Deep Listening: Explorations on the Musical Edge of Therapeutic Dialogue

This paper describes an attempt to heighten the ability to broaden attention to encompass procedural interactions, rhythmic patterning, moments of meeting, or of fittedness as seen from the musical edge of therapeutic dialogue. A possibility of applying deep listening, a concept and practice developed by Pauline Oliveros, an American composer, is suggested as a potentially useful technique of improving sensitivity to a nonverbal register of communication. The idea of improving sensitivity to nonverbal register in a therapeutic relationship is referred to the work of infant researchers and authors who introduced conclusions from infant observation to adult therapy, with a particular focus on issues of an embodied communication; a crucial role of mutual attunement; and the development and coexistence of two distinct registers of communication in relationships—one of which might be approached from a musical edge. A brief report from an attempt to apply Oliveros' ideas to nonverbal communication in psychotherapy in a group setting of clinicians discussing psychotherapy cases is presented and discussed in light of these topics.