Seeing and being seen in the experience of the client and the therapist

There is more to non-verbal communication than observing the client, although intense observation of the client has taken second place to listening to their words. After reflecting on the history of the use of sight in medicine and psychoanalysis, the author examines the significance for Freud and others of the ‘senses at a distance' (hearing and sight), and issues such as voyeurism and exhibitionism in the therapeutic relationship. The phenomenon of seeing and being seen is related through case examples to issues about distance and space, paranoid anxiety and communication disorders. Attention is also paid to illusion as a way of seeing, and its relevance in the counter-transference. The article concludes by looking at the way clients see therapists, tracing briefly the progression from self-pre-occupation to seeing the therapist as a separate other.