The sound of silence: evolution of the object in the relationship of parents of two twins

Abstract

This paper derives from a longer dissertation submitted for an MA in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies. Aspects of thinking about silence and significant contributions to the psychoanalytic and psychological research history are discussed in depth as a prologue to the discussion of a case in which the parents of twins were seen by the author in an attempt to encourage more listening as well as talking between the father and mother and with their children. Silence is seen as a significant internal sounding board through which the individual may listen to what others say, to himself, and to enable the birth to new thoughts. The review in depth of the literature on silence is applied to therapeutic work undertaken by the author with a couple one of whose twins was in psychotherapy. The author connects the significance of the absence of silence and the absence of toleration of silence in the couple with absence of the experience of being taken in, contained, and of the experience of being heard and listened to by internal parents.

Keywords:

• silence
• hearing
• listening
• sound-object
• containment
• third position
• parenting
• attachment

Notes on contributor

Alessandra Milano is a clinical psychologist specialising in children and adolescents. She completed an MA in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies with AIPPI, Milan, in partnership with the Tavistock Clinic, validated by the University of East London and is now finishing her clinical training as a child and adolescent psychotherapist with AIPPI in Milan. From 2004 to 2012, she worked as a trainee and then as a volunteer psychologist in an Infant Neuropsychiatry and Adolescence NHS Service in Milan. Now she works mainly in private practice. Alessandro Milano graduated first in 1995 in Modern Literature at the University of Genoa. She is also an accomplished pianist and theatre director who graduated from both the Giuseppe Nicolini Conservatorie in Piacenza and the Paolo Grassi School of Dramatic Art in Milan. From 1994 to 2005, she worked in Theatre and in Opera as Assistant Director and Director in Italy and abroad. She also worked as a shooting planner and assistant director in televisions drama productions. Since 2001 she has taught Dramatic Art at the Conservatoire in Bergamo.

Notes

1 In construction, an air space is an empty space between two parts of a building used for technical and structural reasons, such as a space for sound insulation

2 From θεαομαι, to see, to watch.

3 A piece for any instrument that consists in not playing any instrument for 273 seconds, or 4 minutes and 33 seconds and refers to the temperature of absolute 0, or 273.15°C o 0K.

4 “… pardon, gentles all,/ the flat unraised spirits, that hath dar’d / On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth/ So great an object: can this cockpit hold / The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram / Within this wooden O the very casques / That did affright the air at Agincourt? / […] Suppose within the girdle of these walls / Are now confin’d two mighty monarchies,/ Whose high upreared and abutting fronts / The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: / Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; / Into a thousand parts divide one man, / And make imaginary puissance; / … For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, / Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times, / Turning the accomplishment of many years / Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, / Admit me Chorus to this history; / Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, / Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play” (Shakespeare, 1599).