Listening is a form of speaking, for the person who really listens is silently telling the person who speaks that the message and its meaning are being heard.
Listening is a rare skill especially when it comes to emotional life issues. Often, when we speak to other people, they hear us with one ear at best, and sometimes much less than that.
They are preoccupied with the reactions that our words cause in them, and experience difficulty in hearing us fully.
Psychotherapists who are skilled in psychodynamics receive training in the art of listening that enables their clients to experience the sense of being known just as they are.
Theodore Reik devoted his Listening with the Third Ear (1948) to describing how, in his own therapy practice, sensitive listening opened up communication and afforded people an opportunity to explore themselves in new ways.
