Book Review: The Therapist As Listener: Martin Heidegger and the Missing Dimension of Counselling and Psychotherapy Training

The Therapist As Listener: Martin Heidegger and the Missing Dimension of Counselling and Psychotherapy Training

Peter Wilberg. (2004). New Gnosis Publications.

I get very fed up with 'trailers' showing all the best bits of programmes. I don't want to do that here – you need to read the book yourself. It is very exciting and stimulating. I am retired now and it caused me to want to rush out and start practicing again.

First impression: how hard have I worked over the years just to listen – to be with – to sit on my hands and count to 10? Wilberg says (p162): 'We hear, not the ear'. Oh, yes. Memories come flooding back of that listening with the whole of me – so exciting – so all involving. I'm thinking about how I think I listen and I don't – I fade in and out – I'm only human.

But first, a criticism: I can't find an accreditation for the picture on the cover, who I know to be Heidegger – but not everyone will. I can't find a description of the author, either. Not very welcoming for people new to this way of thinking.

The book starts with a paradox between how we are trained – the acquisition of skills and knowledge, and what it means in Heideggerian terms to be in the world, to be with other people. How might we reconcile this dilemma? Can we hold two ideas at the same time? Wilberg asks us to think of listening as relating – and he sets out to enlighten us and to consider 'the intrinsically therapeutic character of listening' (p1) (his italics). Wilberg asks us as therapists to explore our 'fully embodied presence' (p2) as

human beings when we listen.

He goes on to explore what goes on between people (p13) '….the between to which we all belong'. In my experience, it is a place that I recognize and a place that my training encouraged me to understand. Wilberg (p15) seems to doubt that his particular meaning of 'the between' is properly understood and he thinks that we have a need – amongst all the counselling theories – for a philosophy or psychotherapy of listening. We need (p18) '…to stop at any crossroad and question the value and meaningfulness of the signposts that already mark it.' He, naturally enough, encourages us to consider that his way of training counsellors throws a different light on the process of listening and the between. Maybe what he does is to highlight and expand a process that is already present in many trainings – an expansion that I would consider to be beneficial and enlightening.

In his exploration of what he calls 'Maieutic listening' (p61) I found Wilberg's words: 'to act as midwife/attunement/awareness/being in the world' (p63) stimulating and exciting. I wanted to read this book; to revisit my ideas and to be helped by Wilberg, as midwife, to change my perception – to see the mirror shift and resettle. I can risk feeling because, maybe, I am not alone – the person opposite is open to me on many levels, even if we are only communicating through a book.

This Maieutic way of listening, according to Wilberg, emphasises the necessity of the therapist being aware of the philosophical questions underpinning life: how we all share the human dilemmas and we are all different in our sharing. He sees his historical roots as being in the writings of Martin Heidegger and Martin Buber (p62) and his discussion of these philosophers is lucid and deep.

Wilberg contends that we don't have a language for being. I am reminded of going to see a play some years ago. It turned out it was spoken in Greek – this was not explained in the programme and came as a bit of a shock, although I recognized Sophocles' The Theban Plays (1987). The point is that at the end the cast began to speak in English – and all the connection, feeling and magic disappeared. It was just another play that I 'heard' but didn't 'hear'.

One day I went on a Dale Speedy osteopathic course. Dale has created a different way of working with humanity. On that day, I was helped to interact with my 'clients' by touching them and listening to what their bodies had to say – I felt in my body the imbalances and pain of theirs. So, listening has many meanings. My osteopath 'listens' and understands my body – maybe better than I do. My counsellor 'listens' and connects with the care of me – my silence meets hers and we communicate. Wilberg has interesting things to say about the relation between psychotherapy and bodywork (p63). This is what human beings are about – that we have survived because of the subtlety of our deep communication. We can hide

Nicola Slade