Lending an Ear

Abstract

Attention – in the dual role of focusing function and fluctuating process, analytical device and synthetic dynamics – appears to be the seam between Ego and World, subjective and objective, unconscious and consciousness, pre-categorical and linguistic. It represents a privileged exploration field for grasping the irreducibly relational nature of the human being and all matter. The paper proposes a crossing of the concept of attention linked to its biological (as survival), poetic (following Cristina Campo), and finally therapeutic value. From Freud to Bion, via Jung, the topic of attention in relation to care would seem to lead to an aesthetic perspective. A question emerges about the possibility of reviewing individual psychic suffering – amplified in the collective by a “society of distraction” – as lack of attention. The care consists in opening up to a poetic-musical attitude which is both analytical posture and social responsibility.