'Many educated members of the western world assume that intelligent action requires conscious thought. This is not always true; in fact, creative and effective behaviour sometimes necssitates an absence of analytical interventions'

Stephen Gilligan(1987) p73

This quote by Psychologist and erisksonian practitioner Stephen Gilligan, from his Book 'Theraputic Trances: The Cooperation Princible in Eriksonian Hypnotherapy' highlights an interesting idea that sits squrely at odds to some dominate discourses in Western Culture. It opens up the possibility that there maybe ways off knowing, and being in our lives, relationships and in therapy that not only do not require the mediation of conscious thinking processes, but are more effective and far more profound without it. It could be argued that the deep listening which rests at the core of effective psychotherapy is one of these things.

Deep listening, can be defined as a process, a relational stance and way of being with

another where we empty ourselves of our pre-conceptions, beliefs and assumptions and open ourselves to the experience of the other. This is not just listening with the ears and a cognitive hearing of the words that another tells us, but a process of listening with our entire body, with every part of our consciousness attuned to the presence of the other. This way of being in relationship opens one up to all of what comes into consciouness, nothing is privleged over anything else, freeing us from our own inclinations, expectations and bias. So not only is one conscious and aware of that information we recieve directly from our external senses but also our internal sensorial experience; where a person is freed of:

' The shell of automatic perception, of automatic affective and cognitive controls in order to percieve more deeply into reality' (Tart 1969, p222)

In this space, of openess and presence shared with another, profound and often spotaneous healing and change can take place. Not mediated by the planned and ordered cognition of the therapist or the client, but as a result of an openess to something far more profound. Milton erikson spoke about this healing force as the creative unconscious and demonstrated in much of his work an unwavering trust in its natural movement towards healing and intergration. Carl Rogers(1985) also speaks of something similar:

' When I am at my best as a group facilitator or therapist i discover another characteristic. I find that when I am closest to my inner intuative self, when I am in touch with the unknown in me, when perhaps I am in a slightly altered state of conciousness in the relationship then whatever I do is full of healing............. our reationship tracends itself, and has become part of something larger.' p565

It could be said that through a deep present intersubjective attention a profound mystery can be glimpsed, where change can evolve naturally and effortessly, through an openess to, and trust in, a source of healing that exits beyond the limited awareness of the inidvidual; beyond the role and 'expertise' of the therapist or the 'brokeness' of the client and to a space where both are trancended. In the Words of Bradford Keeny:

'First,as the heart of Zen teaches, all the endless interpreting has to stop. This means an end to the imposition of pre-established understandings onto a session, whether it is a belief that faulty

family structure or sick cultural stories are the real problem. Enter with a true beginner’s mind—no attachment to any model. If a story arises from the interactivity, attend to its performance.

But do not go groping for stories or believing their appearance has any particular importance. There is no ground of perfect understanding to uncover. As they say in Zen, let the bottom fall out of the bucket—get free of your commentary that tries to hold it all together and make sense of life.

Second, jump into the stream of interactivity. Here you find yourself collaborating with the interaction, not a model. This is the Zen practice of ‘mondo’, where interaction aims to

embody non-dual wisdom and is used to defeat the production of giving any narrative any importance. Here is found improvisation rather than script. Absurdity helps us stay inside

the feeling of play and may inoculate us against falling back to the narrator’s armchair commentary.

Therapy already knows a bit about these first two steps. Therapists either get totally lost in

interpretation or they try to escape it, only to find it is not easy to be interpretation-free.

The third step is the least discussed in therapy today. There is no good word for it, for it points to that which is outside name and understanding. Here we must point to the moon and avoid saying ‘moon’, ‘pointing’ or anything at all. Traditional healers invent their own metaphors for this third ingredient and it includes ‘spirit’ ‘soul’ ‘ life force’ ‘chi ‘ kundalini’, or what the Bushmen call ‘ n/om’.

It is what makes a session feel alive. It is the source of creative expression. It is what marks a

therapist as having a healing heart'.

Psychotherapy in Australia, Vol. 18, No. 3, May 2012: 62-71

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