ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of listening in the analytic process. It describes the effectiveness of teleanalysis as an alternative frame that is as valuable as in-person treatment and reviews some research about human listening. The research recognizes the importance of sounds and language in children’s lives. Listening is also pivotal to the analytic process. Language conveys messages, and tone of voice elicits feelings in the listener. Analysands can perceive analysts’ attentiveness to every word; they can receive analysts’ empathy and understanding. Clinical empathy makes it possible to perceive special qualities and types of nonverbal information. Teleanalysis provides an adequate environment for empathy to develop. Teleanalysis, therefore, promotes the strengthening of the therapeutic alliance. The main factor in analysis is the therapeutic alliance, and the importance of teleanalysis is that it offers the possibility of avoiding discontinuity in that alliance when patients are not able to come to the office or when they are out of town.
