This article explores the psychoanalytic setting with reference to three questions that the author argues are central to the analytic process: (1) When someone speaks to me, what are they saying to me? (2) When someone speaks to me, to whom are they speaking? (3) When someone speaks to me, what do I hear?

Cournut explores the analytic framework to probe the deep ramifications of these questions, noting that they are reversible and can be asked not just from the side of the analyst, but by the patient as well. He shows how much must be taken into account—not only the language and style of what is said, the choice of words, and syntactic elements—but also the infraverbal, i.e., emotion, affective coloring, nuance, and all that is transmitted in the tone, rhythm, and enunciation of the