... as far as I know now maybe some wise person could suggest a way to get it ... have it be a little bit less . . . it happens all at once, everything hits at the same time and it's not even the kids being thoughtless (T: Um hum.) ... it just is that way and that's true for maybe three days and then it will kind of normalize. (T: Um hum.) ... But it feels . . well ... I guess I brought it on myself, but in any case if feels like that. (T: Um hum.) ... Tends to mess up even my vacation, the apprehension ...
T5: Because towards the end you're worried about it. And you're saying two things, so far, about it Lucina. One is that the minute you walk in the door it hits you and the other thing is that there are problems there that you work on, and work on, and work on, and you don't get anyplace.
C6: Absolutely. Yeah, that's it, (T: That's it.) two things. I don't know which one is ... well they're different kinds, I mean the initial impact will go away in three days.
T6: Yes. The initial impact of--what is it?--of walking into a house with six kids and all of the problems…
C7: And certain things I'm apprehensive about. It seems as though we may have lost the battle with the authorities over Lorena and she may have lost a year in school.... And the things that are unsaid are worse than the things that are said (T: Um hum.) ... So why is Toño not on the phone? Well it's not really known. He someone thinks he's flunked English.... (T: Um hum.) There's a lot of like dots ... and
T7: You mean when you don't hear from the kids ...
C8: Yeah, many dots ...
T8: Then you don't know what's going on.
C9: Well I do, I kinda do, I mean I can kinda guess what it is, I mean Liliana has failed Geography. Toño has failed ... if we're fortunate he's failed English only. (T: Um hum.) When I'm not there they flunk and it's not because a motivated person could not adjust to my not being there ... umm ... see I didn't inherit six pre-selected worthies, I inherited six random averages (laughs] and that's what I've got.
T'9: You mean, you've inherited these children ...
C1O: I inherited these children and these children are absolutely your regular children (T: Um
hum.) and sometimes I love that very much about them. I think in the long range, I'd even choose them exactly as they are.
T1O: Really ... in the long run ...
C11: Um hum ... ha, it's such a painful thing because part of me says--now look, why aren't these kids like I was? Well they're not--forget it, they're not. I mean sometimes it also seems even like some kind of a cosmic joke on me that especially the way the girls are because the girls are absolutely convinced of their inferiority nothing will shake them. [laughs] They are ... they scale down their expectations at the least I mean they're absolute believers ... not ... this is not the youngest ones ... but the older ones are just ... (T: believers that they can't do anything.) don't fit me. And none of them, their ways don't fit me. They're people who will not say specifically, you know, they just won't say what's going on so I've always got to ... as I say I'm having to read in the dots ...
TI 1: Um hum ... you mean they don't tell you how they're feeling, they don't tell you what's going on ...
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C12: They don't tell me what they flunk. They don't tell me what book they need. They don't tell me what shoes they haven't got. They don't inform me-- anything, now that's ... I mean.
T12: So things come always as a surprise? Is that what you're saying?
C13: There have been some inroads in this all over problem. I mean there are certain people who have heard and these tend to be a little more on the ball anyway and they will come and say--I need to inform you that there are no shoes-and occasionally someone tells on someone else and says--I need to tell you that Tono has not had any shoes for four days and has not told you--you know? So there's a certain amount of that but basically the kind of situation that I would like where you actually hear what's going on ... infringes various unwritten laws ...
TI 3: What does that mean--what you just said?
C14: Unwritten laws. Speaking is betraying.... Now this is an unwritten law that you might never have heard of and I wish to hell it had never been, you know, thought of by anybody, but this is ... Speaking is betraying, speaking will get you in trouble and other such things and it comes from a whole history of stuff. I mean, my helper in the house that isn't from this family but is from the same socioeconomic situation since her father explicitly told her that if she said she needed something for school he would take her out of school and therefore it was to her advantage to deny that she ever needed anything. (T: Um hum.) Well that's not how I feel but you know I have to kind of go against that whole thing ...
T14: Um hum. So they feel that they should keep it to themselves so they can keep the status quo going.
C15: Right, they have various superstitions that they are ...
T15: They are superstitions?
C 16: Oh I would think it has to be at this point, it's five years that they've had the money available to them. (T: Mmm.) I mean, this is not ...
T16: You mean they know the money's there Lucina?
C 17: They don't know.... I mean that's the thing (T: They don't know?) ... what can I say to you ... I don't know, maybe they don't know but they should know ...
T17: That they can get a pair of shoes, they can get a book, they can get what they need when
they need it ...
C18: You know the thing is that any of it is that I could just weep over it because it's always the possibility the dopies don't know!! (T: Oh.) But it's not that they haven't seen it with their own eyes. I don't know why, if they don't.
T18: You mean, as we're discussing this, it's not totally clear to you that they have taken in the information that that stuff (C: Right.) is there for them.
C19: Right. Shocking as that may seem is in five years the evidence of every single day of their life may still not be strong enough to counteract some ... you know ... feeling that antecedes my ... certainly nobody got that feeling from me.
T19: Yes. But they behave as if the money is not there and if they ask for these things they're rocking the boat and it must be kept a secret. (C: Um hum.) Particularly from you.
C20: Um hum ... and then you have this scurrying around in this humiliating fashion as though the person certainly committed a murder and it's about a pencil!!
T20: You mean if somebody's lost something?
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Pildes Interviews Lucina
C21: Well they didn't have a pencil ... lost or it was stolen ...
T21: But if they don't have a pencil to go to school with (C: Um hum.) on a particular day (C: Um hum.) that is hidden from you and there's a lot of things going on ...
C22: And then the person who most is furious with someone finally comes and spits it out--X has no pencil! (T: Um hum.) You know, I love them just in that very craziness, but the fact is, trying to provide the pencils is just an awful, I don't know ...
T22: Trying to provide them when you're not asked? ...
C23: There's all kinds of stuff I don't know, and there's no way in the world for me to know and I don't care not to know either. I don't like the kind of parent that is off someplace (T: Yes) that kind of stuff ... I see that ... I go to these many parent meetings, many, constant, and it is shocking. I mean, the majority of the parents know ... If they know 20% what we know about their kids it's amazing. And the stories of the kids' cousins and things that they've done ... Lorena says to me--you know Yolanda--who's a first cousin--has been taking money to go to computer school week after week after week and going, getting on the bus with me and getting off, and going to this other rancho and doing this, that, and the other--and now it's coming to light she's flunked 92 things and so forth, but there are plenty of these things happening all around us, now nobody's ever said any of ours have done this.
T23: Um hum.... But things are happening where the parents believe that the kids are doing one thing (C: plenty of kids) and the kids are appearing to be doing that but they're not. (C: They're not.) They're doing something completely different.
C24: Right. So you have to ... the possibility of deception is continual. (T: Um hum.) I don't actually think it's happening in our house. (T: Um hum.)... and many people think this is just wonderful and I should be counting my blessings because... this about the pencils of course is less grave.
T24: Yes. What people are saying to you is your children are telling you the general truth (C: generally speaking) ... about what's going on (C: generally speaking) . . . but they hide certain things from you that they think are going to cause trouble.
C25: When we find any kind of deception we generally haul them through the street screaming and crying at the top of our lungs and have a gigantic fit and then it doesn't happen much for a while.
T25: There's a scene.
C26: Yes, definitely there's a scene in every case of deception that's discovered. (T: Um hum.) But what are the other people doing? I mean the other people are not happy to have ... I don't know, but I hear what they say about their kids in these meetings and I think, you know, this is far from the truth.
T26: You mean they think their kids are completely fine, and nothing's going on? Is that what you mean, Lucina?
C27: Oh, as often they think their kids are terrible and it's not going on, I mean they're just way out ... I see that they don't know what their kids are doing, cause I even know the kid and this is not right or I know what's been said and it's not right, or if that's not even the expectation, that's not what the teacher said and that's not what project they're working on ...
T27: Um hum, you mean there's a terrible fit between the children's world and the world of the parents.
C28: Very terrible and maybe that's true everywhere but that's what I know about. (T: Um Hum.) And I don't feel that with Dani and Nico because these are just teeny-weeny ones and they've
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always been with us and they're just as likely to look at things my way as any other. That'd be as normal for them ... But my other kids are straddling something or other, with some success or some failure the same as me ...
T28: Straddling what?
C29: Two different conceptual structures and two different sets of expectations and at least two different worlds. And they are ... well I've got the trump card cause I've got the money ... I mean everyone would be happy to tell them that ... (T: Yes.) ... but, well then, why hasn't it turned perfect? [laughs] Supposedly I got it all, I know. [laughs]
T29: You mean, if you ... There's some way in which you laugh and you say--I've got the money and I adore these children and I would give them what they need at a drop of a hat, (C: Right.) why isn't this working? (C: Right, right, right.) And it seems like what you're saying Lucina--and I'm checking this with you--you're saying it's not working because there are so many things that the children have brought with them that makes their world view so different.
C30: I don't think it's strictly “have brought,”they are bringing them daily also
T30: I see. You mean because it's always there, it's not just past, it's always there
C3 1: Oh yeah, if it was past I think it would have (T: Oh!) subsided by now.
T31: But they live in a culture where it's constantly reinforced.
C32: Right, I mean they've got four grandparents living--no wait, they've got ... they may have eight great grandparents, I haven't counted up--in any case, they have 10 aunts and uncles, you know, and any number of ... dim-witted misbehaving cousins. (T: Mmm) And I don't always know about even who is representing the majority of the influence. Leonor ... I don't feel at all bad about Leonor.... I mean Leonor just has all these troubles, but their Grandmother that they live with, Leonor, I do count as mine, you know. (T: Um hum.) ... She's essentially ... I don't ... she's pulling the same way we're pulling. (T: Um hum.) Some of the other ones, I mean, some of the stuff from the past, years ago but when Maru was still alive and Maru's relatives fought with her, saying ...
T32: Who's Maru?
C33: Their mother who died.
T33: I see.
C34: They fought with her saying that she was nuts to keep sending her daughters to school because they would just get in trouble and get pregnant (T: Um hum.) and they should be put to work immediately because many of them were over ten years old.... Well anyway, that's in the past, but it's just to point out how absolutely asinine their counsel is likely to be.... That's about where it is....
T34: Which would be to pull ... That the other direction that you're dealing with is (C: Oh definitely) says such things as, pull the little girls out of school by the age of ten.
C35: Take the girls out of school. Pay a lot of bribes for things. Don't consider doing it in any other way, (T: Um hum.) you know anything ... several stupid things. (T: Um hum.) I really don't want anything to do with it. (T: Mmm.) Well neither did Maru--their mother was in the same boat as we are, it's no different, (T: Mmm.) it's exactly the same. We're more able....
T35: You mean, more able to get the kids to do what you want (C: Yes) even though it's not ...
C36: Because of the economic factor. (T: Mmm.) Because everybody says--now this has nothing
to do with the wisdom of the point of view or whether education is a good idea or anything like that ... we just say we fund this, we don't fund that. (T: Um hum.) And we might as well not
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even bother to discuss the rationale.... (T: Um hum. We fund your going to school ... ) We are god and we say this ... so that's that! [laughs] It's terrible!
T36: [simultaneously with previous sentence] It's clean [laughs].
C37: It should be! You know it should be, except for the fact that it isn't because their hearts are free, because we're not that oppressive and they do ... waiver around (T: Um hum.) and we see the evidence of it and it gives me a ...
T37: You mean you listen to their side ...
C38: I wanted to listen to their side, and I want to listen to their side more, (T: Um hum.) and I
already listen to it too much to be completely naive.
T38: What do you mean?
C39: ... well I mean I can't really look at it, as--we pay the bills, we win ... you do it, et cetera.
T39: Yeah, that doesn't work [laughs].
C40: [laughs] It isn't where I'm coming from [laughs]. I mean, I'm tempted [laughs].
T40: [Ironically] It might work for someone.
C41: If someone can really give me a practical way of doing that or anything else, (T: Um hum.) I might do it because it's such a headache what I have got.
T41: Lucina, is what you're saying here that it's interesting because if you were willing you could just say--I've got the money, I'm the boss, that's it, get complete compliance, [smiling] or something that looked like that.
C42: Could I? You know, that's the thing. Could I?
T42: You're not even sure about that [laughs].
C43: But the fact is when you say it, I think--now who ever has done this, you know, what about the slave owners? Did they really ever get away with this? Not truly,
T43: Um hum. So that doesn't work.
C44: I don't know ...
T44: And then it particularly doesn't work for you because it doesn't fit your nature. (C: Yeah.) So that the ways that you would have to have a more easy control, or at least have the illusion of a more easy control, in a sense they're not open to you because of your nature.
C45: [laughs] I don't think they're open to anybody, though. I mean, I think they're just ... it's a closed lot.
T45: You think that nobody can do that anymore?
C46: [Pause] Yes, that's what I think. I think that when push comes to shove when have some kind of emergency and they have to open their heart, they show that they don't trust their sisters, they don't trust anybody. (T: Um hum.) That's the truth of it. (T: Um hum.) I can suspect and think, oh it's some aunt or something, but I don't think it's that.
T46: That the children--each individual child--does not really trust anyone.
C47: Right.
T47: Even their siblings.
C48: Right. Right. Usually in emergencies when somebody dies or something extreme happens, they have to speak and usually that's what comes out. (T: [simultaneously with next sentence] What comes out is they lack the trust ... ) That they have never told the truth to anybody. And
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it doesn't make any difference if it's their closest sibling. So it's, you know, I'm not super sure that I'm at a disadvantage. [Pause] And the baby ...
T48: [simultaneously with last sentence] You mean because there's not someone else that is hearing the truth. No one is...
C49: No ... and the baby is coming up exactly the same as the big ones. (T: Um hum.) Now that is just dumbfounding to me, (T: Um hum.) this child I nursed and she will not talk!
T49: She doesn't talk to you even?
C50: She talks to Dani my baby ... they're like twins. She does talk to him more than to the
others. But she is a quiet one. (T: Um hum.) Callado.
T50: What does that mean?
C5 1: A callado: shut up one.
T5 1: Shut up one.
C52: It's a whole culture is full of those, but periodically there are mutations or something, you get one like their mother who wasn't. (T: Um hum.) All I can say is if you don't talk nobody understands you (T: Yes.) and I don't even love talking. If I do it for a long time I go hoarse--not my favorite thing. (T: Um hum.) But I really recommend it. So I don't know what I'm supposed to do, you know, every time I think about it, it goes through another circle, and I think ... What a headache.
T52: What kind of circle Lucina? I'm not sure what you're saying.
C53: Why am I not ... ? Why don't I feel eager to get home? ... And then ... if I go through everything there are certain elements ... if I could get rid of the rest of it, you know, I'd be eager, but at this point I can't really say I'm eager.
T53: And is the rest of it ... ? Does that refer to the secretiveness?
C54: Not necessarily, the secretiveness is only part of the whole thing. Secretiveness has nothing to do with these things like the water company. (T: Yes.) [laughs] I mean, plus, I couldn't say Leonor is secretive about it. She bothers me about it every day.
T54: She doesn't keep it to herself [smiling].
C55: No indeed not! That type of complaint is full-out. No it's a mixed deal, the kids are more the problem.... No, that's not the only problem. It's just that the whole complex pushes on me at once and that's one of the elements, I mean, I couldn't extricate one thing from another. If I could, I would do it.
T55: But they're all interlocked ... (C: Um hum ... yeah.) ... and it's the problems, the practical physical problems like with the water company, and then the problems of the children keeping things inside themselves, and then the problems that come from that (C: Um hum.), and your own frustration about not being able to get the truth. (C: Um hum.) I guess that's what you're saying, Lucina.
C56: Um hum, and I feel like I'm in a bad mood. I am rotten. I am not a loving parent. I would be but I am not, because of course, nobody could ever think about criticizing me for this because everybody thinks--well isn't this great, nobody is dying! You know their expectations are so . . . The issue of whether I'm okay, or whether I'm cheerful and all that is …
T56: This is not a standard you'd be held up to by anyone.
C57: Nobody but me could ever even, can know, (T: Only you.) nobody's thinking about that. They are all just thinking well ...
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T57: ... you took all the children, they're all being fed, (C: Right.) they're not dying of illness . .
C58: Right, right, since nobody is dead or dying, then how could there be an issue? So it's just my private issue that I go around feeling--however I feel--I mean I don't even know ... you know at first they used to be all scared that I wouldn't come back.
T58: You mean when you would come to Chicago?
C59: Um hum, and I know exactly what the risk is there because you know there's this feeling like wouldn't it be just nice to ... [gesture of taking flight]
T59: Yes .... to get free of these problems ...
C60: … it would never happen.
T60: … it would never happen.
C61: They don't even fear it anymore.
T61: They know that you'll always come back.
T62: That they do know that?
C63: Very proud ...
T63: That's been an accomplishment.
C64: Yes, nobody doubts any of it. [crying] They can say ... They can hear any number of people say--I know thus and so gringos, they always say they'll stay here forever, the first time they get any kind of health problem they go home because they say there's no health [care]--and this does nothing at all to them, they don't hear any of it, they say--she'll be back on the first of . .
T64: They know.
C65: Um hum. Yeah, I pay whatever price I pay and I try to conceal it, [crying] because I don't want to threaten them.
T65: Oh I see! You mean you can't really complain to them because it's taken ...
C66: No! How can I say to them look, do I ever wish that I could just get right out of this ...
T66: ... Because they would experience it merely as a threat (C: [simultaneously with next] Of course, they've already lost everything.) and it would undermine everything you've done ...
C67: [crying] They've already lost--I mean, they're used to people dying if nothing else. [laughs] You know they just get out any way they can! Ship out! But when Maru died my best friend down there said to me--well it might be the only way out of a dog's life.... Well that's true.
T67: And that might be true.
C68: I mean I don't think there was any factor of will in the whole thing (T: Um hum.) I don't . . .
T68: She just got sick and she died.
C69: No, she died in child birth, she died of heart failure. (T: Oh.) She ... no, she didn't get sick … (T: She died in child birth.) ... no, she didn't ... she expected to be with me in a couple of hours. [long pause] No, that's the pressure, the pressure is all about life and death. That's really the only way I could be put in this kind of position I think, where I ... It's not even ... sometimes
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it's really not healthy to just endure and endure, but it's better than it was the first year anyway so.
.
T69: Lucina, what are you saying here? I'm not clear.
C70: [Pause] I don't think. . . well I don't know ... Well no wonder it's not clear, it's not clear to me either. It's definitely ... the whole ... all the issues about life and death that make me act as I act. I mean I try to act as though I am absolutely solid whether or not I am (T: Yes.) because I think there's been enough toppling over.
T70: Um hum. In the lives of these children?
C71: Yeah, yeah, I think I can't say anymore than that about it. I don't really know, except that it seems that I should ... there should be a way to have a little bit easier ... life, but I don't know how. (T: Um hum.) And so, I worry about it ...
T71: Um hum. You're saying first of all, there is no chance that you're gonna walk away from it, (C: No.) this is it, you're in it, that's it.
C72: That's right, if that has to be the shape of my life, then so be it.
T72: That's the way it is. And the second part is, as far as the children are concerned, you're not going to complain about it, (C: Right.) you're not going to do anything (C: Right.) that would undermine (C: Right.) their new found sense that you're not going to leave them.
C73: Right, right. But I'm willing to tell you [looks at audience and smiles] ... (T: [Looks at audience and smiles] or anyone else here.) that it's a pain and I feel apprehensive a lot of the time and I can't even relax when I have the right to.
T73: I see. That it intrudes even at the moments when you say okay-- I am leaving, I have to for my own sake, I'm gonna be gone for some length of time (C: Um hum.) to Chicago and I'll get my strength back together to go back.... (C: Right.) ... but even when you're here it drains you …
C74: Absolutely it does. It's better when I first come, (T: Um hum.) and it's better when I have a longer time--you know all the things that you would think would make it better, make it better. But, it's right there.
T74: Um hum. It's right there all the time.
C75: Yeah ... especially now anyway, now it's gotten closer.
T75: Now that it's closer to the time you're returning, you're starting to feel the anxiety again …
C76: Kinda brace myself, you know it's ... How can, you know, good kids [crying] It isn't right.
T76: It isn't right that it should be this hard?
C77: It isn't right that I should experience good kids [the same way] as going to the dentist, you know an