Listening

• Listening in counseling (and psychotherapy): listening to (some)one. Listening in psychoanalysis: listening to the unconscious.

• The aim of the psychoanalytic conversation is to reflect to the analysand his/her speech

• Psychoanalytic listening: listening TO (the speech; associations) and listening FOR (lapses, contradictions, formations of the unconscious).

• Psychoanalysis is not a sum of concepts or theories. Concepts and ideas are not originary; they do not come first. The "essence" of psychoanalysis is a very peculiar kind of listening. And this listening opens to theorization

• One of my main interests of research concern the psychoanalytic listening: how can we define itor conceptualize it? It is a very broad and complex concept. The practice of the psychoanalytic listening can be extremely difficult (as t may seem, particularly at the beginning of a analysis) or extremely simple (as simple as understanding a Witz, a joke, for example). However, I came up identifying at least three dimensions of the psychoanalytic listening: 1) it aims at the unconscious; 2) it occurs best by the method of 'free floating attention'; 3) it is informed by an understanding of the 'transference'.

• Psychoanalytic listening: non-comprehending (i.e. to seize/grasp completely) opens to a different understanding (what stands in between)

• Psychoanalytic listening is not intentional. It grounds on free associations (of the analysand) and free floating attention (of the analyst)

• While hearing is directed toward what is being said, (psychoanalytic) listening is directed toward what is not being said

* I first presented these few considerations on my Facebook/Twitter pages. You are invited to follow me (Diego Busiol)