Description
The Art of Listening Book Description: We are on solid ground when we say that psychoanalysis is the process of understanding the human mind, especially its non-conscious part. This is an art like understanding poetry. Like all arts, it has its own rules and standards. The basic rule of practicing this art is the complete concentration of the listener. There should be nothing important in the mind of the listener, he should be free from anxiety as well as ambition in the most appropriate way. The listener should have an imagination that is concrete enough to express in words and works freely. He must have the capacity to empathize with another person so strongly that he feels the other's feelings as his own. Such a condition of empathy is optimal for the capacity for love. To understand another means to love him – not in an erotic sense, but in the sense of reaching him and overcoming the fear of losing himself. Understanding and loving are inseparable. If they are separated, it is a cerebral process and the door to true understanding remains closed. (From the Promotional Bulletin)