Chapter 10 Easy Listening, Prolonged Empathic Immersion, and the Selfobject Needs of the Analyst

Prolonged psychological immersion of the analyst in the patient's subjective experience has a profound effect on both the patient and the analyst and on the communication that occurs between them. The literature has tended to focus on prolonged psychological immersion as it is reflected in the listening process with difficult patients, emphasizing the communicative power that occurs with prolonged psychological immersion (Khan, 1979; McDougall, 1980; Kohut, 1981; Bromberg, 1998). In contrast, this chapter focuses on prolonged psychological immersion and the listening process when both occur in a relaxed and pleasurable manner with patients whom the analyst does not experience as difficult.

The listening process is always embedded in a relational matrix and is as complex as relationships themselves. Schwaber (1981) has pointed out how different psychoanalytic systems each provide a definition of the listening stance that is compatible with their own theoretical framework.