Le Havre - Journées Nationales 2007
Listening
The basis for any human relationship is the hope to make oneself heard. The listening itself produces effects: it is soothing, it gives the interlocutor the feeling that he or she is recognized, and even legitimated in the network of contacts, the feeling that one exists. The social interaction, both much sought-after and roughly handled, lives on, and contributes to, the listening. From the palaver tree to the confessional, societies have found means to dedicate special areas to listening. But is it always the case ? Though naturally integrated to life, listening is more and more often artificially organized with a purpose to compensate for its actual or presumed absence. It can also be manipulated by all those who try to get its effects in an artificial manner.
What is the characteristic feature of listening in our therapeutic consultations ? Why is the impact different when one speaks to friends, parents or neighbors ? Kindness (benevolence) is not enough, but is it just a question of technique ?
Similar to what is produced by voice mails and answer-phones, is listening not endangered by the creeping automation of care specialists: conducted interviews looking for fashionable diagnosis, protocolization of answers etc. ?
Hence the importance of what is sent back by the listener. The effects of an answer can be devastating or very efficient. Is it not the relevance of the answer that proves the quality of the listening ? Silence is an essential answer, just as non-participation, that lets the speech happen.
Through our training, and beyond our personal life course, we bear prints that create reflexes, filter what we receive, sometimes preventing us from hearing what we are told. Our conceptual and practical tools change our listening capacity. Defense, protection or need for a framework and interpretation ?
Moreover, could our listening not be influenced by social demand, patients' expectations, supervising institutions requirements, and even by the teaching of our masters ? What can we do to maintain a minimum operating neutrality ?
Finally, any listening achieved with deep involvement is inevitably accompanied by affective phenomena, those phenomena that psychoanalysis has considered as expressions of transfer, extremely polymorph expressions, both dynamic and resisting forces, sincere and deceitful. How do listening volunteers manage about them ? How do the doctors that we are, manage about them, and how do patients whom we take care of ?