The voice is simultaneously an emotional and a cognitive channel of communication; vision is the least sensual of the senses. In analysis the visual image often hides unacceptable motivations and feelings. Language also lends itself to purposes of defense and resistance. The style of the patient's speech, its variations, its tone and rhythm, its intervals and silences are as revealing as the manifest content. Gradually, as analysis progresses, the patient's repeated verbal communications become less defensive and disguised, and he has more direct contact with his wishes, fears, and fantasies. What is understood by a person as his situation, may differ markedly from the objective situation even when there appears to be no contradiction verbally. The aim of analysis is to help the patient resolve the contradiction by making conscious what is unconscious. The conditions in treatment which determine the analyst's interventions, his timing, are perceptible in the tone of the patient's voice more than in the content of his verbal communications.