Among the many vocations over the course of my life was a two decade stretch as a psychotherapist. While the most rewarding work, it was often filled with self-doubt and angst. During my graduate school education, I was fortunate to discover the writings of the great psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. Of course his seminal book “Man’s Search For Meaning” was a touchstone for me, but the anecdote recounted below had a lasting impact. I often thought about when I struggled to connect with patients. When I recently stumbled upon it on a blog, I thought that it was worth sharing.
Frankl once told the story of a woman who called him in the middle of the night to calmly inform him she was about to commit suicide. Frankl kept her on the phone and talked her through her depression, giving her reason after reason to carry on living. Finally she promised she would not take her life, and she kept her word.
When they later met, Frankl asked which reason had persuaded her to live?
“None of them,” she told him.
What then influenced her to go on living, he pressed?
Her answer was simple, it was Frankl’s willingness to listen to her in the middle of the night. A world in which there was someone ready to listen to another’s pain seemed to her a world in which it was worthwhile to live.
Often, it is not the brilliant argument that makes the difference. Sometimes the small act of listening is the greatest gift we can give.
