You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Listening With the Third Ear. Reik, T. The Inner Experience of a Psychoanalyst. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1948.
For its current symposium on a significant book in psychoanalysis, the Editors of The Psychoanalytic Review have chosen Theodor Reik's Listening with the Third Ear, published 33 years ago.
Emulating the example of his teacher, Sigmund Freud, Reik's writings reflect the clarity and literary grace of his master; yet, they depart from Freud's rigorously objective works in their looseness and deeply personal style. In fact, it was precisely Reik's emphasis on his own subjective experience that was so admirably suited to convey “a feeling for unconscious processes.” This surely accounted for the wide popularity of Listening with the Third Ear, both for the professional psychoanalyst and the general reader, who quickly began to associate “the third ear” with the psychoanalytic method.
Our five participants have addressed Reik's book from varying perspectives: Martin Grotjahn's and Murray Sherman's comments are personal and evocative; Moss Rawn discusses Reik's position in the history of psychoanalytic technique; Jeffrey Berlin comments on a hitherto unpublished letter written by Reik to Beer-Hofmann's daughter in 1947 that refers specifically to Listening with the Third Ear; Zvi Lothane compares Reik's method with that of Otto Isakower.
Although the five contributors to this symposium approach their subject from different vantage points, an underlying theme emerges: Reik's emphasis on psychoanalysis as a reciprocal unconscious communication between analyst and patient is a point of view espoused by a number of contemporary psychoanalysts whose writings are eagerly discussed; nevertheless, an exploration of the full potential of Reik's method is still to be undertaken.