Listening Well

A key component of listening well is what Dr Scott Peck describes as “bracketing.” Bracketing is “the temporary giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices, frames of reference, and desires in order to experience as far as possible another world from the inside, stepping inside his or her shoes” (The Road Less Travelled and Beyond, p. 52). When conversing with someone, bracketing involves the temporary total acceptance of him or her. Sensing this acceptance, he or she will open up and share things with you. When bracketing is achieved, deep communication takes place. Deep communication is therapeutic. The fact that psychotherapy works so well in many cases is mostly because the patient feels that he or she is being listened to, sometimes for the first time in years, or for some for the first time ever.

Some people think a psychologist’s job is easy. It appears to us that they just chat to people. But during the whole time that a client is talking, the psychologist, if he or she is practicing love (extending oneself for mutual growth), is engaged in a very active and challenging process of stepping out of his or her shoes and into the shoes of another person and seeing the world from that person’s point of view. Thus, listening well is not passive behaviour. Rather, Dr Peck notes, “it is an active exercise of our attention and by necessity, is hard. It is because they do not realise this or because they are not willing to do the work that most people do not listen well” (The Road Less Travelled and Beyond, p. 52). The hard work of listening well is the psychologist’s bread and butter which is why they are paid well because they are part a small minority of the human race able to practice this behaviour.

We all have the capacity to listen well. The capacity for listening well is related to our capacity for love. If we love others, if we are ready to extend ourselves for their spiritual growth. Via this readiness the difficulty of listening well can be overcome. So it all comes back to love. If we can manage to love others and listen well our conversations with others will become therapeutic for them. And one will become as it were a lay psychologist.

May God grant us the capacity to love and practice proper listening. Aameen.