From “Evenly-Hovering Attention” to “Vicarious Introspection”: Issues of Listening in Freud and Kohut

The often quoted injunction of Freud to the would-be analyst advocates not the taking of notes, but the application of “evenly-hovering attention,” the better able to attend to the unconscious processes of the patient.2 Freud's compelling imagery similarly brings to mind Kohut's instrument of listening, that of “vicarious introspection” or the empathic knowing of another. Since these concepts are functionally related to a belief system about the nature of the analytic task, a comparison of the two ideas might help shed some further light on the split and controversy in our field between the object-instinctual and the self psychologist.

This paper deals with the way in which the concepts of “evenly-hovering attention” and “vicarious introspection” overlap and the way in which they differ. It is about the meaning of listening in Freud and Kohut and my attempt to begin to formulate the nature of my own listening in the light of their considerable influence. What I wish to do also, in drawing the distinctions between the two, is to pay homage to their unique creative achievements, which I believe to be a better endeavor than attempting to hasten a premature marriage. Although my own listening tends to be more from the perspective of a self psychologist, as a student of the evolution of creative thought in our field, I have elsewhere expressed the importance of correctly “reading” our predecessors, in order to solidify the accumulation of our independently achieved knowledge.8,9 However, in also determining the overlap between the two concepts, I will point out what I believe to be the heart of any analytic process, regardless of the school of thought.