Free The Lost Art of Listening by Michael P. Nichols

In fact, Walter’s wife tried to do just that. Knowing how
    hypersensitive he was, she’d refrain from asking him anything for weeks
    at a time. But eventually taking care of the house and yard would get
    too much for her and she’d complain that she needed him to take some
    responsibility for the chores. Having waited so long made it hard to keep
    the annoyance out of her voice. He’d feel scolded and resentful, and the
    cycle would start all over again.

    How Communication Breaks Down 47
    Another solution is to borrow a technique from Harry Stack Sulli-
    van, founder of the interpersonal school of psychoanalysis. Sullivan was
    famous for being able to work with severely disturbed patients, many of
    whom had paranoid delusions (perhaps the most extreme form of projec-
    tion). Whenever Sullivan feared that a patient might be projecting cer-
    tain expectations onto him, he’d make what he called “counterprojective
    comments,” explicitly disavowing the role being projected onto him. The
    point of such comments was to reassure the other person, and so saying, for
    example, “I’m not your mother!” in a scolding voice would hardly qualify.
    A more reassuring way to disavow the role of critical mother might be to
    say “Honey, I don’t mean to be critical, but would you do me a favor and
    not put the cats in the washing machine?”
    Transference is usually thought of as distortion. But maybe it also has
    to do with what the speaker needs from the listener at that moment. Thus,
    for example, a woman chatting about a program she saw on TV may not
    impose any particular needs on the person listening to her. On the other
    hand, if the same woman has just been in an auto accident, she may proj-
    ect onto the listener her need for an empathic selfobject experience. In
    the first instance, she may enjoy the listener’s sharing a similar experience,
    whereas in the second she may not want to be interrupted except to have
    her feelings acknowledged.
    Countertransference , the psychoanalytic term for the complexity intro-
    duced by the listener, refers to how the listener’s subjectivity distorts his
    or her experience of the conversation. Like transference, countertransfer-
    ence isn’t simply distortion, because our expectations actually shape and
    reshape our relationships. The woman who expects men to talk only about
    themselves may inquire more than she discloses, thereby confirming her
    expectations. The man who expects to find his wife’s account of the day
    uninteresting may fail to ask the questions that might make it interesting
    to him; as a result, he gets out of the conversation pretty much what he
    puts into it.
    Dorothy suggested to her brother that they should ask their mother
    what kind of funeral arrangements she wanted for their father. Ron
    responded angrily, “Well, I can’t just drop everything and fly across the
    country. I certainly can’t stay for a week to sit shivah. I have things
    to do here and people are counting on me.” Dorothy had had no such
    48 THE YEARNING TO BE UNDERSTOOD
    expectations of her brother and wondered why he had to get so angry at
    her.
    Countertransference: The listener has an emotional reaction
    that interferes with hearing what’s being said. When
    listeners are in the grip of countertransference, mature
    responses, like empathy, perspective, humor, wisdom, and
    concern for the other person, are distorted through the
    prism of the listener’s emotionality.
    Although the terms transference and countertransference don’t really
    tell you anything you don’t already know, they may remind you that lis-
    tening can be disrupted by either the speaker or the listener. Actually,
    distinguishing between the two (unless you misunderstand something I’ve
    said) is somewhat arbitrary. The communicative process is always inter-
    subjective —that is, it reflects the actions and interactions of both parties’
    subjective realities.
    The principal forces contributing to the