The Ear, the Eye, and the Heart: Listening for Unconscious Communication in Psychotherapy

In this 5-hour workshop, Maury Joseph, Psy.D. will present the central ideas from his forthcoming book, The Ear, the Eye, and the Heart: How Dynamic Therapists Listen for Hidden Meaning. The workshop will focus on the clinical art of listening for unconscious communication as it appears in what patients say, what they show in their bodies, what they avoid, how they relate to the therapist, and what they evoke in us.

Rather than presenting a rigid technique or one “right” way to intervene, this workshop will help therapists think more carefully about the clinical data already present in the...Read more room. We will explore how to listen for unconscious dynamics in the manifest content, how to track anxiety and defense in the moment-by-moment process of the session, how to recognize signs of breakthrough, how to hear indirect references to the therapist, and how to use countertransference and enactment as sources of clinical information.

Particular attention will be given to the therapist’s uncertainty. Dynamic listening does not make us omniscient; it helps us form better hypotheses. Through clinical examples participants will learn how to cross-reference multiple channels of communication so that their formulations become more grounded, flexible, and useful.

The aim of the workshop is practical: to help therapists hear more of what is happening in sessions, think more clearly under pressure, and intervene with greater precision, humility, and responsiveness. Less...

Learning Objectives

Describe a multidimensional model of psychodynamic listening that attends to manifest content, nonverbal process, anxiety, defense, transference, countertransference, and enactment.
Identify verbal and nonverbal signs of unconscious anxiety and defense as they emerge in the moment-by-moment process of psychotherapy.
Formulate clinically useful hypotheses about unconscious dynamics by cross-referencing multiple channels of clinical communication.
Analyze indirect references to the therapist and therapy relationship in patients’ narratives, questions, and interpersonal behavior.
Use countertransference reactions as data for understanding the patient and the therapeutic interaction while guarding against premature certainty, enactment, and overinterpretation.

Friday, October 30, 2026

Live Interactive Webinar

09:00 AM EDT - 03:00 PM EDT

$85.00 - $150.00

EARN 5 CE Credit Hours
Click Here to Register

About the speaker

Maury Joseph, PsyD

Maury Joseph, PsyD is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. I trained at and later served as faculty chair of the ISTDP training program at the Washington School of Psychiatry, and was a faculty member there from 2015-2020. I joined the ISTDP faculty of the New Washington School of Psychiatry in May 2023. I served as an assistant clinical faculty member at George Washington University and adjunct faculty at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, offering courses on psychoanalytic topics and supervision to clinical psychology doctoral students. I currently offer weekly supervision groups and private seminars on psychodynamic topics, and facilitate my own IEDTA-accredited core training program.

Agenda

TIME	TOPIC
9:00 AM - 10:15 AM	Introduction and Structures that point to unconscious dynamics and relational patterns.
10:15 AM - 10:30 AM	Break
10:30 AM - 11:45 AM	Sequences of anxiety, defense and breakthrough in sessions
11:45 AM - 12:15 PM	Lunch Break
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM	Channels of Information - Countertransference and Enactment
1:15 AM - 1:30 PM	Break
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM	Demonstrating the Listening Process through Clinical Material
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM	Questions, discussion and closing

CE Information - Earn 5 CE Credit Hours

CE Approvals

Joint Accreditation

In support of improving patient care, CE Learning Systems is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

American Psychological Association

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Association of Social Work Boards

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New York Education Department's State Board for Social Work

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New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology

CE Learning Systems, LLC (d/b/a impactce.com) is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists. #PSY-0016.

New York Education Department's State Board for Marriage and Family Therapy

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CE Process Info

Before the event, you will receive an email from CE-Go with access to the virtual event. After the event, you will receive access to your evaluation and continuing education certificate via a personalized "attendee dashboard" link, hosted on the CE-Go website. This link and access to the virtual event will be sent to the email account you used to register for the event.

Upon accessing the CE-Go "attendee dashboard", you will be able to:

Complete evaluation forms for the event
Download your continuing education certificate in a PDF format

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Disclosure

DISCLOSURE OF RELEVANT FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPS
CE Learning Systems adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity ― including faculty, planners, reviewers, or others ― are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with ineligible entities (formerly known as commercial interests).

The following relevant financial relationships have been disclosed by this activity’s planners, faculty, and the reviewer:

PLANNERS AND REVIEWER
The planners of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.

FACULTY
The faculty of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.