What do we really mean when we make embarrassing mistakes in conversation? Is there such a thing as inadvertent insult or a slip of the tongue? Exploring outside influences and the connections to our dream world, Dr. Robert Haskell guides us through the fascinating terrain of the unconscious, showing how our minds use feelings, sounds, and language to simultaneously hide and reveal what we secretly think and feel. Filled with intriguing and amusing illustrations from every day life, Deep Listening provides the key to unlocking the real feelings and meanings behind our interactions with family, friends, and co-workers.
Very rarely does a book tick me off the way this one did. The evidence in this book is sketchy, the author spends way too much time having to defend himself against skeptics (I remain one of them), and the writing style often comes across as arrogant. Not only this, but certain passages seem to be repeated almost verbatim across some chapters, and too many times the author refers to a complex 'methodology' that must be found in another of his books. I barely managed to read to the back cover.
I did not finish this book. While some of the early chapters were promising, through much of the book I was left thinking that the author was reaching for hidden meanings that were not actually there, or at least that the book was unsuccessful in presenting the material in a way that would be convincing.