Listening to Listening

The analyst's work is based on listening and interpretation. But each interpretation risks promoting in the patient the illusion of an omniscient analyst who can determine the truth of the unconscious of the other, without even having recourse to the patient's associations or psychic work. This narcissistic fascination must be renounced in order for the patient to recognise that interpretation actually arises from the union of his words with the analyst's listening. The transition to the oedipal register can only occur if the patient is aware of the fundamental incompleteness of each of the parties taking part in the analytic encounter. For this dimension of disillusionment to lead to a fruitful experience of mourning, Haydée Faimberg has suggested that it is necessary for analyst and patient to have recourse to “listening to listening”. For the analyst, this consists of being sensitive to the way in which the patient reinterprets what he hears (sometimes even the analyst's silence “speaks”) so that he can appreciate the nature and scale of the psychic work involved in the process. Sometimes, listening to listening can be the object of sharing.

Here is a session. As we shall see, it contains a first interpretation that was rather badly formulated. The patient was speaking about the different relations that she was having with the sole aim of getting pregnant, as if she attributed no importance whatsoever to the father of the baby. Her tone was provocative, apparently devoid of affect. She told her analyst that she expected her to take the high moral ground by drawing on a theory that emphasised the importance of the father. Then she talked about bad-smelling situations while associating to the bad smell of her last partner. She would no doubt have had a child from him if there hadn't been this smell! Perhaps she just needed to find him a good deodorant, she added, sarcastically. A silence followed. As it continued, the analyst felt herself becoming indifferent to the