The Lost Art of Listening by Michael P. Nichols Read Free Book Online Page A

But when this
    adult enthusiasm exceeds the baby’s own, the result is a jarring discontinu-
    ity. Loving parents share the moods of their children and show it.
    It isn’t exuberance or any other emotion that conveys loving
    appreciation, it’s being understood, and taken seriously.

    How Listening Shapes Us and Connects Us to Each Other 33
    The baby whose parents tickle and poke and jiggle and shake her
    when she’s not in the mood is as alone with her real self as the baby whose
    parents ignore her. This imposition of the parents’ agenda is, in what
    psychiatrist R. D. Laing so tellingly called the “politics of experience,”
    the mystification in which the child’s reality gets lost.6 Not being under-
    stood and taken seriously as a person in your own right—even at this early
    age—is the root of aloneness and insecurity. In the words of psychoanalyst
    Ernest Wolf, “Solitude, psychological solitude, is the mother of anxiety.”7
    Eleanor appreciates getting flowers from her children on Mother’s
    Day but wishes they’d find time to call more often.
    Ted tells Katie that he’s worn out and wants to stay home and watch
    a movie on TV. Katie says that maybe he’d feel better if they went out for
    a walk.
    Nikki tells her father about an older colleague at work who often
    interrupts her at staff meetings. She doesn’t want to make a fuss, but she
    wants to be able to finish saying what’s on her mind. Her father tells her
    that the next time he does that, she should tell him to shut up, she’s not
    finished. Nikki thanks him and changes the subject.
    What these examples have in common is that when people respond
    to us in terms of their own preferences rather than tuning in to ours, it feels
    like they don’t really know us, don’t really get who we are—aren’t really
    listening.
    “Honey, I’m Cold. Don’t You Want a Sweater?”:
    The Sense of a Subjective Self (Seven to Fifteen Months)
    By about one year of age the baby realizes that she has an inner, private
    mental world, with desires, feelings, thoughts, and memories, which are
    invisible to others unless she makes an attempt to reveal them. The pos-
    6R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (New York: Pantheon, 1967).
    7Ernest Wolf, “Developmental Line of Self- Object Relations,” in Arnold Goldberg, ed.,
    Advances in Self Psychology (New York: International Universities Press, 1980).
    34 THE YEARNING TO BE UNDERSTOOD
    sibility of sharing these invisible contents of the mind is the source of the
    greatest human happiness and frustration.
    Imagine for a moment that you’re a baby who hasn’t yet learned to
    talk, and you want a cookie. What do you do if you see the cookie but it’s
    out of reach? Simple. You get your mother to read your mind.
    Mind reading may sound extravagant, but isn’t that what commu-
    nication boils down to? The baby must gain Mother’s attention, express
    what’s on his mind, and do so in a way that Mother receives and under-
    stands the message.
    “I want a cookie” is a simple message, easily sent and easily received,
    even without words. When it comes to more complicated messages, babies
    (like you and me) may have to work harder to express themselves—and
    hope their listeners will work hard enough to understand.
    The possibility of sharing experience creates the possibility for con-
    firmation of the self as understandable and acceptable; it also creates the
    possibility of intimacy, fulfilling the desire to know and be known. What’s
    at stake is nothing less than discovering what part of the private world of
    inner experience is shareable and what part falls outside the pale of com-
    monly accepted human experience.
    Being listened to spells the difference between feeling
    accepted and feeling isolated.
    The possibility of sharing mental states between people also raises the
    possibility of misunderstanding. For example, babies are remarkably eager
    explorers. Sitting on Mommy’s or Daddy’s lap, a