1. SOMEONE TO LISTEN -- 17

Listening As Self-Renewal -- 20
Who Will Listen? -- 23
Pictures of What We Hear -- 25
The Collage -- 25
The Dancers -- 26
Substituting My Own Pictures -- 27
We Stand in Need -- 29

2. HEARING COMPLIMENTS AND CRITICISM -- 33
Gifts or Barters? -- 36
Uses of Criticism -- 38
Protecting Ourselves or Others? -- 41
Using Both -- 43

3. THE FEEL OF INFLUENCE -- 45
Who Has Influence? -- 47
Listening As a Wellspring of Influence -- 50
Influence Lost, Then Found -- 52

4. BARRIERS TO LISTENING -- 57
Why We Tune Out -- 60
Separating Ourselves from Others -- 60
Caught in a Web of Emotions -- 62
Expectations and Daily Events As -- 65 Barriers Barriers in Others -- 66

5. OUR BUILT-IN BIASES -- 71
Children, Adults -- 73
Appearance, Speech, Manner -- 74
Emotional Expressions -- 75
Male, Female -- 75
Parents, Children -- 76
Up, Down, Across -- 78
Our Characteristic Biases -- 79
Biases We Bring Out in Others -- 81

6. YOUR APPOINTMENTS TO LISTEN -- 85
Opening Up Our Listening -- 91
Predicting, Anticipating -- 93
Is It Really a Question? 94
Congenial Listening -- 96

7. LISTENING IS A WAY OF BEING -- 99
Around the Edges -- 103
Listening for the Themes -- 107
One Man’s Themes -- 108
Themes in Groups -- 109
Patterns In Themes -- 111
Listening As Communion -- 113

8. WHEN SOMEONE HEARS -- 115
Feeling Unheard -- 117
A Human Connection -- 120
Being Heard: Prelude to Hearing Others -- 122
Personal Vulnerability -- 125
When Someone Truly Hears -- 127