Listening for Therapists.

I went to jazz night school for a year or so and from the beginning the teacher stressed the importance of ‘listening to the other players’. I thought OK, I can do that, I have ears. So I listened, I kept in time and followed the chord changes and thought that was listening. I then played bass and drums with my friend John and we moved away from tunes into something more free-form. Without the constraint of a tune there was far less obligation to ‘be right’. Trying to ‘be right’ was replaced by ‘being with’ and I suddenly realised what the teacher had meant. Listening took on a whole new meaning. Without a tune all I had was what I was hearing from John. As we continued it began to be even subtler. I stopped hearing what I was playing as ‘my’ response to what he was playing and began to hear and in a way play in the whole sound. I was no longer the individual playing bass but a part of a drum and bass whole. A guitarist joined us and we continued in this fashion. 

I raise this point in regard to therapy because therapists are also invited to listen and I wonder if this subtlety is understood. Do some consider the client is playing a tune that the therapist must join in with a get right? Do some consider themselves as a separate individual responding to the playing of the client, or do some cease to be either and listen to the whole, perceive themselves not as an individual player but a part of a whole? And is this analogy appropriate? Often the client sees the therapist as the expert that might help their need, which ‘fits’ the therapist’s awareness of their own training and expertise. Often the therapist makes the client the centre of attention, bowing to the consideration it is ‘their’ time and they are paying a fee for it. And often the therapist needs to maintain a stance that protects his or her own personal safety. All these militate against the sort of listening I experienced playing jazz. Another aspect of this jazz listening was, in apparent contradiction to what I’ve just said, there was no merging or loss of individuality. Each player contributed his part to the whole without losing himself in it. I sense this integrated listening to the client/ therapist whole, where the therapist hears both parts mingling into one sound, where one loses one’s individually considered contribution in favour of one’s essential contribution to the whole has some merit.