At that the Master laughed uproariously. He said,
“When I speak, you mustn’t listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.”
Anthony De Mello
I have always worked with people, first as a lawyer and then in marketing. As such, I have been aware, for a long time, of the importance of listening, paying attention, eye contact, make questions, etc. However, the reasons for doing it were always self-centered. As a lawyer, while listening1, one learns to look for facts, inconsistencies, weakness in arguments, and the like; and while doing that, one is already thinking about how solve the mistakes the client may have committed before meeting you (and they always make mistakes), trying to develop and strategy (whether defensive or offensive), and/or thinking how does the law and precedents apply to the particular case.
When I started working in marketing, I had to learn to listen in a completely different mode. People in publicity, marketing and sales are also carefully indoctrinated on the “right” way to listen: “Find the need,” they would tell you. Just like in the legal profession (and I guess in the helping profession as well) it is a matter of asking the right questions. Pay careful attention on what the potential client (everybody is a potential client) tells you; most probably, he/she is not aware that he/she needs your services. Again, while one listens, one has to start identifying services that may be of interest, and mentally start thinking how to subtly drive the conversation to those needs and find a way to make the client aware of them while letting him/her see how you could help to satisfy such needs2.
For me, it has been very interesting to learn about the way as therapist we are supposed to listen. While some suggestions are similar, encourage the client to talk, pay attention (including eye contact, body language, verbal tracking, etc), listen carefully, be selective on to which topics you follow, ask whenever you get lost; others suggestions go completely against of what I have learn. Among them, the following are, in my opinion, the most significant:
a) “Your main responsibility as a helper is to assist other in finding their own answers” and a similar idea “…the maximum help you can give patients is to foster reliance on their own resources rather than yours.” Lawyers are supposed to provide answers, salespersons satisfy needs. In both cases, the underlying assumption is that one knows better that the client. Although it is clear that therapist also provides something (whether it is a safe space, nonjudgmental acceptance, etc.) the approach and respect to the client are completely different. Moreover, the therapist must be aware not to let the client become dependent on them, while a lawyer or salesperson would consider it a very positive (and profitable) thing to happen.
b) “Never introduce topics that the other person didn’t express. Never push your own interpretations. Never mix in your own ideas.” I find this suggestion very challenging, since we (or at least I) are constantly trying to push our own agendas, we are so occupied thinking about what we are going to say that we seldom listen to the other. Even lawyers and salespersons, trained to listen, are not really paying absolute attention. The lawyer would certainly try to introduce topics, make questions and push interpretations, in an attempt to fit the client’s case to the law and precedents. The salesperson will do the same, in order to move the conversations towards what solutions can provide to the client’s needs. Still, I fully agree with the notion that only by absolute and emphatically listening we can really grasp what the client is trying to communicate, both verbally and nonverbally and how does he/she feels.
c) “Resist the temptation to be clever or brilliant.” “Avoid making dogmatic statements.” I believe that these to are closely related. Lawyers usually feel themselves almost forced to provide a clever answer, they are supposed to know the law, as such, and they must have the answer. Still, it seems to me that these are a temptation that has to do more with our need to feel important than with the actual profession.
However, beyond these skills that therapist must learn to be good listeners, what I believe is the most valuable feature of the therapist listening attitude, is the awareness that “Listening means immersing oneself in the world of another human being; allowing oneself to resonate to the spoken and unspoken message.” Which I believe is a privilege and a responsibility that should be treated with the highest respect.
The irony is that; at least ideally, we should not need to become therapist to learn this, but again, in our regular life we nearly always stop each other from getting very far inside. We are too busy jumping into conclusions, preparing answers, advices or rebuttals; as a result, we rarely really listen. It is sound advice to create an open space in our mind and listen from there. Certainly, it would be a good thing if not only therapist but everyone could follow it… but let us start somewhere.
“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.” “You can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind doesn’t react immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is being said. Then in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding. Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens. Can one put aside all these screens through which we listen, and really listen?” “Listening is an art not easily come by, but in it, there is beauty and great understanding.”
J. Krishnamurti, Book of Life
