The Therapist as Listener: Martin Heidegger and the Missing Dimension of Counselling and Psychotherapy Training [Paperback]

Although on first reading Wilberg's writing may seem quite dense or intense, I see it as an invitation to think seriously and question deeply rather than merely accepting superficial platitudes or external solutions. He writes of a world that has meaning, depth and soul. --www.meaningofdepression.com

Listening is clearly central to the practice of both counselling and psychotherapy. Given this, it is quite extraordinary how little thought has been given to the nature of therapeutic listening and to the cultivation and evaluation of the therapist as listener. Instead, listening is a subject marginalised in both the theoretical literature on psychotherapy and in the practical training of counsellors and psychotherapists - not to mention physicians and psychiatrists. In this collection of essays and articles by Peter Wilberg, the thinking of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger provides the platform for an exploration of the deeper nature of listening as a mode of active inner communication with others - one of profound significance not only in the 'helping professions' but in inter-personal life. In professional training contexts, the willingness of the trainee therapist to listen and hear is taken for granted, and the 'art' or 'skill' of listening reduced to learning different ways of responding to what a client says. From the client's point of view however, healing begins with being fully heard - not with the therapist's responses. Indeed what a client says or does not say and the way in which they say it or 'unsay' it is already a response - a response to the way in which the therapist is or is not listening.

Wilberg's work has been heralded as groundbreaking by a select few from all over the world, including scholars and practitioners from Europe and Australia. Its importance has meant that American Universities have started to adopt it as essential reading.