Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique

Bruce Fink

THE PSYCHOANALYSTS first task is to listen and to listen carefuIly. Although
this has been emphasized by many authors, there are surprisingly few good listeners in the psychotherapeutic world. Why is that? There are several reasons,
some of which are primarily personal and others of which are more structural,
but one of the most important reasons is that we tend to hear everything in
relation to ourselves. When someone tells us a story, we think of similar stories
(or more extreme stories) we ourselves could tell in turn.