Deep Listening

Veep listening
Uncovering the Hidden Meanings
in Everyday Conversation

Robert E. Haskell
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 Something is happening here!
But you don't know what it is/
Do you, Mister Jones?
-13013 DYLAN
Ballad of a Thin Man 1

This book is of an entirely popular character; it merely

aims by the accumulation of examples at paving the
way for the necessary assumption of unconscious yet
operative mental processes, and it avoids all theoretical
considerations on the nature of this unconscious.
-514-MUND FREUD
The psychopathology of Everyday Life'
 Contents

Preface IX
Acknowledgments Xl

Introduction Xlll

Olle Listening to the Grateful Dead, Live in Concert:

Introduction to Deep Listening 1
Tw,y Slips of the Tongue or "Slips" of the Mind:
Come Now, Mr. President 25
God Talk: Learning the Deep-Listening Templates 47
fmu' Deep Listening About Relationships: What Friends,
Coworkers, and Employers Won't Tell You 71

five Discovering Deep Listening:

What Freud Didn't Know, but Almost Did 91
six In Defense of Whores and o. J. Simpson:
Precautions, Ethical and Legal III
Seven Figures of Speech in Conversation: Numbers in the Mind 125
Sex and Gender: Women Under the Influence 139
Nille A Niggardly Issue? Race Matters in Black and White 157
Tet! Deep Action: Crossing the Rubicon? 181

Notes 203
Index 217

vi[
 Preface

This book is the result of years of work that I have published in scien-
tific journals. The time has come, however, to make my findings avail-
able to a wider audience.
Certain books and people can be important ingredients in develop-
ing one's personal and professional interests. lowe a debt to an old
high school friend, Dave Dyer, who perhaps unknowingly started me
on my quest to understand the unconscious mind. Dave and I worked
after school on the local newspaper in Bath, Maine, the town where we
grew up. During our job of counting papers, cleaning up printers' ink,
and sweeping the floor, I would wax philosophical about "meaning"
and the mind. One day he gave me a book on hypnosis, which in those
days was quite esoteric. It was the first book that I read cover to cover.
More importantly, it started me on my more tutored investigation into
the meaning of "meaning."
In my quest I came across a book in the town library by an author I
had only vaguely heard of at that point: Sigmund Freud. The book was
his magnum opus, The Interpretation of Dreams, which, of course, is
about meaning. But contrary to popular belief, his book is not just
about the meaning of dreams; it's about how language "means" and
how the mind works. Disregarding his psychoanalytic orientation, the
book significantly influenced me.
Then, there's my closest friend of more than twenty years, Dr. Aaron
Gresson, who shared with me his writings, brilliant insights, and ever-
so-keen perceptions of what people in our common social interactions
and conversations "really" mean. His supportive but critical views on
my method presented in this book have also given me much to think

Lx
x PREFACE

about over the years, especially around my interpretation of uncon-

scious racial and ethnic references in conversations. Maybe this book
will do for someone what Dave Dyer, Sigmund Freud, and Aaron did
for me.
 Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the many people who have influenced this
book in some way. First, I must express my deepest appreciation to my
longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Aaron Gresson, with whom, at the
inception of the material in this book, I spent many hours in discus-
sion. Though he was a most valuable critic, he was always supportive.
I need also to thank the many people who contributed examples.
These include my former colleague John Heapes as well as Sarah Look,
Claudette Haskell, and my daughter, Melyssa. I would also like to thank
Diane Labbe for her help and Virginia Look for her invaluable "school-
marmish" eye in proofreading the draft of this book.
Finally, I want to thank my many former students and other people
who were not aware that they were providing me with examples of
deep talk.

xi
 Introduction

This book and my previous book, Between the Lines: Unconscious

Meaning in Everyday Life, l present a novel view of how, out of hidden
and unconscious feelings, our mind creates hidden meaning in every-
day conversations, what I call deep listening to deep talk. Deep listening
is also a practical and concrete method for recognizing unconscious
meaning that can initially be learned in less time than it takes to read
this book.
For example, what if after a party or a business meeting a friend or
boss starts telling a story about hyperactive children, a topic that just
seems to come out of nowhere, having no apparent connection to the
previous topics in the conversation? What might this story mean? I
mean unconsciously? And how would you recognize and know if it had
some deeper meaning? We would all like a way to figure out what peo-
ple may really be saying and thinking in times like these. This book can
help you do that. An added "plus" is that along the way its many exam-
ples are fascinating as well.
Now, what if we knew that the people at the party or meeting that I
just mentioned had been constantly flitting about or jumping from one
conversational topic to another, unable (or unwilling) to focus on any-
thing? Would knowing this help you to decode the meaning of a con-
versation or a story about hyperactive children? It should. The story
about hyperactive children is likely an unconscious comment on what
the person thought about the party or meeting: that it was like being
with a bunch of hyperactive children.
This book will take you on a fascinating and pioneering trip through
the mind and the ways we creatively use everyday language in conversa-
tion to express our hidden thoughts and feelings. It's a web of meaning

xiii
xiv INTRODUCTION

created by a myriad of pun-like sounds, double entendres, other every-

day metaphorical uses of language, and Freudian-like slips of the
tongue. The trip, however, will make Freudian slips of the tongue look
like child's play.
In a very real sense, science is about decoding nature. The example
par excellence is the decoding of DNA. Understanding everyday lan-
guage, too, is in fact about decoding. One magazine editor called my
previous book, Between the Lines, a "Chat Decoder:'2 So is this book. As
I describe in Chapter 5, my experience in decoding "enemy" messages
in U.S. Army intelligence also likely prepared me for "decoding" uncon-
scious meanings.
What makes deep listening possible, of course, is deep talk about un-
conscious meaning. Deep talk and deep listening are flip sides of the
same coin. This book will provide you with the language, concepts, and
other simple tools that will allow you to hear things you never heard
before. And what you hear will likely astonish you. Believe me. Since
my discovery of deep talk, over twenty years ago now, the results of
deep listening to deep talk still intrigue and fascinate me.
The implications of my findings for understanding how language
and the mind work are themselves mind-boggling-and I am not exag-
gerating. The story of the origins of these findings is one of the more
fascinating stories in the history of psychology (see Chapter 5). Al-
though some of the deep-talk conversations in this book are inherently
humorous, others I have purposely tried to style in a lighthearted man-
ner. But don't be fooled by these entertaining motifs, for you will be
witnessing some of the most profound operations of the human mind
yet recognized.
In addition, the trip will also be a vaguely familiar one, especially
since you already have experience with puns and slips of the tongue.
Deep listening is the recognizing of puns and slips of the tongue writ
large, so to speak. It's recognizing not just the double meaning of a sin-
gle word or phrase, it's recognizing whole sentences and stories that
have parallel meanings. The trip will also be somewhat familiar because
we all have engaged-albeit unconsciously-in deep listening to such
deep talk.
 INTRODUCTION xv

What you will be doing as you read this book is making what you al-
ready unconsciously know available to your conscious mind. In this re-
gard, the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, said that we don't learn
anything new; we simply remember or recognize what we already know
on some deep leve1. 3 Thus, because this book is about human feelings,
and about how we use the words and sounds of everyday language when
we talk, it will not be so much about learning something new and
strange (though it's that, too) as about coming to a startling recognition.
At this point, let me note what deep listening and deep talk are not.
There are circumstances where people are intentionally indirect and
consciously using metaphorical-like language or innuendo. Let me be
clear: this is not what I'm talking about here. Nor am I talking about
what has come to be called "coded speech"-as in the phrase "you
know how they are:' where everyone knows who "they" are and what's
"really" being said about "them:' No, I'm not just talking about people
being consciously indirect, or using euphemisms. I'm talking about
hidden meaning that speakers aren't even aware of. I'm talking deep
meaning here. I'm talking very deep encryption.
The study of everyday conversation is profoundly important. If
nothing else is certain about most of us, one fact seems very clear: we
talk a lot. But are we aware of the full meaning behind our talk? The re-
search from various fields suggests that we are not. We take so much for
granted in our daily lives, it's as if we are only half conscious of a great
deal of the hidden meaning in our conversations; it's as if we're talking
in our sleep. It's perhaps disheartening, but apparently true, that much
of the time we don't know what we or other people are really talking
about.
As we engage in our daily activities, most of us take part in social
conversations of one kind or another, with family, friends, and col-
leagues at work. We are unaware of much of the hidden meaning in
those conversations. At this point, let me say that everyday conversation
and other verbal narratives may seem like a rather banal basis on which
to make claims about the deep structure of our mind. They're not.
While talking is, of course, human's stock and trade, the significance of
spoken language isn't adequately understood.
xvi INTRODUCTION

It's during coffee breaks and after meetings are over, when "free-flow-
ing" conversation is the rule, that many topics are thrown out for possi-
ble discussion. Some of these topics catch our interest, and we may
stick with them for a time-while some don't. Why? Most researchers
attribute this sort of "random talk" to a milling-around process in-
tended to simply help members get acquainted. But is such topic-hop-
ping, in fact, random? The short answer is no, it isn't. The longer
answer is what this book is all about.
If we listen with a trained ear to the particular words, phrases, and
tone of voice people use, we can deeply listen to the hidden feelings and
thoughts that people are concealing-often even from themselves.
Deep listening applies not only to adult conversation but to children's
as well. This book, then, is about training the ear to hear hidden and
unconscious meanings in both individual and social conversations.
This is what I call deep listening.
On some level-every day, in some way-we all try to understand
how language means and how the mind works. We must, because social
living requires it; it's as basic as that. Survival and success in our life's
goals depend on it. In philosophy the long-standing study of trying to
assess the feelings and concerns of our fellow humans is called the
Problem of Other Minds.
I began recognizing unconscious meaning in conversation in my
small-group dynamics laboratory and have found some fascinating-
indeed, often bizarre-findings. Over the past twenty-five years, in my
research using T-groups (T stands for training), I have found that a
great deal of language and conversation thought to be only literal by
both a speaker and a listener is actually a kind of "metaphorical" un-
conscious communication that the speaker is not aware of. I found, for
example, that often the ostensible literal topic of identical twins was a
kind of metaphorical way of referring to two people in the conversa-
tion. But, admittedly, not always. As even Freud is reputed to have said,
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" (that is, not a phallic symbol).
Hidden meanings are not just found in laboratory research; they
are also found in everyday conversations. Generally speaking, it's dur-
ing times of informal chatter that unconscious meanings are most
 INTRODUCTION xvii

clearly visible. During highly structured conversations like business

meetings, unconscious material may be difficult to recognize, but just
prior to such meetings, during the first few minutes of ritual chitchat
and small talk, or after the meeting there is often a wealth of uncon-
scious meaning being communicated.
What I call deep listening and deep talk have not been systematically
observed or psychologically explained before. Certainly there are books
that purport to explain how to interpret unconscious meaning, but the
method typically advanced is so general as to be almost useless, or it's a
variant on a fuzzy Freudian kind of interpretation and we almost have
to be trained psychoanalysts to understand and to uncover the hidden
meaning. Even then, the interpretation is more fantasy than reality-
based. This isn't just another of those books. This book is based on a
very concrete and natural language method for recognizing and analyz-
ing unconscious meanings in everyday conversations. And no, Freud
didn't explain all this unconscious talk-but he almost did, and indeed
should have (see Chapter 5).
Somewhat more technically, I have come to call these examples of
unconscious language sub literal conversations. For short, I refer to
them as deep talk and the uncovering of these deep meanings as deep
listening. The term subliteral simply indicates word meanings that are
unconsciously attached to the conscious, accepted, or standard literal
meaning of words.
We overlook a great deal of what's happening in our everyday life.
When we look out at our lawn, for example, we see a relatively homo-
geneous patch of green. But a biologist with his or her specialized
knowledge looking at the same lawn will see a lot more than a patch of
green lawn. The same is true for the psychologist or linguist looking at
everyday conversations-and of course for ourselves as well.
Despite the fact that much of our life is spent talking to each other,
surprisingly little is known about the complexity of meaning in our
talk. Most people are usually just too busy talking to recognize what is
unconsciously being said, and scientists are too busy focusing on gram-
mar, semantics, rhetoric, and other more formal aspects of language.
The full meaning of our words goes unheard.
xviii INTRODUCTION

In the group therapy and the small-group research literature, how-

ever, occasional and brief instances of deep talk or what I have come to
call subliteral conversations have been sporadically noted and generally
referred to as symbolic or metaphorical communication. Indeed, there
is no shortage of books and articles on hidden meanings. But without a
systematic method, such symbolic analyses become simply intuitive in-
terpretation, and "metaphorical" utterances become mere coincidence,
or random puns. Indeed, when I first began publishing my findings in
peer-reviewed scientific journals, editors almost immediately dismissed
them as-at best-Freudian, as coincidence, and-at worse-as "schiz-
ophrenic:' as "wild puns:' as " sheer fantasy:' or as simply "ridiculous:'
You will understand why editors responded this way before you reach
the end of Chapter 1.
Since those early times, I have developed an extensive systemic
method divided into fifteen major categories with over sixty separate
cognitive and linguistic operations for analyzing and-more impor-
tantly-for validating unconscious or subliteral conversation in every-
day life. See the Appendix in my previous book Between the Lines:
Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Conversation. 4
This methodology provides the simple rules for parsing or breaking
down the components of the stories and the language used to tell them.
It also provides the rules for analyzing the parsed components and for
establishing the validity of the analysis. I can't present this detailed
methodology here. But in order to demonstrate that deep listening is
not what early journal editors thought it to be, and to help you to un-
derstand the illustrations, from time to time I will be describing parts
of my method.
There is always the danger of imputing unconscious meaning where
it doesn't exist. Although this is true of analyzing the meaning of all
communication, it's especially true for hidden meanings. Admittedly,
many of the illustrations presented in this book strain-almost to the
breaking point-the bounds of what we think is reasonable and what
we think is cognitively possible.
I developed my methodology to guard against reading too much into
the meaning of a piece of talk. Skeptics and critics of subliteral talk
 INTRODUCTION xix

have to earn their naysaying by countering this methodology. It's not

acceptable simply to say that it's all just a wild bunch of coincidences. I
might note in this regard that the methods and procedures I have de-
veloped provide many more rules for analyzing sub literal meaning
than we-linguists notwithstanding-consciously have for analyzing
the literal and conscious meaning of everyday language.

The Usefulness of This Book

And so, it's apt to ask, of what use is understanding unconscious mean-
ings in talk, and who is it useful for? First, let me say that it's useful for
just about anyone, as there are many situations in everyday social life
and at work where information about what people may be "really"
thinking or feeling is difficult or impossible, but yet important to
know. Deep listening can yield valuable and interesting information.
The many illustrations throughout this book reveal the multifaceted
nature of human relationships-indeed, of human nature itself.
The examples and illustrations I have gathered through the years not
only provide confirmation of what we often suspect is going on be-
neath the polite surface of social conversations, but also frequently re-
veal new and poignant insights into age-old and near-eternal human
concerns. These concerns include issues revolving around gender, sexu-
ality, sexual preference, race and ethnicity, age, authority, leadership, re-
ligion, communication, and the individual versus the group or society.
The examples thus reveal a lot to us about human relationships in all
their complexity, stereotypes, and prejudices (see especially Chapter 9).
At work, fear of the boss or certain coworkers or the reward system
may lead to people's withholding their true feelings about one another.
Deep listening can be useful for those who manage, lead, or take part in
the increasing number of small groups or teams used in the business
world.
Second, my subliteral method can be used to train mental health
therapists and counselors engaged in individual cognitive-behavioral,
psychodynamic, or group therapy. The importance of the metaphors
that clients use in psychotherapy has been recognized for some time. S
xx INTRODUCTION

Deep listening can provide therapists with additional valuable

metaphor-like information about patients' unconscious attitudes, the
feelings and thoughts that patients may not want to reveal or of which
they are not even aware.
Third, a great number of social and psychological support groups
have sprung up, ranging from Alcoholics Anonymous to single-parent
groups to simply people who want to talk about life and hear others do
the same. Most of these groups have conversations about problems and
issues that their members have. These groups are made to order for ap-
plying deep listening. Whether as a counselor or as a member, deep lis-
tening to these groups can reveal a wealth of useful information not
revealed consciously. In short, this book can be useful for anyone who
is interested in how the mind works.
Fourth, recognizing hidden meaning in everyday language can be
fun, like recognizing slips of the tongue; indeed, it can be made into a
most intriguing daily pastime for yourself and friends. The everyday
social world can become your private laboratory. This can be very use-
ful. While everyday examples are fine for learning to recognize possible
deep-talk meaning, they don't provide all that's necessary for establish-
ing its validity. Fair warning: Some of what you will hear may be things
that "even your best friends won't tell you:' Indeed, some may be things
you don't want to hear.
I would like to make it clear that I don't use the terms valid or true to
describe many of the strange mental operations that I've found and
present in this book. Nor do I make such absolute-truth claims regard-
ing the conceptual underpinnings that theoretically explain my find-
ings. Even though I've developed an extensive method to validate
subliteral conversations, scientifically speaking it's too early to make
any absolute claims. But this is not to say that the analysis of subliteral
conversation is just a hypothesis. Given my methodology, the history of
similar findings, and the fact that many of the findings are compatible
with other cognitive research and theory, the methodology constitutes
something more than an hypothesis, but something less than accepted
fact. And there is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, this puts my deep
listening in fairly good company both in psychology and in other scien-
 INTRODUCTION xxi

tific areas of knowledge. Accordingly, research will undoubtedly con-

tinue to modify my findings.

The Format of the 'Book

Throughout this book, I'll be showing by examples from everyday life
and from my small-group laboratory how to engage in deep listening.
Many of these examples of unconscious meanings have been verified
with my methodology. Others are from everyday situations where it
was not possible to completely verify them, but sufficient contextual in-
formation was available to establish at least a high probability of their
being valid. In addition, their analyses were in keeping with the ones
that I have verified with my methodology. Still others with less exact
verification can at least serve as instructive hypothetical but probable
examples of what they are illustrating.
I have packed this book with examples because the best way to learn
to recognize and analyze deep talk is to immerse yourself in concrete
examples and let your mind absorb the patterns underlying them. Pro-
viding the complete word-for-word original data from which each il-
lustration is derived would be ideal. Unfortunately, it would be much
too cumbersome and tedious to have done so.
As you read the many examples, you may find meanings that I have
overlooked. I know that as I was rewriting some of these illustrations
for this book I discovered meanings that I had missed when I first ana-
lyzed them. Indeed, you will begin to anticipate some of the meanings
before I present my analysis of them.
The questions this book will answer include: How is deep talk possi-
ble? What are its mental mechanisms? How do feelings and emotions
influence meaning? Why haven't the mechanisms of subliteral conver-
sations been discovered before? Are there current data and theories that
relate to subliteral meaning? What can the subliteral mind tell us that's
new about the mind? What can slips tell us that's new about language?
How is the subliteral unconscious mind different from that of Freud's
and from the views of modern cognitive science? What does an uncon-
scious mind that creates deep talk meanings look like, and what can it
xxii INTROVU.CTION

tell us about the nature of consciousness? Finally, what are the implica-
tions and practical applications of deep talk and deep listening?
The myriad illustrations in this book can be read according to one's
interest. First, they can simply and generally be read as interesting
demonstrations of subliteral meaning. Second, they can be read as re-
vealing, in important new ways, how we creatively use language. Third,
they can be read as revealing group dynamics that might otherwise go
unnoticed. Fourth, the subliteral meanings can be read as revealing a
great deal about the underlying dynamics of social life. Fifth-and this
is their seminal importance-they can be read as revealing how the
subliteral unconscious mind works.
Chapter I, "Listening to the Grateful Dead, Live in Concert: Intro-
duction to Deep Listening;' and Chapter 2, "Slips of the Tongue or
'Slips' of the Mind: Come Now, Mr. President;' use many everyday ex-
amples. These two chapters provide an introduction to deep listening,
including references to the rock group the Grateful Dead and three il-
lustrations from a CNN news program involving Wolf Blitzer and the
Burden of Proof program with Roger Cossack that perhaps reveal their
hidden personal views about President Clinton's affair with Monica
Lewinski and the congressional impeachment process.
Chapter 3, "God Talk: Learning the Deep-Listening Template;' notes
that throughout the course of human history one universal and endur-
ing concern is that of a God, an all-knowing authority figure. This
deep-rooted God archetype is shown to be a kind of eternal or master
template in conversations for expressing deep-talk concerns about au-
thority figures.
Chapter 4, "Deep Listening About Relationships: What Friends,
Coworkers, and Employers Won't Tell You:' extending the idea of a God
Template, illustrates people's unconscious and hidden concerns about
their peers and authorities, in conversations. For example, feelings
about leadership incompetence, being manipulated by leaders, fairness
and equality, and being favored. Interpersonal deep-talk examples in-
clude competition, rivalry, jealously, double standards, separation and
loss, being bored, and bragging. The chapter also shows how proper
names are used in deep talk to reveal hidden concerns.
 I NTROD UCTI ON xxiii

Chapter 5, "Discovering Deep Listening: What Freud Didn't Know,

but Almost Did;' will briefly recount the author's personal journey in
discovering deep listening. It also counters the initial reaction of
many who think "Didn't Freud say all of this?" with the answer "No,
he didn't" and briefly examines what Freud really said about uncon-
scious communication. The chapter ends by looking at the future of
deep listening.
Chapter 6, "In Defense of Whores and o. J. Simpson: Precautions,
Ethical and Legal," sounds an ethical note of caution in applying and
revealing deep listening and examines unconscious meanings used in
two court cases, one the o. J. Simpson murder trial. Two different as-
pects of deep listening are discussed, the first involving ethical issues of
revealing hidden meanings, the second involving the validity of uncon-
. .
SClOUS meamngs.
Chapter 7, "Figures of Speech in Conversation: Numbers in the
Mind;' shows that just as words are often unconsciously selected into
conversations because they express people's concerns, numbers con-
tained in conversations similarly carry unconscious meaning, corre-
sponding exactly to different factions or subgroups in a conversation.
The chapter provides an extended methodical illustration of a set of
numbers presented in a conversation, demonstrating how the uncon-
scious mind works using numbers.
Chapter 8, "Sex and Gender: Women Under the Influence," shows
that because whenever men and woman gather together sexual ten-
sions are present, these tensions are often revealed unconsciously in the
conversation. The chapter also shows how deep-talk stereotypes are
also about sexual orientation.
Chapter 9, "A Niggardly Issue? Race Matters in Black and White;' is
concerned with deep listening about deep roots of unconscious racial
prejudice. Many illustrations are used, including examples by the novel-
ist Norman Mailer; commentator George Plimpton on the 1974
Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight in Zaire, Africa; the use of the
word "niggardly" by a white aide in the office of Mayor Anthony
Williams of Washington, D.C., an African-American; and a magazine
caption of two well-known black basketball players, Kareem Abdul-
xxiv INTRODUCTION

Jabbar and Julius "Dr. J" Erving. The chapter concludes with an exami-
nation of when such racial "slips" constitute racism and when they do
not.
Chapter 10, "Deep Action: Crossing the Rubicon?" shows that just as
our unconscious mind reveals itself through our deep listening to deep
talk, so too it reveals itself through our behaviors or deep actions.
Freud and others have written about what are called "action slips." This
chapter examines a number of examples of deep actions, including an
analysis of the ransom note left at the JonBenet Ramsey murder crime
scene.

Robert E. Haskell
Old Orchard Beach, Maine, January 1, 2000
[email protected]
 Listening to the G-ratefut
Dead, Live in Concert:
Introduction to
Deep Listening

Implicit learning is the default mode for the acquisition of

complex information about the environment . .. [andl
there are good reasons for endowing the unconscious and
implicit systems with cognitive priority.
ARTHUR REBER
Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge'

During a coffee break from a meeting, people are standing around talk-
ing, and without any apparent connection to anything that's been pre-
viously said, one person just happens to mention that he had an album
of the rock group the Grateful Dead, Live in Concert. What does this
mean? Is it simply a trivial comment, the kind often made during infor-
mal moments just to be social? The short answer is no, and that's what
this chapter is about. The longer answer is what this book is about.
If the topic of the Grateful Dead means something other than what it
seems to mean, how are we to know what it really means? And if, in-
deed, it means something more than what it appears to mean, can un-
derstanding such a piece of apparently random conversation be useful
2 VEEP L/STENINCr

to you, as a friend, an employee, or a member or leader of a meeting? I

will explain the real or hidden meaning of the comment about the
Grateful Dead in a moment, but first, let me describe the conditions
under which such hidden meanings are attached to what appears to be
a simple literal piece of chitchat.
Generally speaking, it's during times of informal chatter that uncon-
scious meanings are most clearly visible; for example, when people are
standing around waiting for a meeting to start, or during coffee breaks,
or in the first few minutes of "warming-up time" when ritual greetings
and small talk are socially required. It's under these conditions that
many topics are thrown out for possible discussion with little or no ap-
parent logical connection between them. This social process has been
called phatic communion, where conversation is used to create a mood
of sociability rather than to communicate anything in particular. Most
social psychologists and other researchers say the purpose of this sort
of random chitchat is simply to help us test the interpersonal waters
with each other, get acquainted, and find our way around the social and
conversational terrain. It's our verbal sonar, as it were.
Once the context of the conversation is known, we then "map" the
topic or story onto the actual conversation. In graphic form, for exam-
ple, suppose there is a literal story in a conversation that's about the
following:

A. 4 people in a bar,
B. 2 of whom are young men and two young women, who
C. are being boisterous, and who
D. are dominating the social interaction and conversation.

The story can be hypothesized as deep talk when the elements in the
story correspond to and can be mapped onto the here-and-now con-
versation where there are the same four elements as the literal story:

A. 4 group members,
B. 2 of whom are young men and two are young women, who
 Listening to the (j-ratefuL Dead, Llve in Concert 3

C. are being boisterous, and who

D. are verbally dominating the group interaction and conversation

Some of these dangling conversations catch our interest, and we may

stick with them for a while-some don't. Why? If we know how to lis-
ten, we can clearly see that such phatic topic-hopping is not random
and is more than simple getting-to-know-you talk. In my research over
the past twenty-five years using T-groups (T stands for training) in
controlled laboratory conditions as well as from everyday social set-
tings, I have found that some of our everyday language and conversa-
tion thought to be only literal by both the speaker and the listener is
actually a kind of "metaphorical" unconscious communication that
neither the speaker nor the listener is aware of.

listening to the (frateful Dead, live in Concert

In order to discover the hidden meaning of the opening story about

the Grateful Dead, Live in Concert, it's necessary to understand some
simple principles of the natural method I have developed to deeply lis-
ten to such language. First, we need to look at the story in relation to
other comments, and second, we need to understand the context of
the meeting that took place prior to the talk about the Grateful Dead.
After his initial comment about the Grateful Dead, the speaker then
added, "I never go to concerts anymore because there are too many
young kids there." As a part of the same topic-hopping series of com-
ments, the chitchat drifted into talk about what people do in their spare
time and about whether they just do nothing or have to be always do-
ing something. A member said, "I feel like I am dead when I am not do-
ing anything." Here we have two references by two different members
to the word dead. Now it's important to know that the meeting the
members had just left didn't reflect much planning and leadership and
was perceived as not accomplishing anything; it seemed to drag on and
on. Sound familiar? Essentially, then, this is what the comment about
the Grateful Dead unconsciously meant:
4 DEEP LlSTENINCr

It reveals the hidden feelings that at least two members had about the
meeting. They felt the meeting was very long and boring. Thus they felt
that they were not only feeling emotionally dead but that they were
grateful for the coffee break. Further, the "Grateful Dead, Live in Con-
cert" comment is likely a statement that they were not only grateful for
the coffee break but that they now felt more alive. They were indeed,
the grateful dead, who now felt alive. The initial means of deeply listen-
ing to such conversations is quite simple: Map the topic of conversation
onto the here-and-now conversation and situation to see if there is a
match.
But there's still more meaning to be teased out of these short com-
ments. The member's statement that "I never go to concerts anymore
because there are too many young kids there" equates to his feelings
that the problem in the meeting was that some members were not act-
ing responsibly but, rather, like kids and that during the meeting some
of them either weren't listening or weren't helping the meeting to be
productive. The reference to in concert likely refers to the fact that dur-
ing the break all members of the meeting were talking at once, or acting
together in concert.
In short, the topic of the Grateful Dead, Live in Concert, was a kind
of poetic or metaphorical expression of some members' feelings about
the meeting and the way the leader let it be conducted. It seems our
mind engages in a kind of double-entry bookkeeping when it comes to
creating meaning. Much of our everyday conversation, then, expresses
more than the standard or literal meaning attached to it. The Grateful
Dead example is a rather abbreviated one, though clearly giving an ini-
tial view of how to recognize and analyze and deeply listen to deep talk.
Other examples get much more complex.
At this point I should note for readers who may be Grateful Dead afi-
cionados, or "Dead Heads:' that I'm told there is no such album enti-
tled The Grateful Dead, Live in Concert (at least no nonpirated album).
That the speaker used this expression, however, is not just a mistake: It's
a mistake with deep meaning. As I point out in Chapter 5, "mistakes"
are often used so that the literal story will fit the deep meaning that the
speaker wants to express. To have merely said that he listened to the
 Listening to the (j-rateful Dead, Live in Concert 5

Grateful Dead would not have been sufficient to express his feeling of
being "alive" and the fact that all members of the meeting were feeling
this way.
Think about this Grateful Dead example for a moment more. With
this example, as well as all future examples, we must ask one simple but
crucial question, a question that we seldom ask about conversations.
That crucial question is this: Out of all possible words and phrasings and
out of all possible topics that could be selected into a conversation, why are
the particular ones selected, and why are they selected into the conversa-
tion at that particular time? Again, cognitively and linguistically this a
critical question that's virtually never asked and consequently never an-
swered. But it must be addressed if we are to understand the psycholin-
guistics of deep meaning in everyday conversations.
I have found that topics, phrases, and words aren't just selected into
conversations by happenstance. Our mind is more highly ordered than
that. Linguists know that word choice during a conversation occurs in a
two-stage process. First, because words have multiple meanings, our
brain reviews (called lexical accessing) all possible meanings of a word
that are in our mental dictionary (called a lexicon). Then, from the con-
text, our brain chooses (called lexical selection) the assumed appropri-
ate meaning in the context in which it is to be used.
Finally, with respect to the Grateful Dead story, you will note that the
speaker didn't just select any topic. First, the story was about a group as
opposed to a single artist. This was because the deep talk was about a
group of people in a meeting. Second, we must ask why the speaker
didn't select a different musical group. Why specifically the Grateful
Dead? Why not Metallica or the Beatles? Or the female artists known as
the Dixie Chicks? Neither of these groups would have allowed him to
express what he wanted to express. You will note that the Grateful Dead
is an all-male group, like Metallica and the Beatles. And the meeting
was dominated by the male members. None of these alternative musi-
cal groups, then, would have served to express the deep-talk meaning
that the speaker was feeling-that is, "dead:' Clearly, beneath the flow
of our literal chitchat there is an immense cognitive and linguistic ma-
chinery operating (see Figure 1.1).
6 VEEP LISTENING-

The Gratelul Dead, Live Matrix Map

FIGURE 1.1 The Grateful Dead, Live in Concert Matrix Map

Understanding how to deeply listen to deep talk is not only simple,

but more importantly, it's quite useful both in social conversations and
at work. Since most people spend a great deal of time at work and
therefore in group situations, let me continue using the workplace as
an example. Recognizing the hidden meaning beneath office chitchat
can be useful for you whether you are an employer or employee. For
both those in a position of leadership or subordinates, information
about what the other really thinks or is feeling about you is not ordi-
narily available. Survival requires that we lie a great deal.
For a boss or supervisor, knowing what subordinates think of you or
how good a job you're doing is often not possible because you have
evaluation power over them. You know what I am talking about here
(see Chapter 4). Let's say the boss asks how you thought the meeting
went. The social answer is: "You did great, boss! Good job. " The real
answer may be quite the opposite. Armed with people's hidden and real
feelings, a person in a position of authority can begin to look more
closely at his or her leadership style and subordinates' reactions. Like-
wise for a subordinate, deeply listening to the deep talk of the boss can
be very useful.
 Listening to the ~rateful Dead., Live in Concert 7

Hypothetically speaking, what if the boss happens to begin talking

about a "Little League team that, no matter how hard the members try,
they just don't have what it takes to be a winning team"? Or worse yet,
what if the boss goes on to mention "one particular red-haired member
of the team is a particular liability who is keeping the team from even
winning one game"? Hmmm. If you have red hair, perhaps you should
start looking for another job.
Deep talk, then, can be seen as a kind of coded message, and learning
to deeply listen and decode it can serve as a personal surveillance sys-
tem that gathers intelligence data for you. Our brain/mind seems to
have evolved as a bioelectronic detection device for picking up and
monitoring people's concealed feelings and concerns. Thus, it detects
what's going on, in finding out what your spouse, your boss, or your
friends may be really saying and feeling. Learning to decode chitchat,
then, can be a valuable skilL
Another quick example from my place of work: When a person is be-
ing evaluated for work performance, it's to be expected that this person
will have strong feelings and concerns. As a member of a Reappoint-
ment, Promotion, and Tenure committee, I was observing and evaluat-
ing a colleague's classroom teaching performance. I will call her Joan.
Part of the topic for the day was establishing scientific validity and
finding corroborating evidence. In the process, Joan stumbled a couple
of times over the word corroborating, ending up with a pronunciation
with the cor and the third 0 almost inaudible. It sounded like rob-rat-
ing-which, in fact, I was doing. So Joan, revealed that she was indeed
concerned with me, Rob, rating her.
Now, the importance of this particular illustration lies not in its hav-
ing revealed a deep feeling or concern that wasn't already fairly obvious
but, rather, in its having shown yet another mechanism of how deep
talk occurs and thus how to deeply listen-or, more specifically, how to
deeply listen for how proper names can be used in deep talk.
The question now is: How do you know whether what you think you
heard is correct or not? This is a different and more complex problem
than recognizing what seems to be deep talk. For now, suffice it to say
that understanding the context surrounding the talk is very important
8 DEEP LISTEN/NeT

for judging whether a piece of deep talk really means what you think it
means. I will speak to this important issue of validating deep listening
in more depth in the following chapters.
Even at this early point, I am sure that you now have a fairly good
idea of what deep listening is all about and how useful it can be. It gets
better as we go along. Deep talk can speak volumes to those ready to
deeply listen.

On Speaking Volumes
While writing this book, I was talking for the first time to a book agent
on the phone. I was explaining my theory of deep listening to her. After
I gave her a few examples, she began commenting on the idea. Some-
what peripherally-apparently simply associating to the word conver-
sation-she said, "You know what I don't like about conversations in
social situations? I hate it when you go to restaurants and everybody's
talking so loud." Her comment made my deep listening antennae
nudge at my conscious mind. At that point, I asked myself: Was her ap-
parent tangential comment a piece of deep talk for telling me that I was
talking too loudly over the phone? I immediately answered myself:
"Yes." I had been talking quite loudly. After becoming aware of this, I
quickly lowered my speaking volume. Now the question is: On what
basis do I think that her comment was deep talk? First, I have noticed
for some time that when I am focused on explaining my deep-talk ma-
terial on the phone to editors (which I had to do many times), my ner-
vous system often shifts into high gear, with the pitch of my voice rising
by an octave and my volume by a number of decibels. Second-and
this is always a crucial question-why did she "just happen" to select
the example of people talking too loudly? It was, after all, hardly related
to my examples of hidden meaning.
Going against my experience, I decided to e-mail her, describing this
episode to see if she (a) had purposefully used her example of loud
talking as a kind of consciously coded speech to let me know I was talk-
ing too loudly, or (b) had at least been aware that I was talking loudly.
Not surprisingly (in my experience), she denied both. She then
 Listening to the <=rrateful Dead, Live in Concert 9

added-with a written tone of vindication-that this was probably not

a good example of deep listening because she had a slight hearing prob-
lem and always had the maximum volume of her phone turned on
high, implying that she wouldn't have noticed if I had been talking
loudly. While quite possible, this doesn't preclude her having failed to
notice my loud volume-at least unconsciously. This is why. If she al-
ways had her phone volume on high to adequately hear normal conver-
sation, then by definition, my voice would have been perceived as being
louder than her "normal" hearing. The fact that she didn't consciously
experience it has no bearing on her physical nervous system's register-
ing the actuallouder-than-normal volume.
In deciding to ask her for feedback, I said that I was going against my
experience, because I have found that almost invariably people not
only deny any awareness of their deep-talk meaning but often respond
to my inquiry in an amused way and laugh it off as incredulous. Or
they respond in a somewhat aggravated or defensive tone. People don't
take kindly to being told that they said something that they had no
awareness of saying. We know, however, that it's not only conscious im-
pressions that can influence how someone reacts, but unconscious im-
pressions as well. Who knows what negative impression I was creating
by talking so loudly? Fortunately, I noticed it by her deep-talk response
and lowered my voice. I have found that carefully listening for hidden
meaning with a deep-talk ear can be very useful. This simple example
speaks volumes about hidden meaning.
We can often hear deep talk in children's conversations. The uncon-
scious mind of the child is much closer to consciousness than is the un-
conscious mind of an adule Thus one might expect children's
unconscious meanings to be closer to conscious meanings than are
adults. lowe this next example to my colleague, David Livingstone
Smith.
In a classroom in a rough inner-city primary school in the East End
of London, nine-year-old Todd was being picked up by his therapist.
Even though the teacher in the class knew the therapist was coming to
pick Todd up, the teacher hesitated and was passively resisting and exert-
ing her authority over the therapist before allowing the child to leave
10 DEEP LlSTENINcr

the class. During this time, the other children were watching and Todd
seemed uncomfortable with his two authority figures vying.
Upon arriving at the therapy room, the therapist found that it abutted
a noisy hallway-and during Todd's session children in the hall rattled the
doorknob and banged on the door. Not a particularly good environment
for therapy. There was certainly a sense of intrusion and a lack of privacy.
In addition, the therapy room itself was a mess. Other children had bro-
ken or stolen many of the toys, indicating destructive intrusion of third
parties into a space that's supposed to feel safe and private.
Todd began to play with a toy castle in the therapy room, saying that
he liked Robin Hood and that he never missed a film about him. He
then recalled a scene from a film in which Robin Hood and his merry
men were being pursued by bad guys trying to kill them. Robin Hood was
on a horse and his merry men were on a carriage. The bad guys made a
sudden turn in the road and fell off a cliff. Todd then started placing bad
soldiers inside the castle and good soldiers outside. The bad soldiers
spoke Spanish and the good ones spoke English. Then he made the
tower in the castle a Star Trek spaceship. He put many soldiers inside and
said that it was a safe place. He added that bad soldiers got inside, pre-
tending to be good, and that it was very easy to get in. Soldiers inside the
spaceship now began to fight. In Todd's stories, he is revealing his feel-
ings about what transpired on his way to therapy.
First, there is an image of a gang of bad guys pursuing some good guys,
with the good guys trying to escape. The reference to Robin Hood and
his gang (= good guys) escaping the bad guys is likely deep talk about
the interfering teacher (= bad guy), and about Todd and his therapist
(= good guys) trying to "escape" the classroom. The stage is set here for
a conflict over territory, freedom, and privacy. On a metaphoric level,
the relationship between Robin Hood and his merry men and the sher-
iff of Nottingham is an appropriate image for the relationship between
a disruptive child and the school authorities.
Robin Hood's tactic of making the bad guys fall off a cliff is likely
about eliminating interfering third parties. (According to Smith, in chil-
dren's play this elimination of third parties is typically accomplished by
killing them.) That the bad soldiers took over the good soldiers' territory
 Listening to the G-rateful Vead, Live in Concert 11

likely represents Todd's sense of impingement on his private therapeutic

space, with the bad guys being the kids in the hallway banging on the
door and rattling the door knob-and also being his interfering teacher.
The castle tower that became a Star Trek spaceship, the safe place
where Todd put many of his toy soldiers, was then invaded by the bad
soldiers, who were being dishonest and pretending to be allies. Here
Todd was likely expressing his fears about dangerous intrusions from
multiple third parties into his private therapeutic space (the teacher, the
children in the hallway, and his therapist). He was feeling alone. In this
scenario there is also some representation of Todd's conflicted feelings
about the inappropriate therapist.
The image of dishonesty, whereby the bad soldiers con the good sol-
diers by pretending to be good, is likely a reference to the inadequate
therapist. After all, the therapist didn't provide much of a feeling of
strength, safety, and protection; recall that the teacher initially exerted her
authority over the therapist and that the therapist, in turn, was unable to
procure an appropriate therapy room.
In addition to this context, there is evidence that Todd was in fact en-
gaging in deep talk and that Todd's therapist was referenced as a "bad
guy" of sorts. First, it's linguistically interesting that the bad soldiers
were Spanish, given that Todd's therapist was Italian and had a last
name beginning with S. Second, during the same session, Todd told
other stories that were thematically parallel to this story.

The Need to Know

As you can already see, there is nothing esoteric about recognizing un-
conscious meaning. It doesn't take a psychoanalyst to figure it out. A
quick way of understanding and recognizing unconscious meanings is
to think of what we commonly call slips of the tongue and double en-
tendres where more than one level of meaning is revealed (see Chapter
2). Deep talk, like slips of the tongue and double entendres, provides a
window into the deeper reaches of our mind. This kind of unconscious
or encoded conversation has not been systematically observed or ex-
plained psychologically.
12 VEEP LlSTENINCr

Most of us-indeed, all normal human beings-wonder what our

friends or coworkers are thinking and feeling. By this, I mean what they
are "really" thinking and feeling, not the public facade that's mostly
presented in social situations.
We all have what the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow
called a very primitive need to know. 3 This need to know has evolved
over millions of years. There are only a few big questions that we hu-
mans would like to know the answer to, and one of these is, how does
the human mind work? This book is an attempt to formulate an answer
to at least a part of the big question of how our mind works.
We have this need to know because our social living, as well as our
physical survival, requires it; it's as basic as that. Listening carefully be-
neath the words and stories of friends, family, and coworkers can reveal
eternal human feelings and concerns of favoritism, rivalry, jealousy,
competition, sexual feelings, gender issues, and leadership and author-
ity concerns, as well as attitudes about racial and ethnic relationships
(see Chapter 4).
Let me offer another workplace example. During a recent all-day de-
partmental retreat that I attended, the chair (whom I will call Sam) was
talking about the e-mails he had been sending to the administration
about various issues. When Sam was finished, a faculty member inter-
jected, saying that Sam's e-mails really had quite a few typos and other
spelling errors in them, and that he should be more careful because this re-
flected against the department. Without so much as a flinch, Sam ac-
knowledged this point and went on with the meeting. Since the faculty
member had said this to Sam in a very nice manner, it appeared that
Sam didn't mind. About five minutes later, another faculty member
asked Sam if he would give a talk at a meeting off campus. Having in-
quired as to what kind of meeting it was, Sam added, "Sure, as long as it
is not like academic meetings where colleagues stand around and kick
your ass for any mistakes you make." Coming right on the heels of criti-
cism about his own mistakes, Sam's language revealed, on some emo-
tionallevel, that he did indeed care about being publicly criticized for
the errors in his e-mails.
 Listening to the ~rateful Dead, Live in Concert 13

Once again, as in many such instances of deep talk, it may seem that
the person-in this case, Sam-knew exactly what he was saying. In
other words, it may appear that he was expressing himself in a kind of
"coded speech;' letting the faculty member know indirectly how he felt
about being criticized. But it wasn't coded speech. It was deep talk.
How do I know this? I know because a few days later Sam was visiting
me at my home. When he brought up the incident of being criticized, I
began to quiz him, taking care not to lead him on or give away what I
was up to. (At this point he was only vaguely aware of my work on deep
listening.) When I had finished, I specifically explained why I was so in-
terested in what he was aware of during his remark. When I related to
him my subliteral analysis of his delayed deep-talk response, he was
quite surprised and swore that his remark was not intended as a "coded
speech" or innuendo against the faculty member. In short, Sam wasn't
aware of the unconscious meaning of what he had said.
Sam is generally pretty up-front about such matters; he wouldn't lie
about his intended meaning. That he did actually care about being crit-
icized was reflected in the very fact that he brought the topic up, saying
that he thought the faculty member's remarks were inappropriate in
the context of a meeting and that he should have expressed his con-
cerns privately. Such department meetings take place thousands of
times a week in the workaday world-and deep talk occurs during
most of them.

(frou.ps: Teaming with Veep Talk

As individualistic as we are, the fact is we increasingly live in a world of
groups. Whenever people get together regularly for any purpose, they
are forming a group; this is true whether the group is for playing cards,
a support group, a committee, or for an extended business or team
meeting. Indeed, working in groups or teams is becoming an increasing
fact of life in business. 4 Just as deep listening is about individuals, there
is also deep listening about the group or team. Just as there are lessons
to be learned from listening to deep talk about individuals, so too are
14 DEEP LlSTENINCr

there lessons to be learned by deep listening to the state of the group or

social situation.
You will note that I am referring to the group as if it were a separate
entity. That's because it is. Similar to individuals, groups exhibit stages
of development. Groups and teams have a life course. Along this life
course are inevitable problems and issues, problems and issues that the
group may either not be aware of or doesn't want to openly acknowl-
edge. Deep listening to group or social conversations can reveal these
problems and issues. This is important because the extent to which
these issues and problems remain unacknowledged or unresolved is the
extent to which they will limit a group's performance.
The lesson to be learned from deep listening to the deep talk about a
group is that leaders and members can begin to work with these prob-
lems and issues revealed by deep talk (either directly or indirectly) to
help the group and the individuals in it to function more effectively.
Let's see how this works and what the implications of deep listening to
groups and teams may reveal.
In the initial stages of a group, it's no mere accident that the conver-
sation often revolves around problems of functioning in a new job,
about being newlyweds, or about periods of adjustment or other topics
having to do with beginnings and adjusting. These topics in the initial
stages of a group are deep talk for expressing the here-and-now con-
cerns of group members getting to know each other, including social
intimacy, communications, and problems of maintaining a separate
identity while merging into the group culture and norms. These simple
conversations can tell you a great deal about the state of the group and
its stage of development.
Suppose, for example, the talk is about doing well in a new job or
marriage. This would tell you something quite different about the
group than talk about problems in a new job or marriage, especially if
the group's conscious and literal conversation seems to imply that
members think the group is doing fine. The same talk confined to an
individual member or two of the group would tell you yet something
different. This deep talk would tell you something still different de-
pending on what the surface meaning of the talk seems to say.
 Listening to the CTratefuL Dead, Live in Concert 15

Just as with many marriages once the honeymoon is over, groups typ-
ically move into a period of conflict revolving around what the rules are
going to be and around the emerging leadership structure. In most
groups, these concerns are seldom discussed openly. Even when they are
discussed, the deeper feelings underlying them may not be openly ex-
pressed. During this stage, deep-talk topics are frequently about compe-
tition and conflict. Movies may be selected as topics. Out of all the
possible movie themes, the classic movie selected may be Star Wars. The
word Star in the title may be deep talk about a member who is emerging
as a the leader or dominant member of a faction in the group. Similarly,
the word Wars clearly indicates hidden conflict and competition in the
group. At other times the topics used to unconsciously express feelings
may be about disaster movies in which groups of people are dependent
on each other or about well-known groups that are breaking up. Obvi-
ously, deep listening can tell you a great deal about what may be emo-
tionally going on in the group beneath its surface.
Assuming the group doesn't end or continue in the war or disaster
mode, it moves into a stage in which members are ready to establish
rules and group norms so that they can perform their job. Again, the
surface talk about this process may be quite different from what is re-
ally happening. This process may begin with a discussion about traffic
problems and the need for rules to regulate the traffic flow. This may be
deep talk about the recognition of a need for rules to guide group inter-
action. If the group gets stuck on discussions about traffic jams, watch
out. On the other hand, talk about how Congress works out a compro-
mise on a bill may herald good news about where the group is heading.
When the group finally works through these unconscious or hidden
feelings and issues, the members can begin performing their real work.
This stage may be heralded by deep talk about how to successfully grow
plants, about building houses, or remodeling, or perhaps stories about
family problems being resolved. Listening deeply to a group, team, or so-
cial situation can be a powerful assessment tool.
I should point out that these stages are not as sequential or as mutu-
ally exclusive as they appear. It's possible for more than one stage to be
operating at once, but to varying degrees and on different levels. In a
16 DEEP LJ5TENIN~

group where the task is clear and the group is structured by a leader
from its inception (as in business meetings), members may appear to
begin performing immediately, but the hidden issues that I have de-
scribed will often reduce performance. Moreover, different individual
members may be experiencing the feelings and concerns of different
stages. In other words, all the issues may be operating in any given
stage.
Finally, it's inevitable that most groups will reach a termination
point, either for a given session or because the group's function is over.
Prior to the end of a group, or of a single social conversation, the end-
ings may be heralded by deep talk discussions about death, funerals, di-
vorce, or other topics that relate to either an ending or termination. I
began to increasingly recognize that in committee meetings I could
predict a motion to adjourn, even though there had been no time limit
set and despite the fact that the climate of the meeting would not sug-
gest that it would come to an end shortly. For example, in a committee
meeting discussing curriculum innovation, the topic shifted slightly to
private schools that were closing down because of a lack of interest by
students in their curriculum.
My prediction of adjournment was in part based on the following:
First, there's the fact that the literal topic was about closing down. Sec-
ond, the topic was about private schools and the committee was at a pri-
vate school. Third, a few minutes before this conversation a member
had excused himself from the meeting. Someone's leaving a group is
sometimes perceived (either consciously or unconsciously) as a cue to
adjourn. I then began to notice in other everyday situations that topics
having to do with termination, such as death or leaving on vacation,
were brought up during group conversations just before the conversa-
tion came to an end.
Not all discussions about such topics as death or divorce or being
abandoned herald the ending or termination of the group. They may
mean something different. This is where careful deep listening to the
context of conversations is important for understanding the meaning
of deep talk. Instead, these topics may be deep talk about losing a group
member (as we saw above) or about an absent member. The multiple
 Listening to the (frateful Dead, Live in Concert 17

ways that any given literal topic can mean different things in different
contexts point out the importance of understanding the context of the
situation and of having a controlling method for validating meanings
heard by deep listening.

80rn Free
At this point I feel the need to say a few words about some people's.
skeptical reactions to deep listening. Having introduced you to the ba-
sic idea of deep listening by presenting multiple examples, you may be
somewhat skeptical-if I dare put it so mildly. At the risk of appearing
to be totally lacking in humility, let me say that you haven't begun to
see the good stuff yet.
A major reason that belief in the reality of deep talk often meets with
incredulousness and downright indignation is that it appears to be an
affront to one's sense of autonomy and self-determination, otherwise
known as free will. Let me explain what I mean.
Suppose after I tell you what a wonderful, bright, industrious, good-
looking, and thoughtful person you are, I ask a small favor of you,
which you kindly say you will do. Now suppose after an embarrassed
pause at being so highly praised, you resume our previous conversation
about your new job. In doing so, almost incidentally you say, "Oh, I for-
got to tell you about my new supervisor. He is one of the most manipu-
lating people I have ever met. And he's not even very subtle about it."
For the sake of argument here, let's assume that this comment of yours
is really your deep-talk reaction to my buttering you up (that is, manip-
ulating you) by telling you how wonderful you are so you'll do a favor
for me. In other words, the story of your supervisor is really about me.
Now suppose the next day we are having a conversation about my re-
search into deep talk, and in explaining it I use our conversation of yes-
terday about the manipulating supervisor. I tell you that it was deep
talk, with you telling me that I am not only manipulating, but that I am
not even very subtle about it. The odds are high that you will deny this
because it was not what you consciously meant. You further say (as-
suming your statements to be true) that you didn't even make the con-
18 DEEP LISTEN/Ncr

nection between being complimented and my asking you for a favor.

From my experience, I have learned that you will become defensive, in-
dignant, angry, incredulous, or all four.
In short, my attributing unconscious meaning doesn't fit what you
experienced. It was ego-alien, as we say in the trade, alien to your sense
of self and autonomy, just as we don't experience our dreams as being
created by our self or our free will and thus disown responsibility for
whatever images they may contain-especially a dream image where
you kill your best friend. This is one aspect of the free will problem.
Another one involves our belief in our mind being free.
As I indicated at the opening of this chapter, ostensibly random
chitchat has been considered by most researchers as a kind of quan-
tum-like talk that's not subject to Newtonian-like lawfulness, as is
most of the universe around us. This belief in our autonomous free
will especially applies to our mind and conversational self. But is this
belief true, or does it belong with the flat-earth view of our planet? I
suggest the latter is more likely the case, at least in relation to our con-
scious self.
There is no preordained reason why the human mind and our con-
versations should be any less structured and lawful than the rest of the
natural universe. Indeed, as in physics, why should there not be cogni-
tive "quarks;' meaning "strings" and other fundamental structures of
the mind from which all other higher level orders of meaning are gen-
erated? Indeed, this book is based on the Einsteinian assumption that
"God does not play dice" with our mind, that our mental universe is
just as ordered as our physical universe and is not the result of chance.
Now, I am willing to admit that what I have just described may be a
slight overstatement. But probably not by very much.
Remember, in analyzing deep talk we must ask why particular words,
phrases, sentences, stories, and topics are selected for conversation.
Why not others? Why are they selected at a particular time? And why is
a particular wording expressed in the particular-sometimes pecu-
liar-way it is? To answer "That's just the way we talk" is not to explain
it at all. It begs the question. And worse yet, to answer "Whatever the
 Listening to the (j-ratefu! Dead, Live in Concert 19

intricacies are, they're accomplished by free will" is to put the analysis

of conversation and language outside the reach of science.

Veep listening and the Subliteral Mind

I would now like to initially introduce what I call the subliteral mind. s
The subliteral mind creates what I also call subliteral language and
meaning and what as a shorthand designation I have labeled deep talk
to which we deeply listen. As I briefly noted in the introduction, the
term subliteral indicates unconscious word meanings that are attached
to the conscious, accepted, and standard meaning of words, that is, to
their literal meaning. Hence deep listening refers to uncovering the
meaning beneath the literal meaning and thus sub literal. For example,
the literal meaning of the proper noun Grateful Dead of course refers to
a rock group. The subliteral meaning-as we saw-involved the word
grateful being used as an adjective modifying the noun dead.
I coined the term subliteral for my approach to unconscious meaning,
language, and mind for two important reasons. First, the concept re-
places traditional Freudian terms like latent, and unconscious, or sym-
bolic meaning. It also replaces the linguistic term metaphor insofar as the
term is used to describe symbolic or implied or figurative meaning in
our language. 6 This name change isn't just a semantic game; it's an im-
portant conceptual distinction. This is why I developed the concept of a
subliteral mind in order to carve out from a nearly all-meaningful pop-
ular notion of an unconscious mind a more concrete set of principles
and procedures for understanding and recognizing subliteral meaning.
What I am calling the subliteral mind is not a vague black hole be-
neath our conscious mind, as much popular thinking about the uncon-
scious would have it. The processes making up the subliteral
unconscious are real. They are based in a complex of neurological cir-
cuits integrated in a multilevel series of networks all linked together.
That much of our linguistic processes are unconscious is not new. It's
universally accepted, for example, that most of our normal use of lan-
guage is carried out unconsciously. As we speak, we are unaware of the
20 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

hundreds of rules of grammar that we are using. In the subliteral mind,

these unconscious language processes are linked to emotional and feel-
ing states that somehow creates deep talk.
I should note, too, that the subliteral mind doesn't exist as a perma-
nent unitary thing in our physical brain. Different circuits and net-
works are used at different times. In fact, the subliteral unconscious
slips and slides from a deep unconscious state that is inaccessible to us
to a partially conscious state. We will see throughout this book exam-
ples of being nearly conscious of subliteral meaning, as when people
become immediately aware of a slip of the tongue they've just made.
What I mean by the subliteral mind sometimes being partially con-
scious is that some part may be completely conscious, as when people
have conscious thoughts and feelings that they withhold from public
view because of fear, social etiquette, or taboos. Under such conditions
the other parts of the subliteral unconscious-the complex of neuro-
logical circuits and networks that create the cognitive and linguistic op-
erations-are initiated in the same way as when feelings are completely
unconscious. Some of the more classical terms for different levels of
unconscious functioning, like preconscious, subconscious, or co-con-
scious, can be roughly equated to the various levels of subliteral uncon-
scious functioning at different times. The subliteral mind, then, is often
a mixture of conscious and unconscious processes and often switches
back and fourth between these two states. (For more on this, see my
book Between the Lines.)
At this point, it's useful to briefly describe the general social and psy-
chological conditions that create subliteral conversations in everyday
settings. Understanding these conditions provides cues to when sublit-
eral conversations may be occurring.

Some Conditions and Principles for Veep listening

There are eleven principles of deep listening. Understanding these

principles will help you to deeply listen and to recognize when deep
talk may be occurring. The social conditions to look for that surround
 Listening to the Grrateful Dead, Live in Concert 21

conversations are ones that are informal and have little structure to
them, having little or no imposed rules, agenda, or purpose. These con-
ditions can often be seen at coffee breaks, at parties, or in other newly
formed social get-togethers including free-flowing conversations that
occur during new personal relationships. Social occasions of this kind
could be characterized as "just hanging around, talking." Like most of
social life, these conversations take place within implicit social taboos,
rules of etiquette, and other social norms and expectations that tend to
preclude the open expression of feelings and of what people may be re-
ally thinking.
I should also emphasize that the classic T-group leadership style is
to be nondirective; the trainer/leader sits relatively silent most of the
time. This creates conditions of anxiety, ambiguity, and uncertainty.
At least in the initial stages of group development, the leader is the
main concern of members (just as a relatively silent or noncommu-
nicative boss at work is or a silent parent at home is). It is into this
void that members of a T-group or a social or work conversation pro-
ject their concerns and feelings. There are also rivalry issues for the at-
tention of the trainer/leader just as there are in similar everyday
situations.
Fragmented or dangling deep-talk conversations, then, occur under
conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity and tend to create elevated
feelings of anxiety and increased emotional arousal in most people. To-
gether these conditions create a cognitive state in which unconscious
emotional and linguistic schemas are activated that merge with and
shape our otherwise conscious use of language. Somehow, it is out of
this social matrix that deep talk is created. We will see this time and
again throughout this book.

Principle #1: Conversational Conditions. The optimal conditions

for deep listening are low social structure, ambiguity, uncertainty, and
anxiety. The more that a conversation floats freely, the more likely it is
that unconscious processes are activated and deep talk is involved in
the literal topics.
22 DEEP LlSTENIN4-

Principle #2: Knowledge of the Situation. The more one knows

about the conversational situation, that is, about the social context, the
people in the situation, the issues, conflicts, and expectations, the better
one can map the knowledge onto the literal conversation.

Principle #3: Emotional Arousal. Under the previous conditions,

when emotional arousal levels are elevated, they create a cognitive state
in which nonconscious affective schemas are activated that merge with
and shape conscious literal use of language.

Principle #4: Emotional Loading. In addition to general emotional

arousal, subliteral material is optimally generated from specific, emo-
tionally loaded issues and concerns.

Principle #5: Social Censoring. The more social taboos, rules of eti-
quette, and other social norms that preclude the open expression of
feeling and ideas, the more likely deep talk occurs.

Principle #6: Silences. The more awkward silences and pauses in a

conversation there are, the more likely deep talk occurs immediately
following these awkward silences and pauses.

Principle #7: Conflict. The more conscious or unconscious conflict

that exists between or among members of a conversation, the more
likely deep talk will occur.

Principle #8: Associations. A topic is often subliteral if it's associated

in time, that is, follows immediately after another topic (especially after
a silence or pause in the conversation).

Principle #9: Topic Selection. Subliteral topics are "selected in" be-
cause they relate to participants' feelings that occur in the conversation.
It's important to recognize that a large number of topics are possible in
any conversation. The crucial question is, out of all the possibilities,
why are particular topics selected?
 Listening to the Crrateful Dead, Live in Concert 23

Principle #10: Lexical Selection. In addition to the selection of top-

ics, the selection of a given word or phrase also constitutes a choice
from a large number of possible equivalent lexical (our mental dictio-
nary of words with their associated morphemes and sounds) or seman-
tic choices.

Principle #11: Mapping. Deep talk is present in a piece of literal con-

versation when it can be demonstrated that the talk has a parallel struc-
ture that can be mapped onto the conversational activity.
The everyday world is an incredible natural laboratory in which you
can observe and deeply listen in to deep talk. Though there is no such
thing as mind reading, deep listening is about as close as you will ever
get to reading minds.
The best way to learn to recognize deep talk is to read as many exam-
ples of it as possible. In cognitive and educational psychology, we know
that being exposed to many examples leads to developing what are
called mental schemas. A schema is a pattern or a kind of template that
helps us corral or impose an order on the apparent complexity around
us. That's why I have packed this book with many examples of deep lis-
tening. As you read through them, you are increasingly creating mental
schemas or templates that will help you deeply listen to conversations.

of Wind Tunnels and T~(froups:

How T~(froups Are Like Everyday Social Conversations

AT-group is a special kind of training (hence the 1) group in which

typically ten to fifteen participants learn about how small groups and
teams work by actually functioning as a group. The classic style is for
the "leader" not to lead, but to be nondirective. Since many of the illus-
trations I present come from my training groups, you may see them as
not typical of the deep talk that occurs in everyday life. Not so. They
are, in fact, exactly like those that occur in natural everyday settings.
Comparing the illustrations I give from my T-group with those that I
present from everyday conversations will clearly show that the personal
concerns and cognitive operations are the same. The T-group situation
24 VEEP LISTENING-

is a microcosm or model of everyday conversational situations. It is a

kind of magnified and dense version of everyday conversational inter-
actions. Think of a T-group as the social equivalent to the scale model
of an aircraft in a wind tunnel used by aeronautical engineers to simu-
late the effect of wind on the aircraft under everyday flying conditions.
In the same way, the T-group is a scale model of social situations, with
the special conditions that influence the T-group comparable to the
wind in the aeronautical engineer's wind tunnel. In fact, all psychologi-
cal experiments are kind of scale models of everyday life. The everyday
world is itself a natural laboratory where everyone can observe-and
experiment with deep listening.
Because the T-group is a dense micro-version of everyday social con-
versations, whether they are casual or work-related, illustrating with
examples from these groups allows me to present a wider variety of
deep talk than if I just used my personal everyday experience. More-
over, as you become acquainted with deep listening, you can add your
own examples. My friends and colleagues have.
Let me close this chapter by saying that either the analyses of deep
talk I present in this book are the consequence of my engaging in a
kind of sheer paranoid schizophrenic fantasy or we now are beginning
to recognize something about how the mind works that we didn't know
before. Let's see more of what the mind does during conversation. It
gets even deeper. Much deeper.
 slips of the Tongue or
((Slips" of the Mind:
Come Now) Mr. President

It would not be surprising if more were to be learned from

poets about slips of the tongue than from philologists and
psychiatrists.
SIG-MUND FREUD
A General Introduction to Psychoanao/sis'

Everyone is familiar with the idea of slips of the tongue, especially

with the ones that seem to reveal unconscious meaning, otherwise
known as Freudian slips. Indeed, in the popular mind, it's Freud who
discovered such slips of the tongue. He didn't (see Chapter 5). One of
Freud's classic examples involved the Austrian parliament president
who opened a meeting by declaring it "closed:' with Freud suggesting
that the president unconsciously wished the meeting wouldn't take
place. Such slips are "mistakes" from the point of view of the con-
scious and intended meaning. Other slips are considered just plain
mistakes or errors in language, like the classic mechanical mistakes
often called spoonerisms, after a British cleric and scholar, William
Archibald Spooner (1844-1930). For example, a person might mean
to say, "Allow me to show you to your seat," but actually say, "Allow

25
26 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

me to sew you to your sheet:' where show and sew and sheet and seat
are misvocalized. Certainly, some slips are simply mistakes like this
spoonerism and can be explained linguistically in terms of mechani-
cal error, but not all slips. Spoonerisms and other kinds of verbal slips
based on mechanical errors simply aren't made of the right uncon-
scious stuff.
My phrase slip of the mind is a takeoff on the phrase slip of the tongue
in the Freudian sense. Though both involve revealing unconscious
meaning, they are not identical. Slips of the tongue are largely charac-
terized by slips in meaning with single words. By contrast, slips of the
mind are more extensive linguistically and may require complex
phrases, entire sentences, and whole stories to express their double
meaning; they are not in fact slips of any kind. They are based on paral-
lel meanings. They are what I have come to call deep talk that reveals
unconscious meaning. Like simple mechanical speech errors, even
Freudian slips don't have the right stuff.
Our minds work in strange ways. The phrase slips of the mind first
occurred to me when I was pondering puns and slips of the tongue in
relation to our unconscious mind. As I was doing so, the analogous
idea, slips of the mind, occurred to me. The question is, why did this
concept occur to me at this particular time? Looking very briefly at that
question will provide a glimpse into how deep talk is made.
First, I was of course quite familiar with the concept of a slip of the
tongue. Second, the semantic association based on the initial similarity
between the phrases slips of the tongue and slips of the mind is reason-
ably clear, especially since they both occur in the mind. There was a
third factor that precipitated my association between the two concepts
that I realized once I found out when I started thinking about it: At the
time the phrase slips of the mind occurred to me, I was thumbing
through the many yellow 2-by-3-inch pieces or slips of paper that I al-
ways kept with me to write down ideas and insights that often popped
into my head at the oddest of times. Indeed, I was physically working
with little slips of the mind.
Slips of the mind don't happen only in casual conversations. They
occur in TV news programs, talk shows, and advertisements as welL
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 27

slips of the Mind on eN N News

News reporters generally try to be objective, not letting their personal
views influence their reports, but being human, this is difficult, if not
impossible. Listening subliterally may tell us what the reporter's or
host's real views are. Unlike casual conversation, news programs are of-
ten highly structured by scripted monologues that the newsperson can
read from a TelePrompTer. In spite of this, deep talk still happens.
The well-known CNN news correspondent Wolf Blitzer was review-
ing and reporting the latest news on President Clinton's alleged affair
with a young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, and a dress that
she kept that supposedly (at the time of airing) had the president's se-
men stain on it.2 After talking about Clinton's having to give a sample
of his DNA to compare with the stain on her dress and about Clinton's
not being truthful, and indeed his being charged with perjury, Wolf
ended his report by saying that the president should just come clean.
Need I explain that on a literal level this idiom means to tell the
truth, but in this context it can embody quite another meaning? On a
conscious or literal level, Wolf's use of the phrase seemingly meant that
he thought Clinton should stop lying about his affair with Monica and
just tell the truth. But is this slip of the mind simply a slip? Or did it re-
veal Wolf's real feelings about the affair? I suggest it's the latter. I don't
believe that this is a simple pun on the phrase come clean but, rather, a
slip of the mind revealing the belief or attitude of the speaker. In any
event, looking at the phrase itself, on a deep-listening level the phrase
come clean could mean either that Wolf hoped (1) that Clinton's DNA
didn't show a DNA match with the stain (in short, that he should have
come clean, without a stain) or (2) that Clinton should not be having
an oral sexual tryst in the workplace with a subordinate and staining
her dress with his semen.
Since this is an everyday example, I don't have the history, the full
context, or other controls that I have for deep talk that's generated in
my groups. So how are we to know that Wolf's comment wasn't just a
simple pun, and if it wasn't, how are we to know what Wolf's view of
the Clinton affair really was? One simple slip doesn't necessarily
(though it can) mean a slip of the mind just happened. Under the cir-
28 VEEP LlSTENIN~

cumstances, we should follow Wolf's subsequent reports to accumulate

an ongoing history and context of such deep-talk examples. This would
provide additional information by which we could then begin to verify
the analysis of Wolf's slip of the mind. As it happens, I do have another
slip of the mind by Wolf on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. 3
Wolf was reporting that President Clinton's team of lawyers was
about to launch an attack on special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's grand
jury report that indicated Clinton lied about his oral-sex affair with
Monica. Wolf meant to say that Clinton's team was about to engage in
an offensive against Starr's report, but he slipped and said they were
about to engage in offenses.
Again, is this just a slip of the tongue, or is it a deep-talk slip of the
mind that reveals Wolf's true feelings and attitude about the Clinton-
Lewinsky affair? Given the continuous reportage of Clinton's alleged
sexual behavior in the workplace that many people found offensive,
Wolf's slip was perhaps clear about what he was really thinking regard-
ing Clinton's behavior: That they were not only legal offenses but were
offensive. No sooner had he said this than an ever-so-slight twinge
could be seen on Wolf's face. It was clear that he immediately realized
what he had said-and perhaps revealed his personal view of Clinton's
tryst: That Clinton shouldn't be having sex in the Oral Off . .. (oops,
sorry) I mean, Oval Office.
Not infrequently such slips of the mind may appear so obvious that
they seem to have been consciously created. I have found, however,
that this is not the case. And unlike Wolf, often the speaker does not
recognize these seemingly blatant slips. In transforming oral and vi-
sual examples of deep talk (that is, ones either personally experienced
or ones from TV) into a print medium, one loses a great deal of infor-
mation and cues for assessing whether the person was consciously cre-
ating the slip or pun. Slips of the mind can provide a surveillance
system for gathering interpersonal intelligence and other deep-back-
ground information.
(The Clinton-Lewinsky oral-sex tryst reminds me of the 1972 Nixon
scandal, when two reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, broke
what has become known as the Watergate scandal with secret informa-
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 29

tion from a deep-background source. The Clinton-Lewinsky tryst per-

haps gives new meaning to Woodward and Bernstein's secret source of
information, whose code name was Deep Throat.)
Yet another CNN slip of the mind referring to Clinton's tryst with
Monica occurred while I was watching a program called Burden of
Proop During all the talk about the possible impeachment of President
Clinton for lying under oath regarding his workplace sexual relation-
ship with Monica, Roger Cossack, one of the hosts of the program,
made a slip of the mind that was expressed in a slip of the tongue, or
so-called speech error. In talking about President Clinton's testifying
before a grand jury, Roger meant to say that the event was unprece-
dented, but he slipped and clearly began to say unpresidented. Most lin-
guists would call this a simple mistake and say that it was caused by
confusing the similar sound and spelling of the two words which inter-
fered with each other, ending in a speech error. These linguists are not
correct, however.
From a deep-listening perspective, the meaning of Roger's slip in us-
ing the word unpresidented in this case likely refers to his unconscious
(or at least concealed) attitude that Clinton should be removed from
office or impeached. Why do I say this? First, while the similarity of
sound is clear, this is not simply a meaningless speech error caused by
the similar sound of the two words. Try this: Repeat unprecedented and
unpresidented out loud. Note that the prec in unprecedented is pro-
nounced like press, whereas the pres in president is pronounced like
prez, requiring a different aspiration or kind of glottal configuration in
your mouth. But this is trivial, really. Let's get to the real shape of the
meaning here.
The linguistic explanation of this slip would be that it was simply
caused by the two words' being confused and interfering with each
other and that it indicated no hidden meaning. Both unprecedented and
unpresidented begin with unpre, which is followed by either the conso-
nant s or c, which can be similarly pronounced. These letters are then
followed by the vowels i or e, which also can be pronounced similarly.
Finally the words end identically with. .. dented. But the slip has
meaning. An analysis of the linguistic mechanisms involved may ex-
30 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

plain the how, but it doesn't explain the why of the slip. To understand
the why we have to understand the context of the slip. (See the "nig-
gardly" example in Chapter 9.)
Since this program and the previous number of programs were
about the possible impeachment of Clinton for perjury, we have a
history and context to analyze this statement; there was a deep back-
ground for impeachment-related meanings. It seems probable, then,
that Roger's use of the prefIx un that was attached to president and the
suffIx ed indicating past tense was psychologically the equivalent of
something coming unhinged or unglued or unseated. Hence unpresi-
dented, that is, no longer president. Indeed, the adjective unseated has
been used in a past context of impeachment. History books talk
about the attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson (1865-
1869), the seventeenth president of the United States, as an attempt to
unseat him.
As with any slip, having only this one example from Roger without
access to his personal views means there is no way of assessing with any
high degree of certainty the deeper motivation for his "slip." Roger's
slip may reveal nothing or it may reveal that he either believed that
Clinton should or would be impeached as the result of the scandal.
Quite different meanings, but equally revealing information about his
beliefs.
After this incident, I began carefully watching-that is, listening-
more closely to Roger and his co-host, Greta van Susteren. It soon be-
come evident to me that my analysis of Roger's deep talk on Clinton's
impeachment was perhaps appropriate. I say this because when Bur-
den of Proof fIrst began reporting on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, both
co-hosts seemed to be trying to report in a neutral or objective man-
ner. As time went on, however, it seemed to me their reporting became
less objective. It became clear to me that Greta was more against im-
peaching Clinton, while Roger seemed to be leaning toward the anti-
Clinton side. I say this, too, because I saw Greta being interviewed on
Larry King Live, where she essentially stated her views. This kind of
contextual information is important when assessing deep listening.
(See Figure 2.1.)
 stips of the Tongue or "stips" of the Mind 31

CNN Un-l',o.idonled Matrix Map

-.
Unguldt Mechanic.

FIGURE 2.1 CNN Unpresidented Matrix Map

One more point about my analysis of Roger's slip: Analyzing slips of

the mind from TV news and talk shows is a little more problematic
than in natural settings. Roger's "anti-Clinton" position could have
been by design on the part of the program's producers in casting Roger
and Greta as taking slightly opposite positions on the issue. However, I
should point out that this would not necessarily undermine my deep-
listening analysis of Roger's attitude as he would have had this pro-
grammed "anti-Clinton" position on his mind while apparently trying
to appear at least somewhat objective. That would create the condition
for his slip of the mind. As I outlined in Chapter 1, the underlying im-
petus for generating deep talk is nearly the same whether attitudes or
beliefs are unconscious or consciously concealed. In any event, Freud
was probably right when he said that we can't keep secrets. They seep
out of our every pore. Again, transforming a visual and oral event into
a print form loses the tone of voice, facial expressions, and other cues
by which I assessed the intent of a slip. In any event, contextual infor-
mation is important to assessing the validity of the slip, and gathering
more than one incident begins a pattern.
32 DEEP Ll5TENIN~

Fiddling with Words?

The following is yet another interesting illustration from the work-
place, and it's somewhat more complex and problematic in terms of the
complete extent of its meaning. I was having lunch with some col-
leagues and administrators in the campus cafeteria. Present were the
male dean of the college who was a biologist, a male assistant dean, a
woman associate dean, and two male faculty members. The social rela-
tionships among us had always been very collegial and informal, with
all of us feeling comfortable enough with each other to joke around
without having to be careful about what we said. Into this luncheon
gathering entered the woman president of the university. As typically
occurs when a boss joins his or her subordinates, the social climate
changed.
I was engaging in social chitchat and waving my hands around as
people often do when talking. It was obvious that I have a noticeable
deformity in a couple of fingers on one hand. The assistant dean asked,
"What's the matter with your hand?" The president noticed it, too, and
immediately interjected, "Do you have arthritis or something?" I then
explained that it was a relatively rare genetic condition called
Dupuytren's contracture, largely affecting males with Anglo-Saxon her-
itage. I further explained that thousands of years ago when the Vikings
swept down from the north, raping and pillaging their way through
Scotland, England, and Ireland, this genetic condition was one of the
historical consequences.
It was clear that this comment about raping made people feel un-
comfortable. Unthinkingly, I nevertheless continued, saying jokingly
that from a Darwinian perspective the raping and pillaging wasn't all
bad as it helped to create diversity in a gene pool. While my statement
may not have been in good taste, it was nevertheless accurate in a ge-
netic sense. Now, at this point, the male assistant dean turned red in the
face and almost had an apoplectic fit. Given the women at the table, es-
pecially the president who was strong on feminist issues, he said to me,
"Jesus, Rob, you'd better be careful; you're treading on thin ground
ere!" By this he meant that women might take offense at my saying that
rape had a positive biological function.
 stips of the Tongue or "stips" of the Mind 33

An awkward pause ensued. Then, glancing at the president, I said,

"It's all quite biblical, you know." Responding to being asked what I
meant, I said, "You know, like the sins of the father being passed down
to the sons"-literally meaning the genetic consequences of the Viking
rapes being passed down to later generations, with one form of "sin"
being my Dupuytren's disease. There was some nervous laughter and,
again, a brief pause.
The president then posed a question seemingly unconnected to any-
thing in the conversation. She asked if anyone knew or could recall the
name of the play in which the father of a Jewish family was experienc-
ing trouble with maintaining his Jewish traditions. The male assistant
dean said it was Fiddler on the Roof Shortly after this, I excused myself
and left. As often happens, it didn't dawn on me until later that the en-
tire conversation-particularly the president's question-likely carried
subliteral meaning. But what meaning might it have had? Here is my
take on it.
For those not familiar with the play Fiddler on the Roof, the basics are
these: It takes place in Czarist Russia in 1905, when anti-Semitism was
overtly increasing. The father is a poor milkman with five unmarried
daughters to support. His eldest daughter doesn't want to consent to a
traditional arranged marriage to a middle-aged butcher. After much
ado, he and his wife finally consent to the daughter's wishes. The
changing times are saying that children shall decide partners for them-
selves-a scenario that the parents see as a breakdown of traditional
values. But worse, they discover not only that another daughter has
married a Russian soldier of her choosing but also that he is not Jewish.
This is just too much for the father to accept, so he disowns this daugh-
ter and she is henceforth shunned.
The inquiry referring to Fiddler on the Roof, in which tradition as
well as a Jewish family's gene pool were being threatened, was likely a
subliteral comment on my Viking story of rape and pillage in which
tradition and gene pools were violated. Given the context in which Fid-
dler was selected into the conversation, it almost certainly did not carry
positive meaning, especially given that the question was asked by the
woman president-who was Jewish.
34 VEEP LlSTENIN(j-

But there's more, as my colleague David Smith pointed out to me

when I described to him the above initial subliteral analysis of the con-
versation and asked him for his thoughts on it. Unlike my own analysis,
his had to do with my subliteral role in the conversation, which I had
completely missed-not an uncommon occurrence with respect to sub-
literal conversations in general. My having added the comment about
Vikings raping and pillaging their way through Scotland, England, and
Ireland likely reflected my unconscious feelings about having the presi-
dent join us. In other words, I felt that, indeed, like the Vikings, she had
"invaded" our friendly "traditional purity" with each other, transform-
ing us into a more diverse group (i.e., population). Such feelings are not
atypical when a boss or authority figure joins his or her subordinates
(see Chapter 3). They rang particularly true in this instance, given that
the president was not widely appreciated by many faculty members.
My later biblical comment about the sins of the fathers was likely a
reference to my feeling that I had "sinned" by mentioning rape (and its
positive evolutionary function) in the presence of women. My refer-
ence to the issue being biblical was also possibly a reference to the pres-
ident's Jewish heritage. I suspect the president's selection of the Fiddler
on the Roof topic immediately following my comment about Vikings
raping and pillaging probably has other meanings as well; but since
there's not enough story detail to allow me to precisely map it onto my
contribution, I have to rely on contextual information and inferences.
Almost certainly the president, who is Jewish, knew the title and details
of Fiddler on the Roofbut just couldn't immediately recall it. Based on
this context, I can conjecture that she felt I was somewhat like the fa-
ther in Fiddler, who was cast as a traditionalist and even as an anti-fem-
inist (which I am not). The theme of Fiddler may also have called to
mind her sense of Jewishness among non-Jews (i.e., diversity).
The president's selection of the story in Fiddler on the Roof may have
still another unconscious meaning. The verb form of the noun
fiddler-namely, fiddling-carries the meaning of being "trifling" or
"trivial:' Was the president perhaps commenting on what she thought
about my carrying on about the Vikings and their Darwinian conse-
quences? There's yet more to this story.
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 35

Sins of the Father

1 have found that when a deep-listening story is being told, it may pre-
cipitate further deep talk by the person it is being told to.
A few days after the Fiddler luncheon, 1 was having a drink with a
friend of mine who was among the faculty members present at the lun-
cheon and was telling him about my subliteral analysis of the conversa-
tion that took place that day. Holding a doctoral degree in English and
literary studies, and having read my previous book, he appreciated my
analysis but nevertheless seemed somewhat skeptical. After a brief dis-
cussion, there was a pause. Then without apparent connection to any-
thing, he asked me, "Have you heard from your brothers?" 1 responded,
"No:' But as 1 said "No;' my deep listening antennae became active. 1
then said to my colleague, "I think your question, however, is an excel-
lent example of subliteral meaning." Looking somewhat puzzled, he
asked, "What do you mean?"
Now, before 1 give you the answer to his question, 1 need to explain
its context. He knew that about a year or so ago my daughter, Melyssa,
discovered that 1 have two half-brothers that 1 never knew 1 had. These
brothers are about eight or nine years older than me. My brothers and 1
had the same father. Their father and my mother had an affair and 1
was the product of it. Summarizing all this to him, 1 answered his query
about whether I had heard from my brothers by saying that it was deep
talk-that it was a response to my having just described to him my
analysis of the Fiddler luncheon conversation. This is likely why his
question about my half-brothers was deep talk. And this is likely what
his question unconsciously meant.
First, my half-brother's father having had an illicit affair with my
mother is analogous to my story about Vikings raping as they swept
down from the north in the sense that the affair was contrary to tradi-
tional norms. Second, as a parallel to the Vikings' raping, my brother's
father had illegitimately contributed to my mother's family gene pool,
making it more diverse. Third, the illicit relationship between their fa-
ther and my mother was analogous to the daughter in Fiddler wanting
to marry outside traditional norms and, indeed, outside the gene pool
(i.e., outside her father's marriage). Fourth, my birth was analogous to
36 VEEP LlSTENIN(1-

the Vikings passing down the genetic condition involving the fingers
on my hand. Fifth, since my brothers were only "half" -brothers, they
were analogous to the daughter in Fiddler who, after marrying outside
the Jewish gene pool, would have a child who was "half-Jewish:'
Finally, since I had told this friend about my biblical remark regard-
ing the sins of the father having been passed down to the sons, his ask-
ing me about my brothers implied an acknowledgment of the "sin" of
my father. I, of course, was the "son" to whom sin was passed down-as
a result of the "sinful" affair.
Why was the president's story about Fiddler, and why was my friend's
question about my brothers selected into the conversation? And why at
that particular time? I see my friend frequently, usually over either
breakfast or lunch, and perhaps only once before, soon after I'd told
him about discovering I had two half-brothers, did he ask me if I heard
from them.

) udging tis lips" of the Mind

In Massachusetts, a judge giving instructions to a jury about to start its
deliberations verbally "slipped;' saying to the jury that the defendant
should be "presumed guilty:'7 Of course in all cases judges instruct ju-
ries to adhere to the fundamental legal principle in u.s. law that a de-
fendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The judge obviously
meant to say the defendant should be presumed innocent. The question
is: Is this slip considered legally significant? In other words, is it consid-
ered to reveal the unconscious attitude of the judge about the defen-
dant, and therefore to prejudice the case? If so, the slip would provide
grounds for a legal appeal if the defendant were found guilty.
After the court clerk brought this "mistake" to the judge's attention,
he quickly corrected himself by addressing the jury saying, "Ladies and
gentlemen, I've picked up on a, I guess it would be called a Freudian
slip:' He then gave the jury the correct instructions. For some reason,
the defendant's attorney didn't object to the judge's slip of the tongue.
Maybe the judge thought the evidence during the trial showed that the
defendant was guilty. Maybe he didn't. Maybe it was just a simple
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 37

speech error. Maybe it wasn't. Only the judge really knows. But did this
"slip" turn out to be legally significant. You bet.
After the jury found the defendant guilty on one of three charges, the
defense attorney used the judge's slip as the basis for an appeal. He ar-
gued that it created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice, be-
cause it conveyed a message to the jury that the judge had concluded
that his client was guilty. It's interesting to note here that Freudian slips
are apparently considered real by the legal profession, at least as indi-
cated by the Modern Dictionary for the Legal Profession, which defines a
Freudian slip as a misstatement theorized to reveal the unconscious
thought or a conflict or desire of the speaker. 8
So, again, did the judge's misstatement harbor his hidden feelings or
attitude toward the defendant's guilt? The answer depends on whom
you ask. And the correct answer goes to the very core of my theory of
deep talk and slips of the mind. I will hold off addressing this impor-
tant point until the end of this chapter. In the meantime, the following
examples (along with the previous chapter) should help you to answer
the question yourself.
At this juncture, I need to emphasize two important methodological
points that need to be held firmly in mind throughout the rest of this
book. The first is that virtually all linguists and cognitive scientists be-
lieve that unconscious slips and puns are simply speech errors that are
linguistically lawful and therefore devoid of unconscious meaning. I
agree with the first part-that they are lawful-but not with the second
part-that they are therefore meaningless. Some are. Some aren't. And
the ones that aren't meaningless use the same mechanism as the ones
that are. In short, subliteral narratives appear to use many of the mecha-
nisms involved in speech errors and action slips, but suggest an underly-
ing intentionality-at least in this class of subliteral "errors" and "slips:'
One notable cognitive scientist who is an exception to my generaliza-
tion and does believe that slips may have meaning is Bernard Baars, ed-
itor and author of Experimental Slips and Human Error. Baars and his
colleagues have conducted some fascinating laboratory experiments on
Freudian or unconsciously motivated slips. While he remains cautious,
he leaves the door open on unconscious meaning. Baars says, "From
38 DEEP LlSTENINeT

some of our findings .... the most immediate conclusion might be that
the Freudian hypothesis is just plain wrong. But that is too simple."5
Baars leaves the door open for possible new methods that may less
"blunt" (as he puts it) than current ones. I would, of course, strongly
argue that my method is a new and less blunt method for investigating
unconscious meaning. 6
The second point to hold firmly in mind involves reemphasizing that
the crucial methodological point and question to be asked about all
deep talk examples is this: Out of all possible words and phrasings and
out of all possible topics that could be selected into a conversation, why
are the particular ones selected, and why are they selected into the con-
versation at a particular time? Cognitively and linguistically this a criti-
cal question that's virtually never asked and consequently never
answered.
If, indeed, slips of the mind do reveal unconscious beliefs, attitudes,
and intentions, can such slips have legal implications? For example,
what if an attorney or, worse yet, a judge made a slip in court that could
be detrimental to a claimant or defendant? Could such slips be used by
either the prosecution or the defense? Unlikely, you say? Let see.

Veep listening to TV Advertisement5

Clearly, deep talk doesn't only occur in personal conversations. It hap-
pens on TV news programs as well. We can also observe it in TV adver-
tisements and on talk shows.
It's no secret that unconscious meaning is often purposefully pro-
grammed into TV advertisements. It's also well-known that writers for
advertising use "pop" Freudian notions about the unconscious mind
and sexual symbolism to construct their ads (see Chapter 8).9 In addi-
tion, they are well versed in how the mind associates ideas. Those who
make up ads are very conscious of language and double meanings.
They assume that unconscious or only semi-unconscious meanings
will influence you.
One recent ad for cable TV talks about all the business advertising
done on cable and ends by saying, ''America is sold on cable:' On one
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 39

level this says, " American businesses do their selling with cable TV
ads:' On an another level, it says, ''America is convinced about the effec-
tiveness of cable ads"; that is, America is "sold" on it. Another ad for the
brand name of vitamins called Nature Made ends verbally with a slo-
gan that can be taken two different ways: "Nature Made me:' or "nature
made me:' The first means the vitamins were made by Nature Made.
The second one says nature made them; that is, they are natural. This
double meaning couldn't have been expressed in printed form. Such
ads try to influence you unconsciously.
A number of years ago I was watching what appeared to be a rather
cute TV ad for dog food. But as I'll suggest, if my analysis of the uncon-
scious meaning in the ad is correct, it ends up not being quite so cute.
Many pet owners want the best for their pets. In a TV commercial
about dog food, a little old lady who looked like everybody's grand-
mother was extolling the virtues of a particular brand of dog food that
looked like hamburger. The little old white-haired grandmother says,
"It's better than hamburger." At the close of the commercial she adds in
a surprised tone of voice, "Better than hamburger, my word!"
Now, aside from the more obvious association of the product with an
all-American grandmother figure, leading to the conclusion that not
only is the dog food better than hamburger, but also thereby more pa-
triotic, the ad is a masterpiece of construction. The literal meaning of
the clause "my word" attached to the phrase "Better than hamburger"
appears simply to be an exclamation, as in "My goodness, it's better
than hamburger:' Translated into deep talk, however, it also means:
How are we to know it's better than hamburger? We know because
grandmothers are true to their word. So the "my word" clause means
"Take my word for it." The phrase "Better than hamburger, my word"
also likely communicates to our unconscious mind the question, what's
better than hamburger? Her word is. Thus, the only thing better than
the hamburger is her word. So it must be damn good dog food.
But here is the real kicker to the whole ad: With just a little thought,
the question arises: How does she know the dog food is better than
hamburger?-unless, of course, she has eaten it. Now, before you say
that this is ridiculous, consider the contextual fact that at the time the
40 DEEP Ll5TENINCr

ad appeared, there had been news stories about very poor elderly peo-
ple eating dog and cat food to survive. Was this ad for dog food, then,
subliterally directed at the elderly? I believe it was.

Puns in the Making of Meaning

As we have seen with many of the deep-talk illustrations so far, what is
commonly called punning has been integral to meaning. In the follow-
ing two examples, the use of similar sounds of words to make meaning
will be even more evident. What these two examples will also demon-
strate is how we can catch ourselves in the act of deep talk.
One weekend my then-wife, Claudette, was leaving for the week to
attend law school in a neighboring state. At the time our young daugh-
ter, Melyssa, lived with me in Maine. Understandably, Melyssa was a lit-
tle upset at her mother's leaving for the week, and of course it wasn't
my first preference to be left alone to parent my daughter either. As
Claudette was about to leave, I jokingly said to her, "So, you are desert-
ing us." Almost at the very moment I uttered this comment, I knew
what I had "really" said. This comment didn't simply refer to the fact
that Claudette was leaving us alone for the week. It was a meaning-
making pun. We need to look a littler closer at the context for my com-
ment to understand how it made meaning.
In making preparations to leave for the week, Claudette had made a
batch of chocolate chip cookies, most of which she was taking with her.
Now, chocolate chip cookies are my favorite, so I hated to see most of
them being taken away. My comment was not only deep talk about
Claudette's leaving or deserting us, but by taking my favorite dessert
with her, she was in fact also desserting us, that is, taking the dessert with
her. This is no simple pun, or a kind of verbal slight of tongue; it's a
window into the workings of the subliteral mind. What my mind did
was to make meaning out of the similarity of sounds to express an as-
pect of my feelings. While it's certainly true that we sometimes use the
word deserting to describe someone's leaving us, its use is not all that
frequent. Again, the point is, why was this word-out of many other
lexical choices-selected at this particular time?
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 41

A friend of mine, Virginia, recently visited her podiatrist to have her

feet worked on. As she lay on his couch having her feet massaged, they
were talking to fill an otherwise silent activity. As they did so, the podi-
atrist said that his clients often told him very personal things about
themselves as they lay on his couch. Virginia replied that laying on a
couch while having one's feet massaged was very relaxing and soothing.
She said it was kind of like being in a psychologist's office having ther-
apy, so people would naturally have a tendency to bare their souls to
you. When she said this, she immediately became conscious of the dou-
ble meaning: they bare their souls means they bare the sales of their feet
to him. This may appear to be a simple pun or play on words. It isn't.
Think about it for a moment.
In understanding this deep talk about souls, we must first ask (a) why
the particular subject was selected into the chitchat and (b) why these
particular words were combined into this particular phrase. There were
many other words and phrases that could have been selected to express
the meaning Virginia was expressing: that the podiatrists' patients tell
him lots of personal things. For example, she could have replied to her
podiatrist that his patients would Pour their hearts out (maybe this
would have been used in a cardiologist's office). She could have replied,
they would Spill their guts out (maybe this would have been in a gas-
troenterologist's office). Or she simply could have simply replied, Yes, I
guess they tell you their life stories. But she didn't. She specifically said
they Bare their souls to him-which they literally (soles) do.
Again, the imperative question is, why did she use the particular
phrase and not any of the ones I just mentioned, or the myriad of oth-
ers from our common stock of cliched sayings? The first reason she
didn't use any of the other possible phrases-and the most obvious-
is that the homophones, bear and bare and souls and soles are semanti-
cally appropriate for a podiatrist. Bear has the meanings to carry and
to harbor and to support weighty things like talk about souls; and of
course the meanings of bare are to expose and to become naked. Sec-
ondly, the soles of her naked feet exposed to view are semantically
equivalent to baring/bearing one's souls, to revealing deep personal as-
pects of oneself. Third, the other possible phrases that could have been
42 DEEP LISTENING

used, with the words hearts and guts, would not have been phoneti-
cally and semantically congruent with the parallel to a psychologist's
office as the word soul (psychology often being understood by lay peo-
ple as the study of the soul). Fourth, the other phrases would not have
been as semantically congruent with the stereotypical association of
the Freudian couch with the couch she was actually lying on in the po-
diatrist's office.

Veep listening to Veep Talk About physical Events

It's not just the deep meanings in conversations that can be heard by
listening deeply. Physical events and objects surrounding a conversa-
tion are often unconsciously expressed as well. Though physically per-
ceived, these events and objects may not be consciously noticed or
considered significant or meaningful. They are nevertheless often un-
consciously processed into deep talk without speakers' being aware that
they are doing so. By listening deeply we can hear a corpus of these un-
.
conSCIOUS meamngs.
.
Once more, this example I owe to my friend Virginia. She was attend-
ing visiting hours just before a funeral to view a departed brother-in-
law. As is typical, the body was laid out in the casket with the departed's
hands and arms folded or crossed. As is also typical, people attending
these solemn occasions stand around silently and quite formally. As
Virginia was standing with the others she saw the funeral director,
whom she knew but hadn't seen for some years, standing by the front
door. So she left the viewing to talk with him. Later when telling her
daughter, Sarah, about the occasion, they discussed the appropriateness
of her leaving the viewing to socialize with the funeral director. In re-
sponse, Virginia replied, "Well, it was better than just standing there all
stiff with your hands folded."
Literally, of course, this response meant just what it said. Socializing
with the funeral director was better than just standing around so for-
mally. Now, if the subliteral meaning to the physical surroundings of
this occasion isn't already clear, it's this: The phrase is a reference to the
corpse itself lying there silently, stiff and with the arms folded.
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 43

With hindsight, one might think that Virginia would have realized
what she had said subliterally, but like most people, she didn't. When
her daughter pointed out the subliteral meaning to her, she was-again
like most people-"aghast:' The impact of feelings and concerns about
the physical surroundings, then, are often incorporated into literal con-
versations. But this example doesn't end here.
Many weeks later when Virginia and I were discussing this instance
of subliteral meaning, I said that when I write this funeral example up
for my book, I was going to entitle it a corpus of meanings. She laughed
and was surprised at my linguistic association of the term corpus with
the funeral example. After a brief pause, she started to tell me about a
writer she knew. She said that writers have strange minds, that their
minds work differently from normal people. Then, almost without tak-
ing a breath, she caught the subliteral reference to me and said paren-
thetically, "present company excepted, of course:' and continued with
her story of the writer she knew. Once you start deep listening for sub-
literal meanings, however, you realize that in fact everyone's mind
works "strangely:'
Physical differences between or among people are often subliterally
communicated-if only simplistically (see Chapter 9 for racial exam-
ples). A new student was inquiring about where he would find the of-
fice of a particular faculty member and how he would recognize her.
As it happened, recognizing this faculty member was quite easy: Ap-
pearing to lack normal skin pigmentation, she looked albino, with
very white or milky skin and hair. The person answering the student's
inquiry, of course, didn't want to come right out and say that the fac-
ulty member was albino-looking, so she was described as being "very
fair complected." During the course of the conversation with the stu-
dent, the issue of career choices came up. Jokingly, the person said to
the student, why don't you be a milkman? Obviously, milkman was
not a serious recommendation. Out of all the possible career choices
we have to ask why was the totally inappropriate career choice of
milkman selected? From a deep-listening perspective, it's equally ob-
vious that it was a subliteral reference to the albino-looking faculty
member. Despite hindsight, it was also equally obvious that the per-
44 DEEP LISTENING-

son who offered the milkman choice was not aware of the subliteral
meaning.
The following examples are from my groups, where I inform mem-
bers that, mainly for educational purposes, I will be videotaping them
from time to time. I also openly voice-tape each session. I also inform
members that they can have full access to the tapes. I should mention
that group sessions are usually conducted in a room with a one-way vi-
sion mirror. The topics that "just happen" to come up in the conversa-
tions often involve references to the FBI and CIA. In other words,
despite members' being aware of the one-way vision mirror and the
tape recorder, there remained unconscious concerns. The point is that
even if I had not mentioned the mirror and recorder, members would
have incorporated them into their conversations. As supportive evi-
dence, in the early literature on small groups and group psychotherapy,
repeated similar references to FBI and CIA have been obliquely noted
and thought to be "metaphorical" expressions of patient concerns of
being recorded or observed. lO
In the initial stages of one group, the topic of conversation was
speakeasies, illegal places to drink during the early 1900s prohibition
against selling alcohol. The reference to speakeasies is again deep talk
for members' concern with the tape recorder, subliterally meaning:
speak easy so the tape won't record what they are saying. In yet another
group, the game charades became a topic of discussion. You no doubt
are familiar with the game, in which communicating is done in pan-
tomime-so of course subliterally implying that the tape recorder
would be rendered useless. How do I know that group members have
concerns with these issues? In part, I know because on a conscious or
literal level, some groups have consciously acted out these concerns by
whispering and silently pointing to the tape recorder.
Here is another illustration that our unconscious often subliterally
references physical things in the immediate environment into the con-
versation. I will start off with one of the more weird instances that I no-
ticed. Seemingly not directly related to a discussion about raising
animals, a person said, "I had a mouse that would just peek into the
garage at the animals:' You might think that this statement is a simple
 slips of the Tongue or "slips" of the Mind 45

part of the ongoing discussion about keeping animals, and it is-but

it's also more than that. Once more we must ask why this particular
statement was selected into the conversation at the particular time that
it was spoken. Here's the answer: During the discussion, a young
woman in the group kept stretching up and down in her seat trying to
see something in the direction of the door. Then the door opened just a
crack and a person in the hallway who had been peering in through the
small window now peeked into the room.
Most members were aware of what had taken place, but no one men-
tioned this event. It was, nevertheless, impressed upon their minds-
both conscious and unconscious as the subliteral reference to the mouse
that peeked into the garage demonstrates. This statement might seem
like one that the person consciously contrived to kind of parody the
event, but it wasn't. I checked with the person after the group session.
These illustrations not only show deep meaning but, again, also show
how the mind sometimes incorporates its physical surroundings into
language and social conversation. This aspect of cognition has not been
recognized before. How it's possible remains to be explained.
We have seen that though both slips of the tongue and what I have
been calling slips of the mind involve revealing unconscious meaning,
they are not identical. Not by any means. Slips of the tongue are largely
characterized by slips in meaning with single words, while slips of the
mind are more extensive. Linguistically, slips of the mind often require
complex phrases, entire sentences, and whole stories to express their
consciously unintended meaning.
Referring to them as "slips" reveals all too clearly how they have
been viewed: As anomalous curiosities, not as something more exten-
sive with parallel meanings that reveal important linguistic and cogni-
tive data about how the mind works. Slips of the tongue are "slips" or
"mistakes" only relative to their contradicting our apparent conscious
intent. Strictly speaking, they are not slips at all. They are real commu-
nications. In addition, referring to slips of the tongue as "slips" has re-
tarded research into their real significance.
Henceforth, I will no longer use the phrases slip of the tongue or slip
of the mind in referring to deep talk. So, why did I use these phrases in
46 VEEP LISTENING-

the first place? I used them as a bridge from something you were al-
ready familiar with to acquaint you with something new. So far most of
the illustrations have been, like slips, based on relatively short examples
of deep talk using play on words, short phrases, and longer topics. In
the next chapter I will show how deep listening reveals more complex
phrases, entire sentences, and whole stories to express extensive parallel
meamngs.
 3
CTod Talk: Learning the
Veep~ Listening Templates

Stop here yourselffor a while, that I may make known to

you the word of God.
BOOK OF SAMUEL 9:27,44

Throughout the course of human history certain topics and themes

have been of universal concern. These enduring themes and topics have
been called archetypal. Archetypes are a kind of universal prototype or
template of human experience that is somehow embedded in our men-
tal apparatus. They are primitive modes of thought that tend to express
themselves in mythological stories. Carl Jung, the one-time disciple of
Freud, wrote extensively on archetypes. He believed in a special kind of
unconscious mind that he called the collective unconscious. Unlike
Freud's notion of an individual unconscious mind, for Jung, the collec-
tive unconscious is a depository for the experiences of the human race.
Our collective unconscious may be made up of primordial archetypes.
Archetypal myths and stories seemingly reflect these ancient patterns
of emotional concerns and experiences. Some of the more profound
examples of these universal concerns and experiences can be found in
the Christian Bible, with stories about sibling rivalry and jealousy like
the one of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel out of jealousy, and
the one of Jacob who cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright.

47
48 DEEP LISTENING-

One very strong archetype is that of a God. I have come to see certain
stories told in conversations as similar to myths that contain this an-
cient archetype of God.
In Western culture we have a set of religious beliefs derived predomi-
nately from a Judeo-Christian ethic. Many of us were brought up to be-
lieve in a God high in the heavens who is all-seeing and all-knowing.
The belief in an all-knowing God or Gods, however, is more ancient
that the Judeo-Christian ethic. In any event, for people raised to believe
in a God who designed the universe we live in, who is able to see every-
thing that we do, and who sits in the heavens judging us, such a God
becomes by definition the ultimate authority figure, a kind of pre-tech-
nological great spy satellite in the sky.l
This image of God, then, becomes a very deeply rooted emotional
unconscious archetype, or template, that likely forms the basis of our
relationship with all authority figures. Accordingly, on an unconscious
level our experience with more worldly authority figures resonates to
our unconscious God template. When we are in a subordinate relation-
ship, then we may unconsciously experience ourselves as God's chil-
dren, with the authority figure as God. 2
Think of the God template as being like the simple arithmetic for-
mula 1 + 1 = 2. We can plug most anything into the abstract slots of the
formula and it will, of course, result in summing to 2. The basic God
template looks like this:

The (1-od Template

God God's Children
Authority Figures Subordinates
Parents Children
Employers Employees
Teachers Students
Psychologist Patients
Priests Parishioners
Government Officials Citizens
Group Leaders Group Members
 ~dTatk 49

As you can see in the above figure, any authority position automati-
cally belongs under the "God" slot and any subordinate position be-
longs to the "God's Children" slot. Because the T-group is a
microcosm of the everyday world, I have found this God template to
be quite pervasive in the stories told in conversations. Just as with the
references to the FBI and CIA mentioned in Chapter 2, there is sup-
portive evidence from the early literature in small groups and group
psychotherapy, where references to God have been obliquely noted
and thought to be "metaphorical" expressions of patient concerns
about the therapist,3
Throughout this chapter, I present literal references about God that
are likely subliteral references to my role as authority. Similarly, there
are many references to my authority role in different contexts through-
out the book. I need to point out that these references are to my role,
not to me personally. Concern with an authority figure in T-groups
and in social and work situations is typical.
At this point I need to reiterate the social context and concerns extant
in T-group type situations. This is important information for deeply lis-
tening to the following deep talk about God. The classic T-group leader-
ship style is to be nondirective, with the leader sitting relatively silent
most of the time, strategically commenting on the group process. This is
not entirely unlike many social and work situations. Such nondirective
conditions often create anxiety, ambiguity, and uncertainty among par-
ticipants. Consequently, in the initial stages of group development, the
leader is of major concern to participants (just as a relatively silent or
noncommunicative boss at work is or a silent parent at home is).
Initially not understanding a leader who seems to do nothing, mem-
bers of a T-group or similar social or work situations project into this
nondirective "void" their concerns and feelings: What is the leader/au-
thority thinking? Why isn't the leader helping? Why does he or she let
(as they experience it) the group flounder? Is the leader competent?
There are feelings of being abandoned, and of being cheated because
they are not getting what they think they should. They may feel that the
course text is not helping them. In addition, there are rivalry issues for
the attention of the trainer/leader, just as there are in similar everyday
50 VEEP L15TENIN4-

life situations. It's these concerns and feelings that can be mapped onto
the literal conversations.
As we will see, my deep listening informed me of what some mem-
bers were feeling about their group experience. On a literal level, I did-
n't know or at least I wasn't certain about how they were experiencing
the group. Assessing individuals and group concerns and issues is often
only possible by deep listening.
With each illustration in this chapter, I have included a chart that
summarizes the literal topics and their deep talk meaning. You may
want to look the charts over before reading the illustrations to give you
an advance picture of the discussion's organization and meaning. How-
ever, if you want to remain intrigued and surprised along the way, then
I recommend that you don't go to these summarizing charts until you
have finished the stories.

The Mysterious Mind of G-od

Because the Judeo-Christian God is an all-knowing one, people often

wonder what God is thinking about them. So too do people wonder
what a person in a position of authority is thinking about them. The
following example comes from a group discussion that was nearing its
end. A number of members who had been absent in previous sessions
were absent from this session as well. In response to these absences the
group briefly discussed the topics of divorce, aging, and death, which
are subliteral references to the absences being unconsciously experi-
enced as separations and death. This discussion of death was followed
by a more extended discussion about the pros and cons of religion.
These general concerns about authority and the specific concern about
the absent members are the predicating conditions that create the fol-
lowing deep talk.
Some members of the group felt that church was terrible because
Ministers and priests don't answer questions in church, like they should. It
was also mentioned by a few members that their Philosophy instructor
didn't really like to have questions asked in his class. Others felt that You
just have to 'believe' what priests say, for mortals cannot understand the
 ~dTalk 51

workings and complications of the world. And, At any rate, when you're
young, you couldn't understand religion, anyway. Another remarked that
he could Not believe in God when He let little children die. In response, it
was then said Men can't understand what God is doing and thinking.
Some maintained that Religion was too commercial, and that Billy Gra-
ham types make money by helping others but withhold their wealth. Fi-
nally the topic of religion petered out, and the topic switched to divorce
again.
To understand this discussion, we need to know something more
about its context. The group had split into two factions: those who
wanted the group to be more highly structured and who wanted me to
provide structure, and those who were more independent and who
wanted the group to naturally evolve (this is a standard split in many
group-meeting situations). The former made frequent eye contact with
me and directly attempted to elicit answers to their questions from me,
but they were largely unsuccessful. From time to time, they would find
ways to hurl little innuendoes at me about my not helping them. Map-
ping this piece of literal conversation onto the actual group situation
subliterally reveals the God template at work.
Their discussing the topic of God was deep talk about my role, the
authority, with the Church equivalent to the classroom. References to
priests and ministers were also about me, the authority. That ministers
and priests Don't answer questions in church like they should is deep talk
about my being nondirective and not answering their questions. Simi-
larly, the topic about A philosophy instructor who didn't really like to
have questions asked in his class is deep talk about my not answering
questions in the sessions. Having this topic mentioned twice is further
support of its subliteral meaning. Both topics subliterally show that
some members didn't accept the T-group philosophy of instruction:
On an unconscious level, it felt as if I didn't like questions asked in class.
The statement You just have to 'believe' what priests say for mortals
cannot understand the workings and complications of the world subliter-
ally indicated that some members, while not completely understanding
my philosophy of education and the group process, felt that it had to be
taken on faith, that my nondirective stance had a valid purpose behind
52 DEEP Ll5TENIN~

it. Thus, subliterally, to them my mind was mysterious-as is the mind

of God.
The statement about being too young to understand religion is deep
talk about them not having my years of experience that enabled me to
understand the group dynamics. Like the previous statement, it also re-
flects some members accepted on faith that I know what I am doing
and were not demoralized about the process. Others, however, were not
of the same opinion about their experience. The remark of the member
who said he could Not believe in God when He let little children die re-
flects a different opinion.
This is deep talk about some members' perception that they were not
learning anything from me and my nondirective style-that I was just
letting them die. But, again, other members were willing to stand on
faith, as indicated by the statement that Men can't understand what God
is doing. Like mortals (meaning novices) who can't understand God's
purposes, so they too can't understand the purpose that a nondirective
leader has in mind. This feeling was expressed as deep talk about God
having abandoned them.
The total disbeliever who maintained that religion was too commer-
cial and that Billy Graham-type ministers make money by helping others
but withhold their wealth is making deep talk about tuition paying my
salary and the perception that I was not giving anything in return. In
short, my nondirective style was equivalent to withholding information
from them.
The following is one way of verifying that all this deep listening is deep
talk about a special kind of topic. Special topics are typically cues that
there is a link between the here-and-now literal conversation and its sub-
literal meaning. Instead of defining what I mean, let me show you this
special kind of topic. Remember the topic about a Philosophy instructor
who didn't really like to have questions asked in his class that I suggested was
deep talk about my not answering questions in the group sessions? This is
one of those special topics. It's special because it is about an instructor and
a classroom situation just like the actual T-group class with an instructor.
Unlike the many other topics, this literal topic belongs to the same class or
category as the actual here-and-now situation. That is, the group mem-
bers' concerns as reflected in the literal topic about an instructor and a
 God Talk 53

classroom belongs to the same situations as their concerns about the here-
and-now instructor and classroom. It's thus a more direct linkage or paral-
lel to the here-and-now group situation than the other topics about God
or policemen or parents. I call this kind of topic a transitional topic.
Below is a summary chart of the literal topics of this entire illustra-
tion (on the left) and their deep talk equivalents (on the right).

The Mysterious Mind of (j-od Session Template

Literal Topics Sublderal Meaning
God/Priests/Ministers Trainer as the authority
figure
Children Group members
Church The classroom.
Priests/ministers not Trainer not answering
answering questions their questions in group
in church seSSIOns.
Philosophy instructor Trainer not answering
who didn't like questions in the questions
questions in his class seSSIOns.
Just have to "believe" Just have to "believe" trainer
priest on faith on faith
Can't understand what Can't understand trainer's
God is doing purpose
Mortals cannot = Those new to T-group world
understand the don't understand them
complicated world
Too young to understand Not having trainer's years of
religion expenence
Not believe in a God who Not believe in a trainer who
lets little children die lets them "die" or flounder
Billy Graham Trainer
Ministers making money Trainer paid by their tuition
money
Ministers who withhold Trainer withholding his their
wealth knowledge
54 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

If you were a supervisor or executive in the workplace, a teacher, or a

parent, this would be invaluable information for you.

The Written Word of (fod

Let's look at another example. This group had been discussing the in-
creased level of conflict that occurred during the previous session. When
unproductiveness or conflict reaches a certain level, I typically intervene.
It is this intervention that precipitated this illustration. I asked the group
(1) if they had read Albert Ellis's book, A Guide to Rational Living, that I
had assigned. I (2) suggested that Ellis had some important things to say
and that reading the book would help them as a group. I then explained
(3) that conflict in a group was not undesirable but was, in fact, necessary
for growth, and that the problem was the management, not the elimina-
tion, of conflict. There was a very brief discussion, then silence.
Following this silence, a number of topics were introduced but didn't
catch on (Again, an important point is to explain why certain topics are
selected for extended discussion with others falling by the wayside).
Then a member brought up the topic of religion, which the group be-
gan to discuss at some length. It was immediately clear that there were
members who were religious and members who were not. The disbe-
lievers said that God never helped anyone and that the Bible is only the
work of man and not to be taken as the last word. Then someone said
that You don't have to go to church to be religious and that These great
cathedrals that look like [... name of a college ... ] are just to brainwash
you. It was further asserted that When you missed church, you were
made to feel guilty. Finally, it was said that Many Christians were hyp-
ocrites, who coveted their neighbors' wives and husbands.
Once more, we can see the God template at work: As you likely suspect
by now, from a deep-listening perspective, the conversation about God is
about me as the authority figure in the group. This was indicated by the
statement that God never helped anyone, which, as in the group illustra-
tion above, is a reference to their perception of my not helping them learn.
That the Bible was only the work of man and not to be taken as the last word
is deep talk about their negative attitude toward Albert Ellis's book that I
 ~od Talk 55

had mentioned; subliterally Ellis's book is the Bible. This literal reference
about the Bible is also a negative reference to the other course readings
that I assigned, including their textbook, which I had written.
The statement that You don't have to go to church to be religious is
likely a deep-talk reference to the widespread belief that a person does-
n't have to go to college to learn. We all know the stereotypes about col-
lege courses: Ivory Tower academics versus knowledge about the "real
world." The statement that These great cathedrals that look like ...
[name of a college1. .. are just to brainwash you is deep talk about col-
leges being places of brainwashing. The statement When you missed
church, you were made to feel guilty is subliterally about a remark I had
made in the previous session about absenteeism in the group, indicat-
ing that my remark made them feel guilty.
The comment that Many Christians are hypocrites, who covet their
neighbor's wives and husbands is deep talk about a member who earlier
in the session had told of going with a married man and who had also
expressed that she was religious but did not go to church. It's also a ref-
erence to the various sexual tensions present in the group.
Once again, this is valuable information for a leader or trainer to
know. These concerns and attitudes were not evident by observing
and listening to the surface level of the group interaction and conver-
sation. In terms of the goals of aT-group, this "negative" talk is not in
fact negative at all; it reflects a growing independence from the au-
thority figure as well as an increasing group cohesiveness or feeling of
groupness. If this were talk by members of a staff or business meet-
ing, however, these words would very likely be spelling d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r.
Here is a summarizing chart of literal topics and their deep-talk
equivalents.

The Written Word of £Tod Session Template

Literal Topics Subliteral Meaning
God Trainer as the authority
figure
God never helped anyone Trainer not helping them.
56 VEEP LISTENING-

Bible = Course texts

The Bible is only the work = The Trainer/Ellis's books;
of man and not to be are not the only truth
taken as the last word
Church = Classroom/College
You don't have to go to College isn't the only place
church to be religious to learn things
These great cathedrals that = Places of Higher Learning
look like ...
[name of the college 1••. Colleges brainwash people
just brainwash you
When you missed church, = Trainer's remark on
you were made absenteeism
to feel guilty made them feel guilty.
Many Christians are = A member who told of going
hypocrites, who covet with a married man, and a
their neighbors' husbands reference to sexual tensions
and wives in the group.

Some groups who unconsciously express their God templates gener-

ate even more complex emotional deep-talk reactions to the author-
ity/leadership and nondirective situation. But before I continue with
another example, let me explain an additional meaning of what I call
God talk.
From the very earliest days of our childhood, an eternal concern we
all have is separation and loss, whether the loss is separation from sig-
nificant others like parents and siblings or just from familiar friends
and surroundings. This concern plays out on many levels in many dif-
ferent situations. In fact life can be seen as a series of separations and
losses beginning with the loss of our childhood, then separation from
parents, and later perhaps divorce, loss of a job, betrayal by a friend,
loss of our youth, and ending with the loss of our very life.
Often, people wonder why a personal loss is happening to them. We
like to have reasons for what happens to us; otherwise, our lives seem
meaningless and random. The theme of separation and loss runs
 ~od TaLk 57

through most human relationships. It belongs to a God template, too,

in both senses of the term. This universal theme marks God talk, too.
Thus God talk has three meanings: one that's literally about "God:' one
that refers to the universal aspect of a concern, and one that refers to
subliteral aspects of language and conversation.

lost child. of the Tribe

One of my group sessions began with a (1) member who had been
absent a number of times (2) announcing that she was going to drop
out of the group. She had threatened this in an earlier session, but the
group had persuaded her not to do so. After announcing this again
(3) she left, and the members said their good-byes to her; (4) at that
point I didn't say anything. There was a long silence. A male member
then said (5) that the group seems to have stabilized to 10 members.
Silence, again.
A young woman broke the silence by telling us about an interview
on the morning TV program, the Today show, where 3 guests gave
their opinions on whether or not legal records should be made available
to those who were adopted as children. She told us of a young woman
who gave up her child for adoption 10 years earlier but now wanted to
know about the child because it was still a part of her emotional life.
She said another person on the show had been adopted and had been
looking for his parents for 30 years. A third panelist maintained that
once given up for adoption, that should be the end of the matter; there
should be no more communication between the biological parent and the
adopted child.
The male in the group then told us of children who had been abused
and then placed with foster parents, but not given up forever. The idea
was to eventually return the child to his natural parents. Long silence.
The male broke the group silence by relating religion to the previous
topic. He said that he wondered about a God who lets terrible things hap-
pen, like child abuse. On the other hand, he said, maybe God is 'nondi-
recting,' adding that maybe He created mankind and let it 'naturally
evolve.' At this point, I interjected, saying that I agreed, explaining that
58 DEEP Ll5TENIN(l-

we are a microcosm of the larger world. I again, interjected with You

know, just like in here! The group saw the implication of my statement:
To the group, I was God. The group reacted emotionally to this impli-
cation as if it were blasphemous, with the young man-half under his
breath, saying, Hmmm, God, just like an instructor, to which he quickly
added Only on a much, much, much, much smaller scale. Silence befell
the group.
In this brief set of exchanges, a number of unconscious feelings are
expressed as deep talk. The first is the group's concern about separation
and loss. They were more concerned about losing a member than their
surface reaction would indicate. They didn't overtly react or discuss the
member who withdrew from the group, and on the surface, it didn't
appear that they were overly concerned at all. But we can see their deep
concern in the topic of parents giving up their children for adoption.
That is, the group had lost a "child;' so to speak, as indeed I had too,
since I was perceived as the parental figure in the group. Groups often
feel guilty when a member drops out. But often they secretly or uncon-
sciously blame the leader, thinking that she or he could have avoided it.
This blame was subliterally referenced by some members who won-
dered about a God who lets terrible things happen like child abuse, that is,
why I let the member drop out.
Other members, however, saw the loss as not necessarily due to a
mean God but rather in terms of their not being able to understand
God's reasons for letting the loss occur. In other words, maybe I had my
reasons that they didn't know about for letting her withdraw. That I
equaled God is indicated by the particular characterization of God's
motives as seen in the statements that maybe God is 'nondirecting: and
maybe He created mankind and let it 'naturally evolve: These are strange
characterizations of God. Certainly unusual.
The question is, why the use of this group language to apply to God?
The answer is that these references to being nondirective and naturally
evolving are from the language of their textbook and my initial lecture
describing the group experience. It's certainly strange to use the term
nondirective to describe God. Subliterally, then, the use of these partic-
ular words functions to link the literal topic of God to the here-and-
 ~odTalk 59

now group. In this latter case the speaker was momentarily aware of the
words' subliteral meaning. He was using them as conscious metaphors
to extend the implication that I was equivalent to God in the group. Of-
ten, however, such linguistic linkages are totally unconscious.
A further linguistic link is the use of the pronoun it in referring to
letting mankind naturally evolve. In terms of linguistic norms, it isn't
grammatically typical to refer to mankind as an it. However, referring
to a group as an it is linguistically normative. In referring to mankind,
he should have left the it out of the sentence, by saying He let mankind
evolve. Thus the it is a subliterallink to the here-and-now feelings in
the group.
That the group was not entirely conscious of its equation of me to
God is indicated by the response to my intervention You mean just like
in here! as blasphemous. Yet another linkage to the here-and-now situa-
tion is that the topic came from the Today show, which is deep talk for
the show today in the here-and-now group. Still another linkage that
supports the topic's subliterally referring to the group is the fact that it's
not by randomness or coincidence that there are 3 people on the Today
show, as there were 3 very dominant members in the group. In like man-
ner, it's no accident that the woman on the show gave up her child 10
years ago, the exact number of the remaining membership of the
group. Recall that right after the young woman left the group, the
young man then noted that the group seems to have stabilized to 10
members.
Like most subliteral conversations, this conversation, too, reveals
some of the differences between how members were viewing the
group. The topic of losing children to adoption reflects a member's
negative reaction to losing a group member. On the other hand, the
young man who introduced the topic of a mean God causing it all at
least has some doubts as to his being able to understand God's (that is,
my) motivation. This is supported by the fact that in the here-and-
now group the young man had been understanding the group process
better than most of the other members, so on some level, he under-
stood that the member's leaving wasn't my "fault." Here is the summa-
rizing figure of the deep meaning of this conversation:
60 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

Lost child of the Tribe Session Template

Literal Topics Subliteral Meaning
The Today show = The show today in the group
Three people on the Today = three dominant group
show members
Ten years ago, gave up ten remaining group
her child members
Adoption Member who withdrew
Parent = Trainer
Children Group members
Parents giving up their Trainer "gave up" a member
children for adoption
God = Trainer
Wonder about a God who Wonder why trainer let the
lets terrible things loss of a member happen
happen, like child abuse.
Not being able to = Not able to understand
understand God's reasons trainer's reasons for letting
for letting the loss occur. the loss occur
Maybe God is Reference to trainer's
"nondirecting" nondirective style
Maybe He created mankind = Trainer who created the
let it "naturally evolve" group and his philosophy of
letting it naturally evolve

Let's now look at a final and somewhat more complex, but fascinat-
ing, piece of God talk.

Many Are Called but Few Are Chosen

In the history of humankind, one of the most enduring concerns is that

someone else will get more than you will. Again this eternal template is
illustrated in the Christian Bible numerous times, beginning with the
stories of Cain and Abel and of Jacob and his brother. This illustration
 "i-od Talk 61

will show in detail how such concerns are expressed as deep talk. First
some context.
In the previous eighteen sessions of this group, I had limited my in-
terventions to brief clarifying remarks. As always in my groups, I focus
on the group level of behavior, very rarely upon an individual. Nor do I
take sides or comment on the content of discussions. In the previous
session, however, I had (1) spent a great deal of time pointing out the
implication of how people perceive each other. I did this by focusing on
a young man whom I will call John. (Because of the length of this illus-
tration, I'll give the more active members names.) John had been quite
strongly criticized in past sessions by most members of the group. I had
(2) also openly loaned him a tape recording of a group session, and (3)
at one point in the session I had loaned him my pen. I should note, too,
that (4) there was a colleague whom I was training in this group. These
four events are the main ones responsible for creating the following
deep-talk conversation.
After a few preliminary questions to me regarding a required term
paper, the group began discussing whether or not they had been too
hard on John during the last session. At this point John entered the room
and sat in the vacant seat on my left. A couple of members asked him if
they had Come down on him too hard? He replied, No, I really enjoyed it.
John then returned the audio tape recording of the last session to me,
saying that he had not finished listening to it, so I told him he could
keep the tape until next session. John then asked ifhe could borrow my
pen, and I said sure.
John had been outspoken in past sessions about his religious convic-
tions. In response to further questioning by the group on his religious
views, he said, If I seem that way, it's because I have God and I go by it.
You really roasted me last time. I know I can't expect all of you to act like
me just because I am that way. Another male member, Peter, said, You
really had to stand against the onslaught. .. of the devil. Much anxious
laughter ensued.
John then said, You've all seen that TV program where people are
roasted and called names. That's how you all got to me Thursday. Then
62 DEEP Ll5TENIN(f

another member said, It's hot in here, to which a member responded,

Last week when this was mentioned, I said we were going through The
Change [metaphorically referring to a group menopause]. Much laugh-
ter and a brief silence.
Then someone questioned whether the group was adhering to the
here-and-now rule [This is a rule that says all discussions must be
about something within the group, not about outside topics]. A mem-
ber responded, saying, I think it's a here-and-now situation . .. you
know, how we each project to others . .. am I being received the way I hear
things? At this point I intervened, suggesting that groups frequently use
an individual as a symbol of, or a scapegoat for widespread concerns
within the group as a whole, concerns the group doesn't want to deal
with. Whenever a group spends session after session concentrating on a
particular individual as we have, it's often an indication of scapegoating.
There then followed a lengthy and anxious silence. When the discus-
sion resumed, no mention was made of my comments.
Resuming the discussion, an older member who also had made no
secret as to his religious convictions said to John, I've been seeking clari-
fication of your Christian views. John interjected, saying, I know for a
fact that I am the only one in here that's apostolic [Note: As I understand
it, deriving from Catholicism, apostolic generally means being a sym-
bolic spiritual descendent of the twelve Apostles by successive ordina-
tions and baptisms]; that I'm the only one who has been baptized in
Jesus's name. I am quite sure. Some members then immediately ob-
jected. But he went on to say, You have been baptized Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, or sprinkled, but not in Jesus's name.
At this point, a heated discussion ensued, in which John said, I was
baptized underwater in Jesus's name. He went on to say that regular bap-
tism was not the same; that Just because you were baptized Father, Son
and Holy Ghost . .. those are just titles. When Jesus arose from the dead,
he told his disciples that all power is in the name of the Father, comma, the
Son, comma, and the Holy Ghost. He didn't say 'in the 'names with an's'
on it, he said name (singular). Another member replied that John was
hung up on words. I once more inquired if the conversation had any
here-and-now significance. I was ignored.
 ~od Talk 63

John then reiterated, I know that I'm the only one in here that has been
baptized in Jesus's name. Just because I am different. At this point, a
member interjected with, If others had been baptized the same as you,
you're saying they would have known it? John replied, Right. Another
member then asked, If we were all baptized underwater, then would we
all be the same? He responded that If you got the Holy Ghost, we would
all be alike. It was objected that First you say in Jesus's name, now it's the
Holy Ghost. Which is it? John replied that Those two scriptures went to-
gether. If you would all go to the Bible, then we would all have the same
goals.
In a delayed response to my question about the here-and-now rele-
vance of the topic, Peter, who had previously supported John, said,
There is the same process happening in here: Jesus was scrutinized, stoned,
and called crazy. It's a parallel. There were some joking references to
John as being like Jesus Christ. He denied it, of course, as did the other
members-and, I might add, quite vociferously. Then a member said
that perhaps John was Jesus's son. A member then said, What's this got to
do with the here-and now? to which another responded to John, It's the
way you are coming off to the group, putting yourself above us. Someone
then asked, Because I haven't gone through the same process that you have
gone through, can I be accepted in this class? John responded, On that
train of thought, dealing with this class, yes. The member who was ask-
ing if he could be accepted, continued, Whatever goal we as a group
have, as a class, can you accept us?
Then, referring to me, a supportive member said, He is our leader, to
which two other members immediately responded, He's not my leader.
He has taught me nothing in here. Peter then interjected, You'll change
your mind when you hit the gates. Silence ensued. I then asked, What
side of Jesus did Judas sit on at the Last Supper? There was much laugher
and puzzlement about the meaning of my comment. Then John, who
was sitting next to me, put his arm around and on the back of my chair.
There were looks of surprise at this gesture of familiarity. Silence. Ad-
dressing my question, a couple of members said they thought Judas sat
on the left ofJesus, at least according to artist's conceptions. John added,
He sat close to Jesus because Jesus said whosoever shall sup with me on
64 VEEP L1STENIN4-

bread-and he put something in Jesus's cup-shall have everlasting life.

And then Jesus told him [JudasJ to go and do what he had to do-and to
do it quickly.
The discussion then revolved around whether the biblical quote
about where Judas sat was correct or not. Silence. A member then di-
rected the group into how they perceived each other. John got up and
quickly left the group, leaving his coat and books behind. A few minutes
later, he rushed back into the room out of breath and announced that
he had looked up the quote and that he was right about what side of Je-
sus Judas sat on. The group continued, giving their perceptions of each
other until the end of the session.

Now, what does all this God talk mean? I mean, subliterally. First, it's
important to note a little more about the social contexts of human be-
havior. Whenever a person is perceived as having been singled out by
someone in a position of authority, it's often unconsciously felt-both
by the person being singled out and by the other people involved. The
person being singled out is seen as special (as if the person had been
specially "anointed"). Now let's begin to decode this piece of God talk
in more detail [Note: Along the way, see if you can predict how many
members are in this session] .
John's remark, I know for a fact that I am the only one in here that is
apostolic, that I'm the only one who has been baptized in Jesus's name. I
am quite sure, subliterally means that he is the special one in the group.
And he is correct. What his remark is essentially all about is (1) my sin-
gling him out by calling attention to him, (2) his being used as a scape-
goat, (3) my having loaned him an audio tape of a session, and (4) my
having loaned him my pen by personally handing it to him. Indeed, he
was "anointed:' You will note that he repeatedly emphasizes that he
knows he is the special one by his saying that he knows for a fact that he
is the only one in here that is apostolic, and that he is quite sure. The
question arises, on a literal level how could he be so sure? After all, he
doesn't really know the life history of all members. Yet, he repeats that
he is certain. He can be so sure precisely because he is not really talking
about what he knows of the members' lives outside the group, but what
 ~dTalk 65

he has actually observed in here, in the group. How else could he be so

adamantly certain? Thus, the prepositional phrase in here literally cues
and is a link to the fact that deep talk is afoot.
Moreover, after already saying I know for a fact, why did he use the
word sure? Why not simply say "I am quite certain;' or "There is no
doubt about it;' or "It's incontestable;' or any other equivalent phrasings
and words? The answer is that his use of the word sure is yet another
clue and linkage to the deep-talk nature of this conversation. Recall that
when he asked if he could use my pen, I responded by saying sure.
John's asserting that You have been baptized Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost or sprinkled, but not in Jesus's name subliterally means that the
other group members have only been the recipients of general remarks
by me (equaling Father), the co-trainer (Son) and by the group-as-a-
whole (Holy Ghost), but not in a direct and personalized way by me
(that is, in Jesus's name), and thus his subliteral apostolic status is de-
rived directly from me. He had been directly and "successively" or-
dained by me.
His remark that I was baptized underwater means that by being fo-
cused on, he was submerged in the group process compared to the rest
of the members, indeed, as no one else had been. His comment that
Just because you are baptized Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. . . these are
just titles again probably means that each member has only been the re-
cipient of general remarks by me, the co-trainer, and the group as a
whole. His comment about When Jesus arose from the dead is deep talk
about my finally becoming active (or alive) in the group. Continuing
this comment, he said that Jesus told his disciples (the group) that All
power is in the name of the Father, comma, the Son, comma, and the Holy
Ghost. He didn't say in the 'names' with an's' on it, he said name [mean-
ing singular].
That Jesus did not say in the names of, with an's' (denoting a plural
noun) is deep talk for all power in the group, all action being derived
from me (that is, father or Jesus), not from the co-trainer (the son) or the
group (Holy Ghost). The rest of the group is baptized in Jesus's name
(note that name is singular). That this likely equals myself is indicated by
the fact that my name, Haskell, does not end with an s. However, the co-
66 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

trainer's name, Heapes, does. Further, his statement, If you had the holy
ghost, we would all be alike, is a deep-talk reference to the fact that if I had
focused on them in the same way they would all be equal.
Moreover while the Holy Ghost (which also equals the perceived
messages from me) did not tell John how he should behave, it was per-
ceived that he should behave in a certain manner. In response to the
charge by another member that, First you say Jesus, now it's the Holy
Ghost, which is it? John responded, Those two scriptures went together.
This is a reference to me and my word and/or my textbook. This is in-
dicated by the remark, If you would all go to the Bible, then we would all
have the same goals, that is, if the group would all go by my textbook,
then the group would all work smoothly.
The term goal, too, is a rather strange term to use in relation to the
Bible and the discussion about religion. It's a term, however, that was
repeatedly used in the textbook material. The term goal is thus a link-
age of the subliteral topic to the here-and-now discussion. The com-
ment of two scriptures may also be a reference to the colleague whom I
was training and myself.
In my question about What side of Jesus did Judas sit on at the Last
Supper? I was indirectly referring to John, who was sitting on my left.
He was felt to be Judas because he was "betraying" his peers by always
mentioning the course material, which made the others look bad. I
was trying to indirectly cue them into the deep-talk nature of their
conversations. John's reaching over and placing his arm around and
on the back of my chair was either a conscious or semiconscious ac-
tion and likely a semiconscious recognition of his understanding the
deep talk.
A member's comment that he thought Judas sat on the left of Jesus
was perhaps an unconscious recognition of John's symbolically being
Judas. John's response that He sat close to Jesus because Jesus said whoso-
ever shall sup with me on bread-and he put something in Jesus's cup-
shall have everlasting life is likely, again, deep talk for my "sharing" the
audio tape and my pen with him. And of course, he was sitting next to
me. This analysis is indicated by the fact that shortly after concluding
his statement that Jesus told him [JudasJ to go and do what he had to do
 4-0d Talk 67

and to do it quickly, John got up and without saying a word-and like

Judas-he quickly left the group. Here we have an illustration of deep
or subliteral action (see Chapter 2.)
The inquiry about whether the rest of the members could be ac-
cepted in the class even though they had not gone through the process
that he had gone through, John's response, On that train of thought
dealing with the class, yes, means: from the point of view of it being a
class (that is, in my thoughts) they could be accepted, but they are still
not equal since they have not been favored in the way he was perceived
to be by me. The remark by another member that He's not my leader. He
has taught me nothing in here means that since he believed that I have
taught the group nothing, that he would not be my disciple. Finally, John's
comment that You'll change your mind when you hit the gate is deep talk
for they will change their minds when grades are due, the time of judg-
ment in the course.
Finally, need I note at this point that the group was composed of
twelve members-my "disciples"?

Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen Session Template

Literal Topics Subiteral Meaning
I know for a fact that I The only member that has
am the only one in here been singled out by the
that is apostolic; that I'm trainer as special
the only one who has
been baptized in Jesus's
name. I am quite sure.
You have been baptized = Other members have only
Father, Son, and Holy been the recipients of
Ghost or sprinkled, but general attention by trainer
not in Jesus's name
The Father = The trainer
The Son = Co-trainer
Holy Ghost = Attention by the group
68 DEEP Ll5TENIN~

In Jesus's name Trainer's name

Baptized underwater = Submerged in the group
process
When Jesus arose from the Trainer finally being active
dead
When Jesus told his disciples = Trainer told the group
Jesus said all power is in the = All power derives from the
name of the Father, comma, trainer whose name does not
the Son, comma, and the end with an "s" as does the
Holy Ghost. He didn't say co-trainer's name.
in the 'names' with an's'
on it, he said name
If you had the Holy Ghost, If they had been focused on
we would all be alike individually, they would then
be alike
Those two scriptures went My verbal and written words
together
If you would all go to the = If all would read the
Bible, then would all textbook then would have
have same goals same goals
Judas = Is the scapegoated member
The twelve disciples 12 group members
He sat close to Jesus because = Member sitting on trainer's
Jesus said whosoever left shared the trainer's
shall sup with me on bread audiotape and pen.
-and he put something
in Jesus' cup ...
Shall have everlasting life Shall be favored by a higher
course evaluation
Jesus told him [Judas] to go = Scapegoated member got up
and do what he had to do quickly left the group
and to do it quickly
You'll change your mind = They will wish they changed
when you hit the [pearly] their view at the end of the
gate, course when grading time
has come
 G-od Talk 69

We can see that talking about God is a prevalent substitute for deep
talk for feelings and concerns about authority figures. We also saw
that what I have termed God talk refers not just to talk about God but
to deep "meaning" templates or "forms" in the mind. But more than
this, from the illustrations in this chapter, we can see that deep talk is
not just a "slip" of the mind but involves parallel universes of mean-
ing, where multiple and intricate meanings from the deep layers of
our mind are consistently tracked and mapped onto literal topics and
stories.
There are, of course, other templates with their many apparently dif-
ferent contents or stories. For example, there are privacy templates,
where stories about newspaper reporters, novelists, or the governmen-
tal Freedom of Information Act may all be the same deep talk about a
single privacy concern in the here-and-now conversation. There are ri-
valry templates, as we saw in the opening of this chapter, where the ar-
chetypal stories of Cain and Abel and between Jacob and his brother
are the content. There are as many templates as there are human feel-
ings, concerns, and issues.
 Veep Listening About
Relationships: What
Friends) Coworkers) and
Employers Won't Tell You
I have been at great pains to argue that one of the most
ubiquitous and powerful discourse forms in human com-
munication is narrative. Narrative structure is even inher-
ent in ... social interaction before it achieves linguistic
expression.
JEROME BRUNER
Acts of Meaning'

As we have seen, people's real feelings are typically not available to us.
They often hold back from making their real feelings known. Often
people's hidden feelings aren't even available to themselves. Without
deep listening to these hidden feelings, you are at a distinct disadvan-
tage. Your being successful as either an employer or employee may de-
pend on this kind of deep information.
In this chapter I will extend the idea of eternal templates that hu-
mans have acquired throughout the ages to relationships with friends,
coworkers, employers, and other authority figures. It is these templates
of human existence that provide the emotional universal source for

71
72 DEEP LISTEN/Ncr

the enduring Greek tragedies, for the works of Shakespeare, and for
other great and enduring literature around the world. It's from this
common emotional experience of the conflicts and troubles in the
everyday life of the human relationships that the great works of litera-
ture speak to us.
Alongside these grand templates, there are less existentially profound
ones, some of which are quite mundane, even petty. Given these nearly
universal concerns, it's not surprising that many of them are expressed
and can be observed in everyday conversations-both literally and sub-
literally. In the course of daily human interactions, some of the con-
cerns that people have are legitimate, but some seem just plain
irrational. Throughout the years I have found these concerns are sublit-
erally represented by a number of surprisingly consistent stories.
These themes include competition, rivalry, jealously, double stan-
dards, separation and loss, and others that are more positive-the pos-
itive ones, however, don't seem to be as abundant as the negative ones.
Many of these interpersonal themes revolve around gender and racial
or ethnic concerns (see Chapters 8 and 9). Whether rational or irra-
tional, these themes are based on people's perceptions or feelings of
what they think and feel is happening.
Of course we can't talk about authority figures without talking at the
same time about those who they exert authority over: subordinates. Ac-
cordingly, I have found equally surprisingly consistent stories by subor-
dinates about feeling like children, students, mental patients, and
criminals. The themes or plots of these stories often revolve around
feelings of being abused by authorities, around issues of fairness and
double standards, and especially around feelings about whether the
leader is competent. Thus everyone in a leadership position, whether as
a parent, a boss, or teacher, needs to deeply listen about what subordi-
nates are feeling. Though the illustrations to follow occurred in my
groups and social life, watch for their sequels coming all too soon to a
workplace or family near you.
Whether leader or authority figures are represented in narratives as
benevolent or malevolent is determined by how members perceive they
are being treated by a leader or an authority figure. This concern with
 Veep Listening About Relations 73

leaders and authorities runs deep. Most of us learned early in life to be

careful what we revealed to our parents, to withhold certain of our feel-
ings for fear of reprisal. And many of us have wondered-at least at
times-if these all-powerful figures were competent. We certainly
hoped they were-and are.
At varying times in our lives we are all in positions of leadership and
authority, whether as an older sibling, the captain of a team, a supervi-
sor in the workplace, or simply as one who has higher social status than
one's friends. In speaking of leadership and authority, then, "they" are
us. Wouldn't you like to know that "they" are thinking about us? By
deep listening to deep talk, you can.
Communicating with each other is a difficult and complicated
process. Think about it for a moment. Each of us is confined to our
own minds. We have no way to see into another person's mind or to
feel their feelings. We are as the German philosopher and mathemati-
cian, Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716), said, individual Monads, com-
pletely sealed-off units, floating around the universe with no way of
seeing into other people's worlds. We often don't know, for example,
when someone we are talking to is bored or is competing with us, or a
host of other interpersonal things. We don't know because all too often
the other people may not have conscious access to what they are feel-
ing, or because they simply won't tell us. Either way, deep listening for
subliteral meaning can help us to find out what's going on in another
person's universe. Such talk occurs with intimates as well as relative
strangers. If we listen carefully to their talk, the finer nuances of their
feelings may become clear.

What5 ~oing On Here, Anyway?

As we carryon our conversations, not only our conscious but our un-
conscious mind is always vigilant for any sign of perceived insult, of be-
ing boring, of bragging, of injustice, or of any behaviors or attitudes
that are outside the norms of our expectations or what we think is ac-
ceptable behavior. Our unconscious picks up on these social violations
that our conscious mind doesn't pick up on.
74 VEEP Ll5TENINCT

Recall from Chapter 2 the many little 2-by-3-inch yellow slips of pa-
per that I always used to keep with me to write down ideas and insights
that I might think of at any time. While still in the early stages of devel-
oping the idea of deep talk, I was taking graduate seminars as a part of
my doctoral studies. In these seminars, I frequently had these little yel-
low slips of paper spread out in front of me. I was constantly shuffling
through them and springing forward to write something down before I
forgot the idea. From time to time, I was aware of the other graduate
students and the professors looking at me rather strangely.
In one of these seminars, seemingly out of nowhere and apparently
unconnected to his lecture, a professor began to talk about a crazy col-
league he once knew. It seemed that whenever anyone went to the col-
league's office his desk was strewn with pieces of paper that he would
write on-even while people were talking to him! The implication was
that this was not a very polite thing to do.
It doesn't take a psychoanalyst to figure out that the professor's story
was a reference to my writing on little slips of paper while he was lectur-
ing. Although it may seem that the professor's remark may have been a
conscious kind of indirect hint to me, from the context of the situation,
it didn't seem to be. From a literal perspective, this was a classroom
where students are supposed to take notes, so it wouldn't make sense
for him to be consciously giving me a hint that I was being impolite.
Being just a lowly student, I wasn't going to ask him about the meaning
of his comment. Besides, he would have thought I was a paranoid. In
any event, he would have likely denied that he was doing so.
This example clearly points out that in many of these subliteral illus-
trations, it may seem that the person must know what he or she is really
saying, that statements like "I don't want to bore you" reflect one of
those occasions when the speakers are conscious of what they are say-
ing. As this analysis shows, however, in many situations speakers are
not aware of what may appear to be an indirect but conscious hint.
While in a restaurant one day, my daughter, Melyssa, who was then
around five years old, asked her mother and me the eternal question
about how babies were born. She had always been very curious about
things. Well, her mother and I explained pregnancy as best we could to
 Veep Listening About Relations 75

a five-year-old. When we seemed to have reached an appropriate end to

our explanation, there was a slight pause and my wife and I began talk-
ing about the events of the day. Then Melyssa tugged on my sleeve,
turned herself toward me and asked, What do you think of my shirt,
Dad? An innocent enough question. Or was it? On her T-shirt was a de-
cal-at stomach level-of a banana that was depicted as a little child. In
deep-listening terms, I would say that Melyssa's question was certainly
pregnant with meaning.
Now was she conscious of her action of showing me this decal? With
young children it's hard to tell. Sometimes this dichotomy between
conscious and unconscious doesn't seem to apply to children. It's often
a mixture. Let me describe another piece of deep talk by Melyssa. It oc-
curred one Halloween evening. I was playfully squeezing, hugging, and
kissing her. While I was doing this, she was trying to open her Hal-
loween bag of goodies that she had collected from the neighborhood.
As she opened the bag, she spied something within, and exclaimed, Oh,
it's one of those doodaddy things [meaning a gadget or trinket that does-
n't really have a precise name J. What might this apparently literal state-
ment mean subliterally? I maintain that it was a reference to me
playfully squeezing, hugging, and kissing her. Unconsciously, she was
acknowledging that I was engaging in those things that Daddy's do, or
doodaddy things. I suspect this deep talk didn't have the degree of con-
sciousness about it that the previous example may have.
In any event, this kind of deep listening often reveals hidden mean-
ing about what people are thinking about you and the conversation
they are having with you. One evening my then-wife and I were taking
an evening walk. Because I tend to be a hyper person with my brain go-
ing faster than my mouth can, I was rambling on half incoherently and
stumbling over my words, mispronouncing them and repeating sylla-
bles. I had no sooner finished one of these broken sentences as we were
passing a yard with one of those fences that have vertical spokes or
slats, when she said-out of a myriad of things she could have said-
There's a fence with a broken spoke. Now she wasn't just literally men-
tioning that she noticed that one of the fence slats was broken. She was,
in fact, unconsciously commenting on the fact that I had spoke( en) in a
76 DEEP LlSTENIN(T

broken manner. Hence, the particular phrase, broken spoke. Here we see
the word spoke being used literally as a noun, referring to a connecting
piece of wood in a fence, and unconsciously as a verb referring to my
speaking.
When meeting someone for the first time, we often take notice of
how they look and take particular note of any distinguishing character-
istics. Sometimes we express our reactions to these characteristics sub-
literally. I was watching a TV talk show some years ago that was hosted
by Merv Griffin.2 He was introducing the actress Virginia Graham, who
was a rather plump and large-framed woman. He began by describing
her long career and distinguished list of credits in show business, as he
often did when welcoming people. At the end of this list of credits, he
added, She's a real heavyweight, literally meaning that she was one of
the great figures in show business. He no more than had spoken the
words She's a real heavyweight when he realized the implications of
what he had subliterally said and showed his embarrassment. He had
let his recognition of her weight "slip" out. This example of deep talk
from the media may appear to have been consciously scripted. I have
found, however, that this is frequently not the case. Again, the transfor-
mation of the visual and oral cues of deep talk into a print medium
loses a great deal of information and cues for assessing whether the
person was consciously creating the "slip" or pun.

Are You goring People?

Most of us occasionally wonder whether we are boring the person we

are talking with. But, of course, even your spouse or best friend will sel-
dom tell you the awful truth. When we ask them, their answer will
likely be "Oh, not at all." We have all told these little social lies from
time to time. So how are you to know if you are boring someone? The
answer is, by deep listening to their deep talk.
One evening, my then-wife and I and our friend and colleague were
having an evening of what I, at least, thought was engrossing conversa-
tion, as we often did. The previous day, I had bought a new stereo sys-
tem with two very nice stereo speakers. Now, my colleague is a very
 Veep Listening About Relatiol15 77

knowledgeable and extremely verbal and articulate fellow. On this oc-

casion, we had been talking for quite some time, and he was carrying
on at great length about some subject. My wife and I found it difficult
to get a word into the conversation. During my colleague's monologue,
she was casually looking around the room, obviously bored. At this
point-and totally unrelated to what our friend was talking about-
she interrupted his monologue and asked, Where's the other speaker?
Literally, the question Where's the other speaker referred to the new
stereo speaker. As always, we must ask ourselves why this particular
subject was interjected into the conversation at this particular time?
The answer is dear: Subliterally, this question dearly meant, why is he
doing all the talking? Why isn't someone else talking, too? In short,
where is the other speaker in this conversation?

'Being Perceived as a 'Braggart

One of the most egregious social faux pas, and one which is recognized
in most cultures around the world, is to be perceived as bragging about
yourself. People usually pick up immediately on such ego trips. The
problem is we don't have control over how others perceive whether we
may actually be bragging or not. Here's a case in point.
While sitting on my porch one day sorting through my note cards, a
former student who happened to be driving by stopped to chat with
me. I am not an especially talented conversationalist when it comes to
superficial conversation, so he did most of the talking. He talked in a
free-associating or near stream-of-consciousness manner, as much of
this meaningless kind of chitchat tends to be. In between breaths, he
paused for a moment, looked at all my note cards and asked what I was
doing-Was I writing a book, or something? With a matter-of-fact tone,
I quite tersely replied, Yes, I am working on a number of things, a book, a
professional article, and a talk for a conference. He said, Oh. Pausing for a
moment, he slipped back into his stream-of-consciousness talk. He be-
gan by telling a story about A man he knew who was always bragging
about the things he was doing. Subliterally, he obviously perceived me as
bragging. Taken somewhat aback at this, I thought to myself, "Oh, is
78 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

that what you think I was doing-bragging? I thought you were the
one who asked me what I was doing:' So much for being able to control
what others perceive.
Maybe this one will have a familiar sound, too. A few years ago my
wife and I bought a small run-down summer cottage in Maine where I
grew up and knew quite a few people. For the first couple of summers
we were busy trying to make the cottage livable. I had to completely gut
the place and put it back together. Consequently, we had no time to so-
cialize. When the cottage was finally decent enough for company, we
invited some old friends for an evening of conversation. Having not
seen our guests for some years, the conversation was rapid-fire chitchat
with free-floating associations to various topics. The initial small talk
finally got around to discussing our cottage, so my wife and I pro-
ceeded to give our guests the "grand tour:'
In the stream of conversation, one guest started telling us about a
party she had attended a few weeks before. It seemed that, like us, the
people having the party had just finished redecorating their home.
Sandwiched in between talking about the party, and other fleeting top-
ics, my guest said that They only had the party to show off their redeco-
rating work. Unconsciously-and, again, I believe this comment wasn't
a conscious snide remark-the speaker's feelings about our motivation
for inviting them were clear. We only had the party to show off our redec-
orating work. As for our real motivation, of course we wanted to "show
our cottage off," but human motivation is typically much more com-
plex than this. We wanted to see our old friends, too. So much for brag-
ging about our cottage. The human species is a strange lot.

of Professors and Madmen

I mentioned in Chapter 2 that we can often catch ourselves engaging in
deep talk. Here is another example that I caught myself doing. First to
the context and then to the subliteral punch line. Many years ago I
taught at a community college. We who have taught at two-year col-
leges at some point in our career thought of ourselves as "second-class"
academics, seeing faculty who taught at four-year institutions as the
 Veep Listening About Relations 79

real "professors:' Over the years since I graduated to being a university

professor, I have maintained a relationship by an occasional phone call,
and more recently bye-mail, with a colleague at the two-year college
where I taught. I will call him Jack. Jack was a physically imposing man
who had an intellect to match. He read vociferously and was always in-
tensely ranting and raving about something, often about some theoret-
ical' intellectual, or social issue.
Jack would have been a brilliant scholar had he been on a university
faculty. His teaching at a community college was like using a Maserati
to go only to the corner store. For one reason or another, he never
made this transition, however, and felt trapped. He was clearly eccen-
tric, too. I empathized with his situation, and over the years feared that
he might someday go crazy. In response to an e-mail discussion, I
would occasionally send him the title of a book (as he would me).
Hardly ever did I send him a book title just out of the blue. The books
were usually related to our e-mail correspondence. Recently I had just
finished reading an absolutely fascinating book. I went to my computer
and sent Jack the title of the book The Professor and the Madman. This
is a story about a major contributor to the making of the Oxford Eng-
lish Dictionary who did so from a mental hospital, unbeknownst to the
editors. Was my unconscious mind showing an aspect of what I
thought about Jack, that he was "metaphorically" speaking like a mad-
man? Perhaps. Being at a four-year university, I of course am the profes-
sor in the title (I think).

compliments and Remarks of Appreciation

At this point, you may have observed that almost all of the illustrations
of deep listening have been about either neutral expressions of how we
use language or of negative feelings or attitudes. You might be wonder-
ing if deep talk is ever about more positive and pleasant feelings and at-
titudes. My reply is, yes, there are positive ones, but they are quite
rare-or so it seems. Why subliteral compliments seem quite rare is
probably due to the fact that most people don't withhold pleasant feel-
ings, since there are virtually no social sanctions for expressing positive
80 VEEP Ll5TENINCr

feelings like there are for expressing negative ones. More importantly,
unlike positive feelings, negative ones tend to be much more strongly
felt. Consequently, these withheld feelings cry to be released. Neverthe-
less, we may also withhold compliments, either because we might feel
embarrassed, because our pride may be hurt if we expressed them, or
because we don't want to be seen as ingratiating. To compliment your
boss might be perceived by your coworkers as brown-nosing. In addi-
tion, since most people, including myself, are more vigilant for negative
feelings, perhaps I just haven't noticed deep talk about positive expres-
sions as much as I have negative ones.
One of the first expressions of positive deep talk that I noticed oc-
curred while I was a doctoral candidate. I was sitting in my dissertation
committee chairman's office discussing an issue regarding my disserta-
tion, when a well-known professor of small-group communications re-
search appeared in the open doorway. He saw that there was a
discussion in progress, and there was a brief awkward silence, as typi-
cally happens in such situations. My chairman beckoned to the profes-
sor, saying "Come on in, we're just sitting here talking:' The professor
briefly glanced at me, and there ensued another, but shorter, awkward
silence as I merely looked at him and then turned away.
The professor fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment, not knowing
exactly what to say. He then said, to my chairman, Oh, did I tell you we
have one of the very bright graduate students of-I'll call him Dr. Jones
(a well-known scholar)-joining our department? She left him, told him
just where he could go, too. No one has ever done that. You really have to
respect her for not bowing down to him. The professor's eyes then ever so
fleetingly glanced over at me again, as sometimes occurs in those little
micro moments of eye contact. After more chitchat with my chairman,
the professor left.
Now, what did this conversation really mean? I mean sub literally?
Was it simply a literal piece of information that the professor of small-
group communications came to tell my chairman, or was it merely a
piece of small talk generated by an obviously uncomfortable social sit-
uation? Or was it a piece of deep talk? If it's deep talk, how is one to as-
sess this verbal exchange? (See Figure 4.1.)
 Veep Listening About Relations 81

The Profe"o~8 Compliment Mmx Map

FIGURE 4.1 The Professor's Compliment Matrix Map

Since words only mean in a context, to understand the full meaning

you need to be aware of the context that this piece of talk belonged to.
It has a history outside of the social micro moment that it occurred in.
The professor who walked into the office had been my graduate ad-
viser for a brief period of time, until I refused to be his disciple. I had
told him that our relationship was not going to work out. Even at that
time, I was working on my theory of deep talk and wasn't about to be
sidetracked into someone else's research agenda. Like the professor in
the story he told, he, too, was well-known and respected in his field and
wasn't accustomed to having graduate students refuse to work with
him. Indeed, most graduate students considered it an honor to be se-
lected to work with him.
With the telling of his story about the very bright graduate student
who left Dr. Jones, telling him just where he could go, and noting that
no one had ever done that before, that the graduate student had to be
respected for not bowing down to him, my former graduate adviser
was subliterally acknowledging to me that although I had defected
from him over to my chairman, he nevertheless respected me for my
82 DEEP lISTENIN£T

independence. Again, I have no doubt that he was not aware of what he

had subliterally said. Pride would have prevented him for doing so. In
any event, thanks, Doc.
Here's another example of hidden thoughts of appreciation. One of
my groups was discussing their frustration with what they perceived as
a lack of progress in becoming a cohesive group. A member suggested
that We need to read more of the text material. As typically occurs with a
suggestion to read my textbook for the course, there followed a silence.
I then intervened, saying that groups often didn't read and apply the
material in the text because of a norm against not Showing each other
up, that groups had what is called a rate-busting norm. I explained that
the term rate-busting is from industry, where a worker may outper-
form his or her coworkers, making them look bad. The coworkers then
may bring sanctions to bear on the rate-buster. Silence.
They ignored what I said because to have discussed it would have cre-
ated conflict amongst them. So, they just continued with chitchat. Then
a member suggested that the group examine how they had been com-
municating with each other, but this, too, soon ended in silence. At this
point, an older woman in the group said, Why can't people be nice to one
another? Why can't we say nice things to people when they do something
good? A heavy silence ensued. What did her statement mean subliterally?
In previous sessions, the older woman had complained of the lack of
rules in the group and in particular of my failure to contribute to the
sessions. While she complained that she was unable to understand the
dynamics without help, she was always polite and courteous in doing
so and was not as counter-dependent as the younger members. The
previous session I had drawn a diagram on the blackboard explaining
the major dynamics of groups. I had done this quietly, during a period
of much small talk. Without saying anything, I returned to my seat.
As is typical in a stage where the group is beginning to develop inde-
pendence from me, the group totally ignored my diagram. Only a cou-
ple of members took brief notes on what I had put on the board, and
only the older woman took extensive notes. Even into the next session
no one mentioned my active contribution. The older woman's inquiry,
Why can't people be nice to one another? Why can't we say nice things to
 Veep Listening About Relations 83

people when they do something good? was her way of subliterally thank-
ing me for my help in explaining some of the dynamics that were oc-
curring in the group.
As I sometimes do when I suspect that the deep talk may be coded
speech that the person is aware of, I later asked the woman if she could
explain why her comment came at this particular point in the discus-
sion, since it seemed to have no connection with the previous com-
ments. She replied she didn't know why she said it at that point. I then
asked her how she felt when I had put the diagram on the board. She
replied, Grateful. I also asked her how she felt when I had commented
on the group dynamics earlier this session. She replied, I was relieved. I
then asked if she saw any connection between her remark and my in-
structional contributions prior to her remark. Even with this hint, she
shook her head, No. When I shared my complete interpretation with
her, her eyes opened wide, and she gasped Oh, my God! That's right. So
much for being the conscious masters of our intent and the captains of
our language.

Whats Hidden in a Name?

I opened Chapter 1 with the example of the name of the famous rock
group the Grateful Dead used as deep talk for feeling bored or dead in a
meeting and feeling grateful for being out of the meeting and on coffee
break. This was an example of how people use names as deep talk for
expressing how they feel. In being vigilant and deeply listening, then,
you should always be on the lookout for names used in conversations:
names of musical groups, names of famous people, titles of movies,
product brands, or names of people whom the members of a conversa-
tion may personally know.
Sometimes names combine pun-like sound relations and the embed-
ding of a name within another name. For example, one afternoon, I
was at a friend's house for an in-ground barbecue. When the time came
to begin to put the food in the pit my friend had dug, someone noticed
that the pit was far too small for all the food that needed to be cooked.
Many of the people who were gathered around agreed. Others just
84 VEEP LlSTENINCr

laughed. Then someone said that digging such a small pit was fool-
hardy, literally meaning that it was foolish to have dug such a small in-
ground barbecue pit. The deep-listening point here is that my friend's
last name was Hardy. In other words, what a fool Hardy was. While this
example is not an earth-shaking one, it show the mind's cognitive ma-
chinery at work.
An example of using similar-sounding names to subliterally express a
thought or feeling about a person occurred in one of my groups that
was concerned about a particular male member's experimenting on
them by trying out different leadership and communication techniques.
He was very good at adopting the different techniques mentioned in
my reading material for establishing good relationships and feelings
among members. Because he was just learning these techniques, at
times his style seemed a bit artificial. Following a slight pause in the
conversation, another member began talking about movies.
In particular, the member talked about the movie director Stanley
Kubrick, who is well-known for his movie Dr. Strangelove, among oth-
ers. Now, there are two very interesting aspects to the selecting the
name Stanley Kubrick out of all the possible famous directors' names
that could have been selected into the discussion. The first is that
Kubrick was well-known at the time for the special effects in his movies.
The second and most interesting is that the last name of the member
the group was having concerns about was Kulick. Thus, what the group
was subliterally commenting on was the special effects-like quality of
interpersonal techniques the member was applying. Perhaps the mem-
ber who selected Stanley Kubrick's name to subliterally comment on
Kulick's use of techniques to try to create warm feelings in the group
felt that his engaging in these special effects for forming personal rela-
tionships in the group was a strange kind of love.
This example was identified by a colleague whom I was training to
conduct groups and for deep listening. The particular day that this ex-
ample occurred, I was absent from the group. The group was composed
of a mixture of hippie types, middle-class students, and two state
troopers who made their identities known immediately. Members of
the group were just getting to know each other and were expressing
 Veep Listening About Relatiol1.S 85

their frustration, anger, and confusion with the apparent lack of pur-
pose and with what they perceived as a lack of leadership. During this
session, a number of topics were thrown in for possible discussion but
only the topic of drugs was selected for more extensive discussion. In
talking about drugs, most of the hippie-type members said drugs
should be legalized. The group also talked about how The quality of ser-
vice was down in society at large and how big pharmaceutical compa-
nies like Upjohn ripped people off.
On one level the statement that the quality of service was down sug-
gests that they thought that with my absence, leaving only the junior
trainer in the group, who like myself was nondirective, the quality of
service was down in the group even more than usual, and thus they were
being ripped off. That is, my colleague was ripping off students just as
they perceived the drug company Upjohn was ripping off customers.
More particularly, it's significant that the drug company Upjohn was se-
lected out of all the well-known pharmaceutical companies that could
have been used. As always we must ask why a particular topic, word,
phrase, sentence, story, or name is used in a particular context at a par-
ticular time. Here's the answer: It's no coincidence that the first name
of my colleague, the junior trainer, was John. Since group members
didn't feel comfortable directly asking John for help, subliterally Up-
john meant: Get up, John, and start leading us. 3
Brand name products are also used as deep talk to express concerns.
One group "just happened" to talk about an old brand of cough drops
called Smith Brother's. Why was this peculiar name brand selected for
discussion? If you haven't already begun to suspect the answer, it's this:
There were two trainers in this group; hence the two brothers. But there's
more. If you were familiar with the picture of the two Smith brothers on
the package, you would know which brother subliterally represented
which trainer. As a trademark at the time, the picture of the Smith
brothers was of two bearded men, one with a black beard and one with a
reddish beard. Accordingly, it's no accident that my co-trainer at that
time had a black beard-and I had a reddish beard. No accident, indeed.
Just as to the experienced physicist certain telltale marks observed in
a gas-filled bubble chamber mean the presence of a particular sub-
86 DEEP lISTENIN(f

atomic particle, so too someone who is experienced with my deep-lis-

tening method will be able to recognize that certain kinds of telltale
marks during conversations mean the presence of unconscious or hid-
den thoughts and feelings.

Feelings About lead.ers 8eing Incompetent

From very early childhood we all have a need to feel secure. We draw
much of our trust in leaders from our parents and other relationships
with authorities, but as I discussed in the chapter on God talk, as children
we often don't understand why our God or our parents do what they do.
There is often a suspicion that God and parents, and their incarnations,
"leaders" or "bosses:' may not know what they are doing, that they may
be incompetent. Certainly those who have come from seriously dysfunc-
tional homes where parents didn't or couldn't carry out their leadership
role appropriately may be sensitized to see incompetence in authority
figures. In any event, it's only a short step from not understanding the ac-
tions (or non-actions) of a leader to suspecting incompetence.
Let me begin this section with a hypothetical illustration that's based
on one that I described in the chapter on God talk (see p. 54). Suppose
you have been assigned to conduct a week-long training session or
seminar for which you designed and wrote the instructional materials
you were using, say, a manual for socializing employees into the corpo-
rate rules, policies of sexual harassment, and other standards like ac-
cepted modes of dress. Suppose, too, that you had taken an education
course about collaborative learning, a method of learning in small
groups. As a result, you decided to conduct this training session or semi-
nar by having members work in small groups to learn the material by self-
discovery instead of lecturing to them. Moreover, your training session
was held at an upscale old cathedral-like inn. Suppose further that to-
ward the middle of the session some members began to arrive late and re-
turn late from the coffee breaks and you had to address this issue. In
addition, suppose that you had a secret but mutual attraction to one of
the members of the training session. Now in the middle of the training
session you asked people if the sessions were going well and if they were
 Veep Listening About Relations 87

learning something important from them. Given that you are either their
supervisor or have at least been given the mantle of authority, most peo-
ple aren't going to tell you their negative feelings. (Even with the formal
evaluations at the end of such programs, called "smile sheets," people
will often still not express their true feelings-assuming they are aware
of them.)
Now, suppose that during an extended coffee break towards the end
of the training program, you overhear members talking about (a) A God
who never helped anyone, (b) That the Bible was only the work of man and
not to be taken as the last word, (c) That you don't have to go to church to
be religious, (d) That these great cathedrals of learning are just to brain-
wash you, (e) That when you missed church, you were made to feel guilty,
and (f) That many Christians were hypocrites, who coveted their neigh-
bors' wives and husbands. Comparing these topics that were selected to
talk about during the break with the training context that I described,
need I say more about what the members may really be feeling? And
would your understanding such deep listening be useful? You bet.
Now let me offer a real story and see how you can apply it by seeing
it as a kind of analogy or parable to either a situation that you have ex-
perienced or one that you might hypothetically experience in the fu-
ture. One variant on the general template about leader incompetence
is the following. A widespread perception in our society (not entirely
without merit, but not entirely correct either) is about college profes-
sors, that Our research and books are really not practical and that we
create theories in isolation from the "real world" that don't apply to
everyday life. Hence the well-known phrase, Ivory Tower, to refer to
the academic environment.
During this group session, there was a discussion of marriage and the
problems of two people forming a relationship. Then a discussion en-
sued about sibling rivalry and the problems of developing an identity
in large families. One member said he knew about identity problems as
he was a twin. He proceeded to say that Psychologists don't know any-
thing about twins. All the books I've read don't agree with my own experi-
ence. He further suggested that Psychologists write books that don't work.
That makes me wonder, he said, Just how valid Dr. Spock's book really is
88 VEEP LlSTENIN~

[This is a literal reference to Dr. Benjamin Spock's famous baby book

on child rearing]. The literal topics of problems in marriage, forming
relationships, developing one's own identity in large families, and sib-
ling rivalry were clearly deep talk for relationships, identity, and rivalry
issues in the here-and-now group.
The ensuing topic was clearly about what was unconsciously per-
ceived as my incompetence as a leader. The talk about Psychologists
don't know anything, of course, is deep talk about my not knowing
what's happening in the group. In saying All the books I've read don't
agree with my own experience, the member is saying that the books for
the course describing T-groups don't agree with his experience in the
group. His remark That makes me wonder just how valid Dr. Spock's book
really is a specific deep-talk reference to my textbook that I wrote for the
course is not valid. Tying this discussion all together beginning with the
discussion about relationships, identity, and sibling rivalry is the selec-
tion of the specific book on child rearing. Underlying this is the Parent
Template which equates to me as parent and to the group who are feeling
like children.
One final general deep-listening example shows how people uncon-
sciously comment on their relationship to you. What might it mean
that a group starts talking about state employment being a rip-off to tax-
payers? Is this literal talk that means simply what it says? Or might it be
saying something important to you? It's a little unfair to ask you what
this piece of conversation means without giving you the context it oc-
curred in. Does it help to know that it was in fact brought up in a group
discussion just after I returned from two unannounced absences from the
group sessions? It should. This topic thus likely reflects the members'
resentment at my being absent from the meetings and thus the feeling
they were not getting what they paid for-just as some taxpayers often
feel ripped-off regarding their stereotype of government workers not
having to work very hard and receiving benefits that many workers in
the business world don't get.
Apply this example to yourself, if you heard this kind of topic being
discussed after you returned to work from being absent for sometime.
What do you do with this unconscious message? The answer might be
 Veep Listening About Relations 89

to do exactly what you would do if you heard people literally remarking

that they resented your being absent from work: You address the issue.
Only in this case you don't address it directly, because they didn't ad-
dress it directly. What you do is casually make known why you were ab-
sent. Their unconscious will get the message.
Remember, whenever there are themes about children, it may be a
sign that the group is feeling that they have either been abandoned by
the leader (who emotionally equates to a parent) or that the leader as
parent is not doing his or her job and is thus experienced as incompe-
tent, and that they feel they are being treated as children.
 Discovering Deep Listening:
What Freud Didn't Know,
but Almost Did

When you discover something like that, it's like discovering

a tooth with a missingfilling. You can never leave it alone.
ROBERT 1'IR51G
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'

As a young man, I began writing poetry and fancied myself a budding

creative writer. The metaphorical language in my poems and the way
the words were juxtaposed fascinated me and opened up my mind. Un-
derstandably enough, I became somewhat obsessed with metaphor and
analogy. In both my undergraduate senior thesis and in my master's
thesis I researched metaphorical and analogical thinking, which were
then largely considered literary devices. 2
Even a brief glance at the history of science demonstrates the exten-
sive use of reasoning by analogy. One such well-known analogy in sci-
ence is the early formulation by the English physicist Ernest Rutherford
(1871-1937) comparing the structure of the atom to the solar system,
with the nucleus of the atom being like the Sun and the electrons re-
volving around it like the planets. In science we call this type of think-
ing model building. 3 Much later, cognitive researchers began to

91
92 VEEP LlSTENIN~

understand the importance of metaphorical and analogical reasoning.

Cognitive science, however, still tends to be preoccupied with simple
and surface aspects of analogies in science and with analogical reason-
ing, continuing with endless analyses, for example, of Rutherford's
early analogy.4 Almost since humans started to think systematically,
philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle have extolled the impor-
tance of similarity relations in thinking. 5
I consider the cognitive mechanisms underlying deep listening to be
the fundamental process giving rise to what we normally call
metaphorical and analogical reasoning and of what we call transfer of
learning. 6 A subliteral narrative can be seen as a kind of analogy in
which the literal narrative is an analogy to, or is like, what is actually oc-
curring in a conversation. Thus my early interest in analogical and
metaphorical reasoning provided the beginnings of what I had been
discovering. 7 Perhaps I was hardwired for understanding "metaphori-
cal" meaning. I have come to believe that through evolution, our brain
has become hardwired for creating invariances of meanings.

In Quest of the Mind5 Kula Ring

It should be clear by now that we are often not fully aware of what we
and others are doing and saying and that, therefore, much of our social
life is conducted unconsciously; we often take part in social meanings
that we have no idea we are contributing to. I realized this social fact
when as a college sophomore I enrolled in an anthropology course. The
instructor lectured to us about Darwin's discovery of human evolution
and natural selection and about Louis and Mary Leakey's famous dis-
coveries in Olduvai Gorge of human-like fossils millions of years old.
More than this he told us about the great anthropologist Bronislaw
Malinowski (1884-1942). Malinowski conducted research in the Tro-
briand Islands, a group of small islands in the South Pacific. It was
there that he discovered what he came to call a Kula Ring. This was an
activity that each Trobriander engaged in once a year. The Kula Ring
involved the ritual trading of armbands and necklaces made from sea
shells. Each Trobriander always traded with a particular relative. What
 Discovering Deep Listening 93

Malinowski discovered was that the necklaces were always traded in a

clockwise direction around the islands, and the armbands invariably
traveled in the reverse direction around the islands.
Now, the kicker here is that no Trobriander knew that necklaces al-
ways traveled in a clockwise direction and armbands invariably in the
reverse direction. How and why this Kula Ring came to be apparently
remains a mystery. I was spellbound. The story led me to wonder if we,
too, had more going on in our everyday social life than we are aware of.
Just as each Trobriander unconsciously took part in a social activity, so,
too, I later wondered, do we take part in unconscious meanings in
which we create a kind of conversational Kula Ring?
The scientific process is often not the systematic and rational process
that most textbooks make it out to be. What standard textbook views
actually describe is what is called "normal science:'8 Normal science is
what happens after an initial discovery has been made: I didn't discover
deep listening by methodically forming hypotheses and then testing
them as science textbooks describe "real" scientists doing. Noticing
these themes grew out of my interests in cognitive psychology (the
study of how the mind works), metaphorical and analogical reasoning
(which even back then I saw as windows into the workings of the
mind), and the conduct of T-groups. Of course in conducting T-
groups I was always asking the question: What's going on here? In at-
tempting to answer this question, I began to see that some topics in the
group conversations seemed to be a kind of "metaphorical code" that
could be deciphered.

A long Vays Journey into Night:

of Secret Code5 and Veep listening
About 1972, I began to notice certain very general "analogical" or
"metaphorical" themes, as I first called them, being used in group con-
versations. 9 As I have previously described, topics about God or police-
man were frequently selected into discussions when the group seemed
to be concerned about my authority role as trainer. It soon became clear
to me that these "metaphors" were unconscious communications
94 VEEP Ll5TEN/N~

about feelings and concerns. Group members were not conscious of

the real reason they had selected these topics. In fact when I explained
this to group members and asked them, they usually laughed and at-
tributed it to coincidence. But I thought this fascinating stuff was more
than coincidence. Much more. The question was, however, whether
these "metaphorical" meanings were real or whether I was reading too
much into them.
In addition to my early interest in metaphors and analogies, my
quest for deciphering hidden meaning was perhaps also influenced by
my experience in the U.S. Army. In the days when young men were in-
voluntarily drafted into the Army, shortly after high school I volun-
teered so I might have more of a choice in the job I would be assigned.
After testing me for my aptitudes and abilities, the Army thought I had
aptitudes in electronics and in cryptography. The latter involves decod-
ing secret messages. I chose cryptography, of course. I chose cryptogra-
phy not because I thought it had anything to do with analogical
reasoning-at that point, I knew nothing of analogical reasoning-but
simply because it sounded exciting. So I was assigned to an Army intel-
ligence unit and was trained in breaking secret codes at the then newly
created super-secret National Security Agency (NSA). Now most de-
coding is done by high-speed computers.
Just as in understanding the meaning of words, in codebreaking not
only do you have to understand a kind of grammar and logic, but also
the context of the messages. For example, knowing the history and
whereabouts of the unit the coded messages came from helped in de-
coding them. It was also important to recognize the style of the person
sending the code; each had a kind of "fingerprint" that was identifiable.
It was hard, tedious work. There is little doubt that my Army training
in deciphering codes was a factor in imprinting me to deciphering sub-
literal language. Deep talk, after all, can be seen as a kind of encoded se-
cret message. So, from an early interest in poetry, I went to
codebreaking. As it turned out, I was a better codebreaker than poet.
The propensity of humans to at least consciously encode secret mes-
sages goes back to almost the beginnings of written history.lO As early as
the Bronze Age (3500 B.C.), people in the Near East were being trained
 Discovering Deep Listening 95

in the art of deciphering coded texts. One of the earliest and simplest
forms of encoding is called an acrostic. Using acrostics, a hidden mes-
sage can be deciphered by selecting the first letter of each line or verse
in a text. An example of an acrostic was found in a clay tablet from the
Iraq of the mid-second millennium B.C. The text on the tablet is a reli-
gious poem of twenty-seven verses, but was written to be read by some-
one who knew the "key" as an acrostic, with the initial syllables of each
verse combining to reveal a separate or hidden message. But what I was
observing was not a conscious process.
When I had group conversations transcribed into printed protocols,
it became increasingly clear that somehow the intricate workings and
structure of language was the key to deciphering this mind code. So I
began to analyze these transcripts for linguistic and cognitive opera-
tions that would help me to decode, test, and validate my hypotheses
about the meaning of these "metaphorical" topics.
As I did this, I began to notice some very strange but-and this is im-
portant-consistent cognitive and linguistic operations. For example, I
noticed that subliteral topics were introduced only by members who
had an emotional involvement in the concern of what the topic was
about. For example, group members who were not concerned about
my taking notes did not generate negative literal topics about journal-
ists. Such topics were generated only by those who I knew had a con-
cern with my taking notes about them. This important finding led me
to still other consistent and systematic discoveries.
Another strange operation I found was that the characters in literal
stories matched the status of here-and-now members in a conversation
and that this could be consistently tracked by spatial or prepositional
markers. For example, characters in the literal stories who were de-
scribed as being either up, down, left, or right would match the status of
group members in the conversations who the topic was subliterally
about. That is, a character X in a literal story who was consistently de-
scribed as being "down in back of" or "on the left" would-and this is
important-consistently correspond to the status of a particular here-
and-now group member, just as a character Y who was consistently de-
scribed as being "up front" or "on the right" would correspond to the
96 VEEP Ll5TENIN(f

status of another here-and-now group member. The significance of

this kind of spatial tracking is that being "up" and "right" consistently
related to high-status members and being "down" and "left" to low-sta-
tus members.11
I found, too, that the gender of a character in the literal story matched
the gender of their subliteral counterpart in the here-and-now conversa-
tion. These findings were rather bizarre, to say the least. So bizarre that I
compulsively checked and rechecked my findings and then checked them
again. There's more: I found that names used in literal conversations
were often like puns. For example, the proper name Harry would uncon-
sciously be used as an adjective, hairy, that would, phonetically, describe a
person with a beard. 12 What is more, I found that the initials of the first
and last names in literal narratives would match a person's initials in the
here-and-now conversation. For example, in a narrative about Walt Dis-
ney the name may be a subliteral reference to a person in a discussion
whose initials were W. D. I also discovered that names in narratives may
be unconsciously "misremembered" or that unconscious "mistakes"
would be made so that the literal narrative would match the situation be-
ing subliterally referenced. For example, if the name of a well-known
journalist wouldn't fit the subliteral meaning being communicated, then
the journalist's name would be unconsciously altered to make the name
fit the subliteral intent. Believe it or not.
The situation became even more disturbing to me when I discovered
that numbers used in conversations were frequently used "metaphori-
cally" or subliterally. For example, if 4 members in a conversation were
dominant, the number 4 would repeatedly occur in the discussions (see
Chapter 9). In other words, these numbers corresponded to a subgroup
in the here-and-now conversation that was composed of the exact
number of people as in the literal narrative. What is more, the story
that these numbers were used in didn't simply refer to 4 members. Each
person in the literal story of 4 people matched the gender composition
of the actual 4 members of here-and-now conversation. In other
words, if the social conversation was made up of 3 females and 1 male,
the literal story would be about 3 females and 1 male-again, consis-
tently.13 It got even more bizarre.
 Discovering Deep Listening 97

I also discovered that complex numbers matched the here-and-now

situation. A literal number, say 10,000, may be selected into a narrative
of a group composed of ten members. Subliterally, the 10,(000) repre-
sented the 10 members in the social conversation and the three zeros in
(10,)000 represented a subgroup of 3. As a first check on this finding, I
discovered that the numbers in subsequent literal stories would change
to match the absent member or members for that day.
I further discovered that within a narrative, all the different stories
were variations on the here-and-now situation. It is important to note
that these findings were found to be consistent not only within a con-
versation but across many different conversations composed of differ-
ent members and situations. I discovered many other cognitive
"encoding" operations. All of these consistent and systematic findings I
developed into a methodology (see my Between the Lines).
As I began discovering these strange cognitive operations for de-
coding subliteral meaning, I began to feel the way I imagined the
French Egyptologist, Jean Francois Champollion (1790-1832), must
have felt as he began to decipher the famous Rosetta Stone, or
Michael George Ventris (1922-1956), the English linguist, when in
1952, he deciphered Linear B, a syllabic Mycenaean script generally
thought to be from the fourteenth to the twelfth century B.C. The
rules of Linear B are so complex that a word spelled in Linear B may
be interpreted and spelled out in a large number of different ways
within the Western European alphabet. The Rosetta Stone, found in
1799 by Napoleon's soldiers near the city of Rosetta in Egypt, is a
basalt slab that was inscribed with Greek characters, hieroglyphs, and
other strange characters. It provided Champollion and other scholars
with the key for translating Egyptian hieroglyphics. Having spent
years studying the hieroglyphics inscribed on the stone tablet, Cham-
pollion discovered that the inscriptions were made up of both sound-
signs (phonograms) and sense-signs (ideograms). He proved that
hieroglyphs have not only symbolic meaning, but that they are also
alphabetic for a spoken language. The language in literal narratives
had been awaiting their subliteral decoding, like the Rosetta Stone
and Linear B.
98 DEEP L15TENIN~

More than this, however, I found myself suspecting myobserva-

tions-and my sanity. So were other people whom I knew. After all, I
was observing that group members were talking to each other and to
me in unconscious code, as it were. Whoa! This is the stuff that para-
noid schizophrenia is made of. Many paranoid schizophrenics have
what is called delusions of reference, in which they think people on TV
are really talking about them, or, when they overhear a conversation,
they think it's about them. As for seeing numbers in the talk as having
hidden meaning, well, this is the stuff of occult numerology, isn't it?

Even with my consistent and systematic method of validation, however,

I knew too much about the history and philosophy of science and epis-
temology (the study of how we know what we think we know) to feel
secure. Was it possible that I had simply constructed an elaborate-but
consistent-system, but one that was not valid? I painfully recalled the
Ptolemaic theory of the solar system from the history of astronomy. In
the second century A.D., the Greek astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy, con-
structed a planetary system that had the Earth at the center of our solar
system, not the Sun. With its elaborate system of imaginary and ad hoc
orbital epicycles, it consistently predicted very well the movement of
the planets and their respective positions at any given time. We now
know, however, that the Ptolemaic system was a reliable system but not
a valid one.
Had I constructed a similar psychological system? I wondered if I
had merely created a kind of methodological alchemy, a pseudoscience
that only gave the appearance of changing literal meaning into sublit-
eral ones, like the medieval alchemist who sought to turn base metals
into gold or silver with mysterious methods.
When I confided my observations to my colleagues, some thought I
was going off the deep end, so to speak. Mostly, though, they just
laughed at such bizarre, but worse, "unscientific" interpretations, call-
ing them simply wild coincidence. As my sophistication for analyzing
this deep listening developed, the subliteral meaning of these conversa-
tions became even more intricate, and as they became more intricate,
even I sometimes found it difficult to believe what I was finding. I was
 Discovering Deep Listening 99

aware, of course, that psychotherapists had noticed brief instances of

"metaphors" in therapy that they considered to have a kind of parallel
meaning to the therapeutic situation, but nothing to compare to what r
was-or thought r was-discovering. 14 Like the Kula Ring, the struc-
ture of the literal talk in a conversation is often ordered by an underly-
ing set of individual mental activities that the participants in the
conversation are not aware of.
r had to know if what r was perceiving was real. r became obsessed
with a way to verify deep listening. Otherwise there was no way to con-
tain speculative "interpretations;' and my colleagues could continue-
at best-to laugh. More importantly, unless I found a way to prove that
what I was observing was real, I certainly would never be able to con-
vince journal editors to publish such bizarre material.
What r needed was a systematic methodology. But there wasn't one. I
began with the scientific assumption that the brain/mind is structured
in an orderly fashion and that there would be a natural system underly-
ing what I was finding. So I started a search for an orderly set of cogni-
tive and linguistic operations that would serve as a systematic method
for the analysis and validation of what I thought I was observing. The
question was, where would I look?

Familiar Footprints in the Sand

I began to search the literature for unconscious meaning. I discovered
that the literature on small-group dynamics, group psychotherapy, and
other areas of research and practice had been spotted with brief snip-
pets of what I was calling subliteral meaning. Some of this literature
noticed, for example, that talk about well-known leaders in history like
Charles de Gaulle of France was a symbolic reference to the leader in
the group. Most developed was the work of Robert Bales, a social psy-
chologist at Harvard University who was well-known for his research
in small-group processes. He had labeled such symbolic talk "fantasy
themes:'lS Other researchers working with him had noticed and written
about such phenomena in small-group discussions. 16 Continuing my
search of the literature, I discovered that very rudimentary subliteral
100 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

phenomena had been laying around other fields including group psy-
chotherapy,17 psychohistory,18 and communications 19 as unexplained
curiosities. With the exception of a chapter by Bales on fantasy themes,
however, there was no method for analyzing or validating examples of
subliteral communication like those I was finding. Nor was there a
recognition of the intricate extent or the cognitive importance of such
"symbolic" communications; neither was the phenomena understood
nor explained, except in general Freudian terms. Around 1979, research
on unconscious communication ceased-or so I thought. It didn't, as
we will see in a moment.
Knowing that others had noted similar unconscious findings-as
rudimentary as they were-I finally realized I was no longer alone, just
as when Robinson Crusoe, the main character in Daniel Defoe's fa-
mous novel about a shipwrecked sailor on an apparently deserted is-
land finally discovered footprints other than his own. If I were suffering
delusions, then I at least had decent company, at least for myobserva-
tion of general "metaphorical" meaning-and there was some comfort
in this.
Needless to say, for years I experienced great difficulty with profes-
sional journals accepting my research, with reviewers calling my find-
ings "schizophrenic:' "paranoid:' "ridiculous:' and in their more kinder,
gentler moments, "wild puns" or "simply coincidence." I anxiously re-
called the Viennese physician Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865), who in
the 1840s tried to convince his colleagues that they should wash their
hands after doing autopsies before working with patients so they
wouldn't spread infections, infections that at the time killed large num-
bers of patients. Despite Semmelweis's repeated success in reducing the
mortality rate by washing his hands, his colleagues laughed at him and
patients spit on him. Rejected, Semmelweis became mentally deranged
and died a lonely death in a mental hospital. (So, far, I am still running
free.)
I learned years later from a colleague that the mental condition of
one of Freud's closest disciples was considered highly suspect after he
wrote a paper on what he thought was unconscious communications
from patients. His claims were dismissed as his exhibiting "ideas of per-
 Discovering Deep Listening 101

secution" similar to a paranoid's perception of a television program

sending him encoded messages. 20

What Freud Didn't Know, but Almost Did-

and should Have-About Deep listening

Almost invariably, people's reaction to deep listening is to say, but

"Didn't Freud say all of this?" My answer is an emphatic "No, he didn't,
but he almost did-and should have:' Since Freud is probably one of
the most recognized names in the entire Western world, the reason
people keep insisting on calling anything pertaining to unconscious
meaning "Freudian" is perfectly understandable, but it's thoroughly
incorrect.
A misunderstood and overgeneralized Freud has completely perme-
ated and become so serpentinely insinuated into popular conscious-
ness that it often seems impossible to disentangle him from anything
psychological, let alone from things unconscious. Indeed, mass media
psychology has made Freud into a veritable caricature of himself. Nev-
ertheless, I would be amiss if I didn't do at least a little genuflecting, be-
cause his work was an early influence on me.
When I first read Freud, I was not overly impressed with psychoana-
lytic theory in general. What did intensely impress me was his book,
The Interpretation of Dreams. 21 What fascinated me about this book was
not his dream interpretation, but rather the way Freud described how
the mind worked during dreaming. Freud himself considered The In-
terpretation of Dreams his master work. Indeed, it is one of the Great
Books of Western civilization. I later came to realize that The Interpre-
tation of Dreams was a precursor to modern cognitive psychology, as
were two other books of his: The Psychopathology of Everyday Life2 and
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. 23 These are quite different
from the rest of his work. I consider them to be his cognitive trilogy.
Modern psychological notions of the unconscious mind, however,
aren't derived from Freudian theory any more than modern mathe-
matics may be considered derived from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek
who is widely considered the first mathematician. Contrary to popular
102 VEEP Ll5TENINcq.

thinking, Freud didn't discover the unconscious;24 neither did he dis-

cover slips of the tongue. And Freud never said he did. It often happens
in popular culture that certain words and ideas are almost exclusively
associated with certain authors. Those more versed than I am in litera-
ture have recognized for some time that, along with others, Shake-
speare described "Freudian slips" long before Freud. Indeed, being an
avid reader, Freud was very familiar with the Bard's work, and often
quoted him.
Freud was influenced, too, by the ancient dream books of different
cultures, which emphasized puns and play of words. He was aware that
ancient "Oriental" books on dream interpretation based a great num-
ber of their interpretations on the tracing of similarities of sound,
physical resemblances, and double meanings between words. He was
also aware that extraordinary importance was placed on punning in the
ancient civilizations of the East (just as with the sophists of ancient
Greece).
Freud noted that Western books on dream interpretation, which
were largely translations of those ancient Asian dream books, omitted
the similarities of sound and physical resemblance between words. Ac-
cording to Freud's research, puns and turns of speech also occur fre-
quently in old Norse sagas and scarcely a dream, he said, is to be found
in which puns do not playa large role. 25
It's a widespread myth that so-called new ideas or discoveries some-
how are-to paraphrase Shakespeare-not born of others. Freud was a
scholar who read widely and was quite aware of the many ideas about
unconscious functioning that were discussed and written about during
the time he began to formulate his own ideas. Like any scholar or scien-
tist, he built on the work of others, sometimes carefully documenting
his sources-sometimes not. As Henri Ellenberger noted, there are
many similarities between Freud's ideas and others. For example, Freud
was well versed in philosophy, including the work of the German
philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), to which there are
many similarities. Ellenberger quoted the German Nobel laureate
Thomas Mann, who had read Schopenhauer and upon reading Freud
said he "was filled with a sense of recognition and familiarity." He felt
 Discovering Deep Listening 103

that Freud's description of the id and the ego were "to a hair" Schopen-
hauer's description of the will and the intellect, which Freud had trans-
lated into psychology.26 It seems that Freud borrowed liberally from the
works of others, many of whom Freud specifically mentioned. But this
isn't anything unusual in science.
Ideas about an unconscious mind, puns, and the unintended mean-
ing of words and phrases were hanging around long before Freud
picked up the pieces. I note all of this to simply show that Freud didn't
come up with his ideas in a vacuum-and indeed, didn't invent most of
them. It was Freud's genius, however, to organize, to systematize, and to
theoretically conceptualize into a single package the existing ideas on
an unconscious mind, slips of the-tongue, double meanings, and
sounds of words.
Edward Caropreso and Stephen White have studied gifted children
and they conclude that what characterizes giftedness is what they call
an ability at "selective combination:' of "combining apparently isolated
pieces of information into a unified whole" that others have not seen
and putting "the pieces together in a useful, relevant way:'27 As the ideas
about the unconscious mind have gone beyond Freud, so have ideas
about evolution gone beyond Darwin. But when discussing these
newer ideas about evolution, few would ask: "Didn't Darwin say all
this?" Interesting, isn't it?
Nevertheless, to most people, Freud is psychology, with everything
else a mere footnote. He isn't. Contrary to widespread perception,
Freud doesn't loom very large at all within the field of psychology. It's
not only the general public that misconstrues Freud. Many of my oth-
erwise-learned colleagues in cognitive psychology are held captive by
Freud's ghost. Many don't want to be seen associating themselves in
any way with Freudian ideas. This is understandable, because most of
his ideas and his method of analysis remain largely intuitive and wildly
speculative.
As I was writing this book, I received a rejection of a manuscript I
submitted to a well-known psychology journal. I had written a piece
on modern cognitive research, unconscious processing, and my sub-
literal findings. In that article, I commented on the work of a particu-
104 DEEP LISTEN/NCr

lar researcher, noting that he was a little more liberal in his view
about unconscious meanings than most of his colleagues. As it turned
out, this researcher was one of the reviewers the journal editor se-
lected to critique my article. In his signed review-which is most un-
usual-he was emphatic in saying, "The fact that I adopt a wider
range of unconscious processes ... doesn't mean that I am a closet
Freudian." Closet Freudian? Where did this reaction come from?
When I read this comment, I was quite taken aback because in de-
scribing his work in my paper, I was extremely careful in my wording
not to imply in any way that his work was related to Freudian ideas.
What more can I say about the impact of Freud's ghost, and the need
to exorcize it.

why Freud Didn't Know what He Was Doing

In another context, the rogue French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said
that Freud never knew what he was doing. 28 Despite the fact that Freud
didn't know exactly what he was doing when he discovered uncon-
scious cognitive-like operations, there is little doubt as to his insights.
When we read his cognitive trilogy today, with its many illustrations of
puns, double entendres, and the mind's use of numbers in dreams,
jokes, and everyday slips of the tongue (Freud called them parapraxes),
it's easy to understand why his followers and the average therapist to-
day might think that Freud's notion of the unconscious mind was that
it's "smart" and therefore could communicate just like our conscious
mind. It isn't. The subliteral unconscious however is smart. Very smart.
Despite his recognition that parapraxes reveal unconscious meaning,
Freud failed to see their true cognitive significance, seeing them as
anomalous and not as reflecting the normal cognitive and linguistic
operations of the mind. For example, when Freud occasionally found
dreams that seemed to exhibit intellectual activity, he had to gerryman-
der these dreams, considering them special dreams created in conjunc-
tion with the preconscious mind that could engage in quasi-rational
thought processes. Similarly, when he occasionally found dreams that
 Discovering Deep Listening 105

used numbers, reversals, play on words, and so forth, he had to deny

that they exhibited conscious-like thought and calculations.
In any event, considering the historical times in which Freud was
working, for a man who didn't know what he was (cognitively) doing,
he did pretty damn well. In fact, my colleague David Livingstone Smith
found in his historical review of psychoanalysis that on a couple of oc-
casions Freud did come close to discovering unconscious communica-
tions from his patients. His observations on the possibility, however,
weren't known outside a small cadre of disciples. 29 Let's now see the
various reasons why Freud didn't discover deep listening.
First, Freud didn't develop his observations because initially his the-
ory couldn't-or Freud wouldn't-formally accommodate his observa-
tions of his actual data to his psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious.
So he missed the bus. As Smith emphatically points out, "That psycho-
analysts do not entertain a theory of unconscious perception is not a
mere oversight on their part. It is deeply rooted in the philosophy of
mind to which Freud subscribed."30 What this means is that Freud be-
lieved-and this is crucial-that all information found in the uncon-
scious mind must have first passed through the conscious mind (a very
modern notion, by the way). This in itself precludes a smart uncon-
scious that thinks and reasons like our conscious mind does. Smith also
points out that Freud's theory was often inconsistent.
Second, to save his early theory of an irrational unconscious, Freud
was determined to demonstrate that whatever cognitive-like mecha-
nisms he found in dreams, jokes, and parapraxes were completely differ-
ent from those found in waking conscious cognition. Maintaining this
distinction between unconscious thoughts and waking conscious ones
was crucial in Freud's mind. For example, Freud didn't believe that the
numbers he found in dreams, and as they are sometimes found in slips
of the tongue, functioned arithmetically as they do in our conscious
state; he believed that numbers were simply used as symbols like any
other set of symbols. The linguistic and cognitive implications of para-
praxes must have bothered him, because later he emphasized his theory
of the preconscious mind standing between the rational conscious and
106 VEEP LlSTENINCr

the irrational unconscious. Freud tells us that this new preconscious

mind has many of the characteristics of the conscious mind. 3l With this
blurring of the boundaries between the unconscious, preconscious, and
conscious minds comes a great deal of interaction among them.
The importance of this blurring and interaction is that Freud now
had all the ingredients he needed to systematically and theoretically
recognize unconscious communication from his patients, but his ther-
apeutic and theoretical blind spots still prevented him from doing so.
(See the quotation by Freud in the front matter of this book.) In out-
line, this is how it could have worked.
First, Freud could have used his classic notion of an irrational un-
conscious for providing the emotional and motivational base in gener-
ating subliteral meaning. Second, his later notion of a "preconscious"
could be seen as the storehouse for rational but denied thoughts or
feelings about past and current situations; this storehouse would then
be the source for subliteral meaning. Third, along with the irrational
unconscious, the unconscious aspects of the ego involving logic, rea-
son, language and perception, and secondary revision could be used as
a storehouse for denied thoughts and feelings. And fourth, certain un-
conscious and preconscious aspects of the superego could also be seen
as providing a storehouse of denied thoughts or feelings about past and
current situations that could then be expressed subliterally.
Somehow out of all of this, language would be influenced by the
shaping of specific words, phrases, and sentence usage as well as topic
selections that linguistically express unconscious meanings by using
puns, numbers, and other linguistic and cognitive-like mechanisms al-
ready found and explained in Freud's trilogy. Though Freud recognized
slips of the tongue and other parapraxes, to him it was not possible that
there could exist entire stories with parallel unconscious meanings (ex-
cept possibly in a very fuzzy sense of interpreting dreams).
In my view, what also prevented Freud from fully knowing what he
was seeing in terms of cognitive-like operations was that he was pri-
marily concerned with inventing a therapy to cure patients of their
problems as well as developing a theory of human behavior. His pur-
pose, then, was not primarily to study the cognitive process per se.
 Discovering Deep Listening 107

Rather, his goal was therapeutic. The cliche, "It's difficult to serve two
masters:' is not a cliche for no reason.
As David Smith observes, Freud's seminal work on dreams was
roughly simultaneous with and clearly related to his work on a class of
cognitive-like operations that he called Jehlleistungen, meaning "failed
accomplishments."32 This class of cognitive-like operations has been
translated into English vernacular to mean Freudian slips, as found
throughout what I call his cognitive trilogy. It's indeed an irony that the
meaning of failed accomplishments applies to Freud's failure to for-
mally discover unconscious communication as well as his failure to rec-
ognize the cognitive importance of the operations found in his trilogy.
And so I return to the question I opened this chapter with: Didn't
Freud say all this stuff about unconscious meaning. And once again,
the answer is: No, he didn't, but he almost did. ''Almost:' however, does-
n't count. Go ask Alfred Russell Wallace.

Freud$ Platypus

At this point, it should be clear that while there are certainly many su-
perficial similarities between deep-listening phenomena and Freudian
symbolism, they are quite different. The similarity of subliteral mean-
ings and cognition to Freud's findings is that they are made from simi-
lar cognitive stuff.
We have to be cautious when reasoning on the basis of similarities,
however. As evolutionary biologists are aware, similarities between two
animals may be based on a common origin, or they may not. This is a
frequent mistake in reasoning; hence the widespread misconception of
evolutionary theory that we descended from monkeys. Moreover, the
almost identical similarity of eyes among widely different animals, such
as the octopus and humans, doesn't mean they evolved from some
common prototype. We know that the eye evolved independently in
many different places and many times over the millennia.
While much of what's Freudian may reflect unconscious symbolism,
not all that's unconscious or symbolic is necessarily Freudian. Again,
one must be careful of similarities: If it waddles kind of like a Viennese
108 VEEP LISTENING-

duck, quacks kind of like a Viennese duck, and looks something like a
Viennese duck-it doesn't mean it's a Viennese duck: It may be an Aus-
tralian platypus.
Now, it's easy to say that if Freud had lived longer, he would have dis-
covered and developed subliteral language and cognition. Maybe he
would have. But, with one exception, none of his descendants did-at
least systematically-though they, too, like Freud, had all data they
needed to do so.

The Future of Veep listening

The future of deep listening has barely begun. In order to fully under-
stand its future we must briefly return to the recent past. In the early
1970s, however, one of Freud's intellectual descendants did discover
what I refer to as subliteral communication or deep talk. As I indicated
above, work on deep listening all but ceased in about 1979. Or so I
thought. In 1997, I was contacted by Piers Myers, a psychotherapist in
England inquiring if I was familiar with the work of the psychiatrist
Robert Langs. Myers had become aware of my work on subliteral com-
munication and said it was very similar to Langs's work. Shortly there-
after, I was also contacted by David Livingstone Smith, who had
written about Langs's findings on unconscious communication.
Just about the same time I was discovering what I then called
"metaphorical" themes, Robert Langs, a psychoanalytic psychiatrist,
was independently discovering a similar form of unconscious commu-
nications from his patients. 33 Until very recently we were not aware of
each other's work.
Langs calls unconscious communications from patients derivatives-
because they derive from the unconscious. He claims that what I call
subliteral communications can be used therapeutically. Consequently,
Langs pioneered a new school of psychotherapy, called communicative
psychotherapy, based on unconscious communications.
I had been aware of an increasing literature on patients' use of
"metaphors" in psychotherapy and their possible therapeutic use, but
since I am not a psychotherapist, I hadn't given much thought to sub-
 Discovering Deep Listening 109

literal narratives having potential therapeutic applications in Langs's

sense. If Langs is correct, this adds another whole dimension to sublit-
eral communication and deep listening: Deep listening could be useful
to mental health counselors as a method of obtaining information
from clients not otherwise obtainable from them, and as a new way of
doing psychotherapy.
Here is an example of a Langsian derivative: After listening to inap-
propriate interpretation by a female analyst, a male patient responded
to it consciously by saying that it seemed to make sense. Then, after a
pause, the patient switched to an apparently different subject, telling a
story about his wife. He said: My wife is a bad public speaker. 34 Accord-
ing to Langs, this is an unconscious communication to the therapist
telling her that the interpretation was not a good one. The therapist is
unconsciously represented as the patient's wife; the subject of the story,
that of being a bad public speaker, represents the therapist's bad inter-
pretation. Langs has developed a method of verifying derivatives. Pre-
sumably, when a valid interpretation is made, a more positively toned
story will be told by the patient.
When I learned about Langs's discovery of unconscious communica-
tions and its therapeutic possibilities, however, it put me in a quandary.
On the one hand, it was gratifying that deep listening was being re-
searched and applied in another potentially significant way. Langs's in-
sight that subliteral narratives could be used therapeutically was
exciting. On the other hand, Langs also referred to his new psychother-
apy as communicative psychoanalysis. This was disconcerting. I was
(and still am) concerned that deep listening will become associated
with pop psychotherapy and Freudian psychoanalysis. 35
I should make it clear that subliteral cognition and communication
are not dependent on Freudian theory in any way; quite the contrary,
it's the underlying cognitive basis on which much of psychoanalytic
thinking is based. 36 You can't read Freud and fail to see his talent for
metaphorical and analogical reasoning. He was a master at them. 37
Despite a long history of various researchers and psychotherapists
sporadically recognizing subliteral-like language, such examples have
been extremely rudimentary, involving general thematic or metaphori-
110 VEEP LlSTENINCr

cal-like meaning. They still are. Further, being considered anomalous,

their cognitive significance has gone unnoticed. As two great psycholo-
gists, Heinz Werner and Bernard Kaplan/ 8 wrote in their classic book,
Symbol Formation, seemingly anomalous and atypical phenomena are
often theoretically very important. An example is the role of optical il-
lusions in the field of perception, or of speech error in psycholinguis-
tics. Research on both of these atypical phenomena have provided
grounds for extending our knowledge about perception and language.
The same is true for subliteral phenomena. It will enhance our under-
standing of language and how the mind works.
Subliterallanguage has been awaiting its own method and theory to
explain what it is, how it works, why it occurs, and how it evolved.
There remains much work to be done. The next steps involve develop-
ing a brain-based theory for how subliterallanguage is possible and
conducting some experiments. 39 It may turn out that the discovery of
deep listening is one of the more important stories in the history of
cognitive science.
 6

In Defense of whores and

0.). Simpson: Precautions)
Ethical and Legal

It is difficult to make the method objective, but it is not dif-

ficult to begin to understand it and apply it. As a method, it
is almost dangerously sharp. It can cut deeper than any
other; hence, it should be employed with care and respect.
ROBERT FREED BALES
Personality and Interpersonal 13ehavior'

As the illustrations I've presented in this book clearly demonstrate,

deep listening can be interesting, and even sometimes humorous. It can
also be a powerful tool for discovering very personal hidden feelings
and experiences in people's lives. So potentially powerful in fact, that I
feel ethically obligated to sound a note of caution at this halfway point
in the book. This note of caution refers to two different but intertwined
aspects of deep listening, both of which are controversial. The first in-
volves ethical issues of revealing deep listening. The second involves as-
sessing the meaning of unconscious meanings.
Scientists have an ethical responsibility for their work. Or at least, I
and many others think we do. The question is, what are the guiding
principles and boundaries of this ethical responsibility? The Manhat-
tan Project, which developed the atomic bomb that was later dropped

111
112 DEEP LlSTENIN(f

on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, is perhaps the modern

poster child for ethics in science. Albert Einstein, the great physicist,
and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the project, wrote to the
president expressing their ethical and moral concerns about nuclear
weapons.
More recently, the continued ethical controversies about the environ-
ment, using animals for experiments, human cloning, organ trans-
plants, and gene splicing clearly point out the ethics involved in
scientific research. These concerns have even led to the creation of pro-
fessional ethicist, ostensible experts who analyze and pronounce upon
what is "good" and what is "bad." Technologies of all kinds, like
cloning, are outstripping our accumulated legal and ethical codes of
conduct. Deep listening is a kind of technology, too. What are the prin-
ciples guiding revealing what you subliterally hear?

The Ethics of Revealing Veep listening

I remember as a first-year graduate student taking a seminar on ethics

in science. I recall, too, that in the graduate seminar I posed the ques-
tion: What if I happened to discover a complex chemical formula for a
pill that would enable anyone to read other people's minds? Think of
the implications of such a discovery. The ethical question becomes: Do
I publish my formula for this pill, or do I flush it down the toilet? There
were many students who felt strongly that I should destroy the for-
mula. My position was then, and is now, that the formula should not be
destroyed, because, as we know from the history of science, someone
else would probably discover it eventually and might keep it secret for
personal or national gain. Hitler was secretly working on an atomic
bomb before the United States began to develop one.
My question about a mind-reading formula in that graduate seminar
has a clear ironic aspect to it, doesn't it? I now find myself not with a
chemical formula for reading minds, but with a psychological method
that's similar in many ways.
Creative writers have the ethical dilemma, too, of disguising the real-
life situations in their works. Remember the Woody Allen movie
 In Defense of whores and 0.). Simpson 113

Deconstructing Harry, about a writer who in his novels published all the
personal information that his friends had shared with him that he
should have kept confidential? While it may be appropriate to climb a
mountain simply because the mountain is there, unlike scientific dis-
coveries, it's not always appropriate to reveal subliteral meaning to a
person or to others simply because it was recognized. I have many sub-
literal stories from friends and colleagues that I didn't present in this
book. I didn't present them because I couldn't sufficiently disguise
them so that the person telling the narrative or the people reading it
wouldn't recognize the situation or person. In Chapter 9 I withhold the
name of an author who may have revealed an unconscious negative
racial attitude in his writing. I felt that the validity of my deep listening
didn't justify the risk of impugning him in public.
Apparently some people have ethical problems about even suggesting
unconscious may be present in a conversation, especially, it seems, if it
suggests racial prejudice. At least one of my (former) colleagues ethi-
cally objects. After sending him a draft copy of Chapter 9-and an e-
mail query-I have not heard from him again. I understand his
objections. I just disagree with them (It's unfortunate that we can't
simply agree to disagree).
There are a number of reasons why we shouldn't unthinkingly reveal
such information. The primary one is that it might be harmful. First,
the hidden meaning found in subliteral conversation is often hidden
for a reason. A person's conscious mind either didn't want you or oth-
ers to know what he was thinking and feeling, or the unconscious mind
didn't want his own conscious self to know. Either way these are issues
of privacy. Listening subliterally, then, is like having someone tell you
something in confidence. Second, revealing the results of deep listening
can be embarrassing for the person. It can also be personally or socially
harmful.
That it's sometimes inappropriate to reveal deep listening is further
illustrated by an incident in one of my groups. A group member re-
vealed her feelings and thoughts about a friend of hers who was dying.
Since the other member didn't really know how to deal with this issue
in a direct way, there were, of course, deep-talk references to the topic. I
114 VEEP LlSTENIN~

believe it would have been inappropriate for me-even in the educa-

tional setting-to have asked the group, or the member whose friend
was dying, if they recognized the subliteral connections between the
topic of the dying friend and discussions in the here-and-now group.
Though the member voluntarily introduced the topic of her dying
friend, and though it would have provided an added example for the
group members to further understand unconscious meaning in con-
versation and what it revealed about the dynamics of the group, I didn't
consider it educationally justifiable, ethically. If, however, the group
had been a counseling group dealing with issues of separation and loss,
or grieving, then it would have not only been appropriate to link the
subliteral meaning of the topics to the member's story of her dying
friend, it could have provided a powerful therapeutic experience. But
T-groups aren't therapy groups. Still, under appropriate circumstances,
sharing deep-listening meanings with someone can be very beneficial.
After all, aren't we all trying to know ourselves?

On 8eing Hermenauts of Our Inner Space

"What do you mean?"
How often has someone asked you this question, or how often have
you asked this question of someone you've been talking to? It's not
only deep talk that we have to "interpret;' but normal everyday literal
meaning as well. This is a crucial point because I often get accused of
seeing meaning where it doesn't exist-and perhaps I sometimes do.
But so do we all. In fact, interpreting the meaning of words and sen-
tences is most always a problem. But typically we either don't realize
it's a problem and consequently assume a meaning that wasn't, in fact,
intended, or we miss the real meaning of what a person meant-or
both. We often just take the meaning of what someone says for
granted. This is our default mode, as it were. To understand (read: in-
terpret) any conversation, we always do so on the basis of the context
surrounding the conversation.
A word or phrase in one context or situation may mean something
entirely different in a another context. For example, how often has
 In Defense of Whores and 0.). Simpson 115

someone said something to you like, "But that's not what you said. You
said that I was being deceitfuI:' Then you reply, "I didn't say that at all."
Then the person says, "Well, maybe you didn't say exactly those words,
but it was clear that's what you meant." In these common situations the
person was interpreting your everyday words, and consequently your
meaning. There is no significant difference in "interpreting" or deci-
phering deep talk. We are just not as aware of "interpreting" everyday
conversation as we are interpreting deep listening.
Creative writers and comedians know how context determines how
we assess conversational meaning. Consider the following situational
comedy scene: A wife enters a room where she sees her husband stand-
ing very close to an attractive woman and hears her husband say to the
woman, "Your breasts are wonderfuI:' Upon closer inspection, the au-
dience sees a platter of chicken breasts on the table beside them (much
canned laughter, here).
In the beginning, we are told in Genesis, was the Word-but unfor-
tunately, its meaning didn't come with it. Meaning-creation is born out
of our interpretation of the word. Spoken words, by themselves, are
simply arbitrary sequences of sounds in search of meaning. Similarly,
written words are merely a sequence of arbitrary marks or scratches in
search of coherence. Only through constant and consistent association
and social agreement do arbitrary sounds and scratches come to have
consensual meaning. Even so, the everyday agreed-upon meaning taps
only a small proportion of those associations and agreements.
The socially agreed upon meaning of those sounds and scratches is
not all that precise. We make our meaning. Thus, the meaning of the
words that we use in conversation are in constant need of interpreta-
tion in the specific context in which they are used. Men mean one thing
by certain words, and women may mean something else entirely. Simi-
larly, people in different socioeconomic classes and ethnic groups may
mean different things by the same word.
A particular professional, too, may mean specific things when using
certain words compared to people who are not members of the profes-
sion. When writing a draft of my Between the Lines book, an editor kept
e-mailing me, saying, "Rob, be less clinical." Because I didn't use exam-
116 DEEP LISTENINeT

pIes from psychotherapy, 1 didn't really understand what he meant. So 1

removed most of the psychological jargon. He still e-mailed me back,
saying, "You're still being too clinical:' 1 was becoming very impatient.
At that point, 1 went to the dictionary, thinking, I'll fix him, I'll send
him the definition of the word "clinical." Lo and behold, one of the
meanings was being too objective and analytical. Now 1 understood
what he meant. When someone says "clinical" to a psychologist, it's an
almost automatic association to psychotherapy issues and language.
The specific context-the unique situation-in which a given con-
versation occurs can tells us its meaning in a particular context.
Though we are typically not aware of it, we have to interpret the sim-
plest everyday statements. For example, the statement "I am going to
get into the pool" means little by itself. It can mean (a) 1 am going to
get into the swimming pool, (b) 1 am going to join the football pool, or
(c) join the car pool, and so on, depending on the context in which the
statement is made. When we utter such a sentence, the conditions sur-
rounding the conversation act as a rule to inform us which meaning
should be selected out of the many possible meanings. Obviously, if it's
98 degrees outside and you are sitting beside a private swimming pool,
you can safely assume that the person who made the statement is not
talking about a football pool.
Take the statement "Well done." What does this statement mean?
Without context, it means nothing. Now, what if we know that the state-
ment was made in the context of discussing food. It could still mean two
different things. First, it could mean "well done;' as in "you did a good
job." Or it could mean, "I would like my food cooked nicely;' or that 1
want my meat cooked thoroughly. We are always interpreting meaning.
Finally, though 1 have developed a systematic method for analyzing
and validating deep listening, since it's not an exact science, the sublit-
eral analysis of a piece of literal conversation may not be correct. This is
where the ethics of revealing a piece of deep listening meets validating it.

In Defense of whores (A Cautionary Tale)

A biologist friend and colleague of mine (whom 1 will call John) was
talking to me on the phone. The conversation came round to a novel he
 In Defense of whores and 0.). Simpson 117

was working on. I asked him what the title was and he said he didn't re-
ally have one. I replied that I almost always have the title before I begin
to write. After continuing to press him, he responded, hesitating, saying
somewhat whimsically that he had kind of been thinking about one: It
was In Defense of Whores.
Now, what does this mean, subliterally? To understand the hidden
meaning beneath the words of this book title, you have to understand
the context of our relationship.

First, John and I joke and banter around with each other most of
the time in a kind of academic equivalent to the macho verbal game
called the "dozens" (a social repartee originating with young African-
American males where participants see if they can out-insult each
other).
Second, over the past few weeks we had been briefly discussing-in a
"dozens" kind of exchange-my previous general-audience book about
unconscious meaning in conversation.
Third, I had been trying to talk him into writing a popular or gen-
eral-audience book on environmental issues, so that the public would
understand his research-based view of the environmental problem. I
had often complained to him about "pop" psychology propagated by
practitioners who don't conduct or understand research. He said his
field had the equivalent problem with environmental practitioners who
consult with businesses.
Fourth, he had always refused to write such a book because he
thought it would be "selling out" his values as a scientist. The phrase he
had used in the past was that to write such a book would be prostituting
one's self.
Fifth, during the time I had been writing my book, he had, indeed,
jokingly chided me on selling out to "pop" psychology.
Sixth, when he mentioned his tentative title, it seemed like he had
just made it up in a kind of stream of consciousness.

Now, given these six contextual cues, I suggest that his title In Defense
of Whores was a subliteral reference to my writing a popular book,
namely, that I am an academic "whore" who sold myself in the market
118 VEEP LlSTENINCr

place. The upside, however, of the subliteral meaning of his title was
that on some level he was defending whores. So, in this sense, it was a
kind of backhanded compliment to me (and perhaps an unconscious
recognition of possible merit in writing popular books). What are
friends for, if not finding redeeming value in you even though they may
disagree on some level with what you are doing. (It's possible that he
was consciously aware when making up the title. When I talked to him
later, however, it seemed that he was not aware of the deep talk. In any
event, at worst, this illustration serves as an initially instructive hypo-
thetical example.)
It may seem that the meaning of John's deep talk was clear. But, as
with many subliteral meanings, clarity is not always what it appears to
be. I am not backing off the analysis of my friend's story, I am just go-
ing to clarify the intent of it. The subliteral meaning of a story and the
intent underlying it are sometimes not the same. This point is crucial
for fully understanding the implications of a subliteral piece of talk. The
human mind is incredibly complex, as are human motivations. Where
humans are concerned few things-if any-are as simple either as they
appear to be or as we might like them to be.
When confronted with the deep talk in their conversation, most peo-
ple will adamantly protest, "That's not what I meant at all; I had noth-
ing like that in mind whatsoever:' Our mind, however, is made up of
multiple levels. While my colleague's conscious meaning of In Defense
of Whores was what he literally meant, there was, of course, also the
deep-talk level that he wasn't aware of.
Now, as he protested to me when I pointed out the subliteral mean-
ing in our conversation, How could you think I was criticizing your
book, when I helped to disseminate your work to the campus commu-
nity? This he certainly did, but again, in his playfully insulting
"dozens" kind of way via e-mail. In any event-and this is a most im-
portant point-though my deep-listening analysis of his deep talk
was correct (I believe) in terms of the parallel between being a whore
and my "selling out" by writing a popular book, the typical implica-
tion of the negative intent underlying the deep talk is probably not
correct.
 In Defense of whores and 0.). Simpson 119

In Oefens. of Whore. Matrix Mapping

FIGURE 6.1 In Defense of Whores Matrix Map

It's in analyzing this last aspect that we must be most cautious. The
latter doesn't automatically follow logically from the former. Let me ex-
plain why my friend didn't harbor the negative intent that my deep-lis-
tening analysis appears to imply. (See Figure 6.1.)
First, John did make my book known to my colleagues on campus.
This was an unusual gesture for an academic. Second, we respect each
other professionally. Third, he has no need to be envious; he has pub-
lished a great many well-received papers and books and was inducted
into the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence (AAAS). And as we often joke, being a biologist, he is after all a
"real" scientist as opposed to a psychologist.
Finally, and most crucially, I have often found that deep talk is often
not congruent with what is known about the person speaking. So how
then do we understand the apparent negative attitude implied in my
friend's title In Defense of Whores? The answer is as follows:
We are all recipients of cultural conditioning, of social beliefs, stereo-
types, attitudes, and so forth (see Chapter 9). Many of them are deeply
ingrained in our unconscious by years of movie images, magazine pic-
tures, and other people's comments (they may also be simultaneously
120 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

conscious as well). I first became aware of this when listening to sublit-

eral stories involving females and ethnic minorities. Some of the people
creating the stories I knew were not sexist or racially prejudiced. But
years of conditioning (still) about women being emotional and irra-
tional and African-Americans being lazy and less intelligent provide a
massive storehouse of deep unconscious and thereby involuntary asso-
ciations that may automatically surface in deep talk. I found that often
these deeply ingrained stereotypes and beliefs sometimes reflected
prejudice but other times might merely reflect the recognition of dif-
ference about a person or group being subliterally referenced.
The same can be said about the origin of John's deep talk. Manyacad-
emics have been conditioned to not respect popularizers of scientific
findings. This is due to many reasons, but one is that it's believed com-
plex findings have to be oversimplified to be understood by nonscien-
tists. In this process, it is thought that the purity of science and truth is
compromised. Another is that the media often draw sensational impli-
cations from the findings that are simply incorrect. Perhaps the most
perceived egregious negative belief is that receiving money corrupts the
integrity of the scientist (Unfortunately, there is a sufficient kernel of
truth in these beliefs to reinforce the negative attitude about populariz-
ing). So, regarding John's deep talk, it was most certainly just the reflec-
tion of these deeply ingrained academic stereotypes, images, and beliefs.
Now, I'm willing to admit that it's possible that on some very deep
unconscious level John's comments did reflect envy and negativity (but
I doubt it). As we saw in Chapter 4 on human relationships, feelings of
rivalry run archetypally deep. I certainly have experienced these
twinges of envy, while at the same time sincerely wishing a colleague
well. We all have such multiple programs running simultaneously.
Two more points regarding the meaning of deep talk: First, these ar-
chetypal twinges are thus not really significant interpersonally. Second,
giving significance to these "possibilities" without clear external indica-
tions to support them is sheer irresponsible speculation. If in the past
John had shown jealously and rivalry with me professionally, then his
title, In Defense of Whores, would be meaningful in terms of intent-
but he hadn't. Never. Not even a tiny bit.
 In Deferue of whores and 0.). Simpson 121

Certainly there is enough irresponsible speculation in our society al-

ready without contributing to it. I can't emphasize this cautionary tale
enough in analyzing the meaning of deep talk. It's clear, then, that there
is (a) deep listening that may look like it has subliteral meaning, but
doesn't, and (b) deep listening that has subliteral meaning but that is
not interpersonally significant. This is why we must be extremely care-
ful when imputing unconscious meaning to a person.
More importantly these hasty "interpretations" can not only lead to
serious personal and social consequences but legal ones in the court of
public opinion.

OJ.s California Dreaming

Perhaps only in California could the situation I am about to describe
occur, especially in a court of law. I doubt if there is anyone reading this
book who doesn't recall the o. J. Simpson criminal case in which he
was accused of killing his former wife and her male friend. Though the
case was not about subliteral meaning, it was about pop psychology,
Freud, and the unconscious mind's revealing hidden meanings. During
the case, you may remember that Judge Lance Ito admitted into evi-
dence testimony presented by a former friend of O.J.'s that O.J. had
confided in him about a dream he had of killing his wife. Aside from
what most research-based psychologists would agree was an outra-
geous ruling admitting a dream as evidence, what amazed me was that
apparently O.J.'s Dream Team of lawyers didn't protest too loudly (if
they had, the dream would certainly not have been admitted).
According to pop psychoanalysis and psychology, the dream presum-
ably meant that O.J. had unconsciously harbored a fantasy of killing his
wife. This interpretation may seem quite reasonable to many people.
After all, didn't Freud say that dreams were the result of unconscious
wishes? Well, yes, he did-kind of, or sort of. Few psychoanalysts today
agree with Freud's "wish" theory of dreams. In any event, in point of
fact it's absurd that a dream of this nature could be entered into a legal
proceeding. I say this not being a total disbeliever-like many of my ex-
periment-based colleagues-that some dreams may have meaning,
122 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

with an emphasis on may, and a further emphasis on under certain con-

ditions and for certain purposes-maybe.
Interpreting the unconscious meaning of dreams, despite Freud's
seminal book on the subject, is extremely problematic under the best of
circumstances-whatever they might be. 2 There are over 160 different
schools of thought from which the dream could be interpreted with
not only different but conflicting meanings. Maybe O.J. did harbor
such homicidal feelings toward his former wife; maybe he didn't, too.
Even within pop psychoanalysis, one interpretation would say that the
dream simply used the "metaphor" of killing as a symbol of O.J. want-
ing to kill his feelings about his wife or reflect a separation "wish:'
The question is what would Freud really say about this dream being
used in a court of law? Would he agree with the popular notions of
what people think he would have said?

Freu.d Redeemed

To avoid never-ending dueling interpretations or quotes of what Freud

might have said based on his general views of dreams and unconscious
meaning, I rummaged through his works-without much hope that I
would find what I was looking for-to see if I could find a dream like
O.]:s. with both killing and a legal proceeding involved. I didn't find one.
I did, however, find a dream about killing someone. And pop Freudi-
ans won't like what I found. In Chapter 1 of Freud's The Interpretation
of Dreams, where he reviews the literature on dreams prior to 1900, he
cites one scholar mentioning an emperor who put one of his subjects to
death because the man had dreamed he killed the emperor. Alas, Freud
didn't say whether he thought such a dream justified the emperor's
killing his subject. 3 But I kept rummaging. Then, near the end of the
book, Freud did comment on this dream. This is what he said: "I think
. . . that the Roman Emperor was in the wrong when he had one of his
subjects executed because he had dreamt of murdering the emperor:'4 He
thus would likely have said the same thing about O.J:s dream being ad-
mitted into evidence. But we don't know for certain, given just the one
comment by Freud.
 In Defense of whores and 0.). Simpson 123

Being somewhat compulsive, I kept rummaging around Freud's

works hoping against hope to find a dream that involved killing and a
legal proceeding. Though, again, I didn't find such a specific dream, on
page 73 of his A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, I found a slip-
of-the-pen example that's appropriate since we are talking about what
meaning to apply to unconscious meanings. s It involves a legal pro-
ceeding as well as Freud's own words about whether it should be used
as legal evidence.
The case was about a physician who conducted research on highly
dangerous diseases. To carry out his work he had to order cultured
specimens. The physician once complained to the laboratory that
made the specimens about the ineffectiveness of the cultures they
sent him. In doing so he made a slip of the pen and instead of the
words "In my experiments on mice and guinea pigs (i.e., Mausen und
Meerschweinchen)," he wrote, "In my experiments on people (i.e.,
Menschen)." This slip, says Freud, attracted the attention of the doc-
tors at the institute but they didn't draw any conclusion from it.
Freud asks, "Now, what do you think?" Should his fellow colleagues
have taken the slip of the pen as evidence of a criminal act and started
an investigation?
As it turns out, the man had indeed been murdering people with his
deadly cultured specimens. Freud then says that "such a slip of the pen
would certainly rouse great suspicion in me:' Shades of the O. J. case,
right? Not quite. Freud then goes on to evaluate the possible meanings
of this unconscious meaning. He says,

[T]here is an important objection against regarding it as a confession. The

matter is not so simple. The slip of the pen is certainly an indication but,
alone, it would not have justified an enquiry. It does indeed betray that the
man is occupied with the thought of infecting human beings; but it does not
show with certainty whether this thought is a definite plan to do harm or a
mere phantasy of no practical importance. 6

Freud recognized only too well the central problem in assessing the
meaning of unconscious communications, whether they are from
124 DEEP LJ5TENIN~

dreams, slips of the tongue or slips of the pen: They shouldn't be used
as legal evidence.
Freud also recognized that it's very difficult to tell whether such com-
munications are fantasy or reality-based. If only Judge Ito had been ad-
equately informed by research-based psychologists and not the clinical
darlings the popular media are so fond of. If only Ito had not suffered
from the ever-popular "Freud syndrome:' And how are we to nowas-
sess the illustration in Chapter 1, where the judge made a slip of the
tongue to the jury about a defendant being "presumed guilty"? I think
the answer is clear.
Freud's caution and his reasoning about not jumping to conclusions
with unconscious communications apply directly to validating the
meaning found in deep listening.
 Figures of speech
in Conversation:
N umbers in the Mind

The genesis of number is hidden behind the impenetrable

veil of countless prehistoric ages. Has the concept been born
of experience, or has experience merely served to render ex-
plicit what was already latent in the primitive Mind?
TOBIAS OANTZICT
Number: The Language of Science'

I approach this chapter with great fear and trepidation because to sug-
gest that numbers used in conversations have unconscious meaning is,
at best, to be aligned with the wildest of psychoanalytic interpretations
and, at worst-and more likely-with ancient and New Age numerol-
ogy. Indeed, to suggest that numbers in conversations may have uncon-
scious meaning conjures up suspicions of a kind of psychological
alchemy. Given the history of psychoanalysis and of occult numerol-
ogy, my fear and trepidation is perhaps understandable. Nevertheless, I
have found that numbers mentioned in conversations can function as
subliteral "figures" of speech.2
How do you explain, for example, the repeated occurrence of the
number 5 in a conversation where only five people are active in the dis-
cussion? Or how do you explain the repeated occurrence of the number

125
126 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

14 in a seemingly casual conversation when the conversation is com-

posed of exactly fourteen people? Further yet, how do you explain the
number 14 in the literal stories changing to the number l3 after one
person excuses himself to leave early? It doesn't take a mathematician
to figure out that there was unconscious subtraction going on. Further,
what does it mean and how do you explain the repeated occurrence of
other numbers that "just happen" to come up in the course of stories or
ostensibly unrelated conversations that correspond exactly to the vari-
ous subgroups or factions in the conversation?
In this chapter I will show that conscious and literally intended num-
bers contained in stories and topics during conversations are often un-
consciously selected into the conversations because they express
people's concerns with the various factions or subgroups within a so-
cial conversation. Accordingly, the number 5 appeared in a conversa-
tion as a consequence of some members' concern that 5 people were
dominating the conversation. Just as words and topics function as deep
talk, so do numbers. And just as with using subliterallanguage, people
are not conscious of the deep-talk meaning of the numbers that they
"just happen" to use in their conversations.
In some ways, understanding the deep-talk function of numbers in
conversations is more important than recognizing the subliteral mean-
ing of words, phrases, and stories. I say this because words are notori-
ously vague, always leaving room for different meanings being
attributed to them. Unlike words, numbers are quite precise and con-
crete; they have clear boundaries. Accordingly, analyzing numbers' hid-
den meaning is much less problematic-if, indeed, somewhat more
controversial.
The importance of subliteral numbers isn't only their unconscious
meaning. They have another very significant function: They provide a
structure, a concrete framework for cross-checking and validating the
analysis of subliterallanguage. Subliteral numbers function as a cogni-
tive map, a kind of cognitive grid system for finding our way around
the sea of subliteral word meanings.
Because most professionals and laymen look askance at numbers be-
ing "symbolic:' it's important to present a fairly extensive and complex
 Figures of Speech in Conversation 127

method for systematically analyzing and validating deep listening to

numerical references in conversations. Providing a concrete framework
for cross-checking and validating deep talk, this chapter will show how
our minds create an incredibly systematic and coherent construction of
subliteral meanings.
Before we see how numbers subliterally "mean," it's useful and, I
think, quite interesting to look at how numbers have been thought to
express symbolic meaning throughout history. My main purpose for
looking at this brief history is to clearly separate my subliteral analysis
of the unconscious meaning of numbers from any hint of ancient and
New Age numerology or the often fast-and-Ioose psychoanalytic inter-
pretation of numbers. I'm talking cognitive operations here.

A 8ri.ef look at Numbers as Mystical and Symbolic

Neither the field of psycholinguistics nor the broader fields of the psy-
chology of language and cognition have recognized numbers as carry-
ing meaning outside the literal referent in the literal conversation or
topic that they are a part of: five apples simply means five apples, no
more, no less. I will categorize the scant literature on the psychological
meaning of numbers into five basic areas, four of which, because of
their occult and quasi-occult character, have been responsible for the
scientific neglect of numbers as being valid cognitive data.
Because of the occult-like nature of past approaches to the meaning
of numbers and the lack of an appropriate controlling method with
which to perform a systematic analysis and validation of them, under-
standably no "respectable" cognitive scientist has or would consider
conducting research on the unconscious meaning of numbers-until
now, that is.
The first area concerned with the meaning of numbers is what I will
call the mystical or cosmological. This includes the ancient belief in the
mystical and secret meaning of numbers. This belief was propounded
by a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras
(582-507 B.C.), who applied mathematics to the study of musical har-
mony and geometry, both of which he thought reflected the structure
128 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

of the universe (Recall the Pythagorean Theorem from grade school:

The sum of the squares of the lengths of the sides of right triangles is
equal to the square of the length of their hypotenuse?). He is generally
considered the first mathematician. The school he founded became a
secret mystical order. His followers believed in the transmigration of
souls and discovered the numerical relationships between musical
tones and numbers. They also believed that the essence of all things in-
volved numbers and that all relationships, including abstract concepts
like justice, could be expressed with numbers.3
With all due respect to Pythagoras-and to more knowledgeable his-
torians than I-out of this early belief in the mystical quality of num-
bers evolved both medieval and contemporary occult groups who
believe numbers to possess mystical and cosmic meanings. This is
known as numerology. Numerology believes that each number has a
cosmic meaning. From ancient to modern times, numbers have been
assigned to each letter of the alphabet, to names, to birth dates, and so
on. Even each person's "soul" is thought to have a number.
Another area of the meaning of numbers is what might be termed
the mythical, which includes the meaning of numbers used in primitive
myths and folklore, where they are believed to possess both universal
and concrete significance. 4
In addition to mystical and cosmic meaning, numbers have been
thought to have psychological meaning. One area is what may be
termed the pathological, which includes schizophrenic thought
processes where numbers are often believed to possess both personal
and cosmic significance. 5 Another area is a general psychoanalytic view
of the meaning of numbers. This includes numbers as they function in
dreams as well as other psychoanalytic interpretations. Historically, the
idea that numbers may possess psychological meaning has largely been
the purview of psychoanalytic theory. In addition to Freud, other psy-
choanalysts have noted instances of numbers possessing symbolic
meaning. 6 By and large, their interpretations were that numbers held
universal symbolic meaning. For example, the number 5 has been said
to represent psychological integration. Examples from this approach,
however, are not only few in number but are analyzed by the loosest of
 Figures of Speech in Conversation 129

free associations, with rules for their combination, transformation, se-

lection, addition, multiplication, and subtraction at the intuitive dis-
cretion of the analyst. For example, the psychoanalyst Emil GutheiF
says that the number 3 equates to male genitalia. Other analysts give
numbers meaning based on similarity of sounds, with, for example, the
number 50" equating to "ftlthy."
Outside of occult numerology, it was Freud in his The Interpretation
of DreamSJ who discovered that numbers have psychological meaning.
His aim being principally therapeutic, he seems to have not been overly
concerned with numbers as having real cognitive significance outside
of their representing dream thoughts. Because of serious methodologi-
cal shortcomings, and a small number of instances, Freud's findings are
limited with regard to the method of recognizing numbers' uncon-
scious meaning and their scope. The procedure he used for validating
the unconscious meaning of numbers was a very loose method of free
association. But, as we saw above, long before Freud, it was widely be-
lieved that numbers possessed religious or cosmic meaning. Freud's at-
tempt to analyze them from a psychological perspective was seminal.
A more modern and cognitive area is what may be termed the asso-
ciative selection area. It includes a few scientific statistical association
studies. 9 No psychological meaning, however, is attributed to numbers.
Finally, my findings suggest that numbers not only have unconscious
meanings reflecting here-and-now concerns in social conversations but
they make use of fairly sophisticated cognitive operations.

Numbers in Mind

Rather than present stories with multiple numbers in them from differ-
ent conversations, I will instead present references to a single subliteral
number from one ongoing conversation. I do this because presenting
multiple examples from a single conversation allows me to show you
how the numbers are integrally and structurally related to other sublit-
eral aspects of the conversation. It also allows me to provide you with
some modicum of demonstration of how my method of validation
works. In addition, it allows me to show you how subliteral numbers
130 DEEP LlSTENIN4-

can help to validate deep listening to what appear to be just literal

words, phrases, and sentences. At times the analysis of numbers gets
just a little tricky. Bear with me. It's worth it.
The following analysis of numbers is about a subgroup faction in a
conversation from one of my groups. The conversation was character-
ized by the repeated use of the number 3 in the various topics and sto-
ries that were told in the group. There were thirteen stories, which I
have grouped into four parts. Together these story variations on the
number 3 reflect a primary emotional concern of the nondominant
members in the discussion about the 3 dominant members, concerns
which reflect peer jealousy, rivalry, and disagreement about how the
group was being run. All of these stories are really one unconscious
topic generated by a single emotional concern about the 3 dominant
members in the group. I will refer to these three dominant members as
the triad.
The numerical theme of 3s is just one number out of an array of
numbers in the same conversation that subliterally correspond to the
membership subgrouping, which included myself and the 12 members
who were present during the particular session, thus totaling 13. Bro-
ken down, the membership included: 1 very active older woman and 10
young women (eighteen to twenty years of age), totaling 11 women; 5
of the young women, along with the older woman, were active, making
a total of 6 active women. A total of 7 members were active, 8 counting
myself. There were 2 males, counting myself. Within this group discus-
sion, there were 3 very dominant members: a slightly older male, an
older female, and myself.
The session was characterized by the general themes of bars, of
drinking, and of being drunk. These themes will become important as
we go along. With this said, let me now begin to parse the thirteen spe-
cific triadic themes.
I should note that there were other numbers that were mentioned in
the session. Along with the number 3, these other numbers make up a
very complex matrix of both semantic and numerical topics that are all
integrally connected. This matrix of connections among the numbers
plays a very large role in the validation process. It constitutes a system of
 Figures of speech in Conversation 131

interrelated connections among the numbers that wouldn't exist if the

numbers were simply coincidental or without subliteral meaning. This
system is the essence of my validation method.
I am primarily limiting this chapter to the number 3, however, be-
cause to include the others would be technical and tedious, though I
must explain a few of the integrally related other numbers.

Parsing Veep Talk About Numbers

I labored long and hard on how to present these subliteral numbers. If
I present my complete methodology, it tends to get too complex. On the
other hand, if I don't present some semblance of verification, the num-
bers may seem not only arbitrary but just too weird for words.
Presentation of these numbers in more detail would probably tax
your mind far beyond what is necessary to illustrate their subliteral
meaning. I know that tracing the extensive matrix of subliteral num-
bers still taxes my mind, even after all these years.
Following section, divided into four parts, is an advanced summary
of each of the thirteen topics involving the number 3:

I. (1) We Narrowed Them All Down to 3 Different Options. 10

(2) The 3 Lucky Spots Bar.1I
(3) About 3 Weeks Ago.
(4) It Started Snowing 3 Hours Before.
(5) The 3rd Stream Was Playing.
(6) The Bartender Can Refuse If He's Served You, for
Instance, 3 Drinks. 12
(7) On the 3rd Day They Said, "We're Just Going to Bus All
of You." 13
II. (8) 3 of the 10 People (Who Came into the Bar) Were Really
Drunk ... and They Wouldn't Serve Any of Them.
III. (9) 3 Seniors Were Drunk on an Airplane During Their High
School Class Trip."14
(10) 3 Old Greyhound Buses That Took People from the
Airport. IS
132 VEE P LI 5 TEN I N Cr

IV. ( 11) Being Under 21 Years of Age.

(12) LCB Men Were Coming, Like in 2 or 3 Weeks.
(13) This 1 Girl Who Was with These 2 Guys.

The general overview of these thirteen topics references the number

3 and other numbers that are integrally related to the number 3. All
thirteen topics are subliteral references to three members who are dom-
inating the conversation. (See Figure 7.1.)
It's important to know that these "numerical topics" are from a tran-
scribed tape recording of the session that the numbers are from. This
made it possible for me to systematically account for every time any
number was used in the conversation and the precise context it was
mentioned in. This in turn is important because it eliminates bias in se-
lecting only certain numbers to attribute meaning to.
I should now give you advanced warning: Even the following fairly
straightforward analysis of the subliteral meaning of the above num-
bers may prove to be somewhat of a rough trip, so hold on tight to your
mental stability (you may end up thinking I've lost mine). Here goes:

Sum of the Numbers in Mind

Stories 1-7

The first seven stories are relatively simple subliteral references to the 3
dominant members. (For additional analysis you may want to go to the
corresponding endnote to each topic.)

Story 8

This narrative about 3 of the 10 People (Who Came into the Bar) Were
Really Drunk . .. and They Wouldn't Serve Any of Them deserves more
attention, as do the remaining stories.
The significance of these literal numbers is in showing the integral
connection between the primary number 3 and another subgroup. The
number 10 corresponds to the 10 young female members. Combining
 Figures of speech in Conversation 133

Composlle Number. Slorio. Matrix Map

FIGURE 7.1 Composite Numbers Stories Matrix Map

the 3 plus the 10 totals to 13. The significance of the number 13 is that
it corresponds to the exact number of people in the group that day, in-
cluding myself. On a literal level the number 3 is included within a total
number of 10 (that is, 3 of 10 people), but in subliteral thinking the
numbers are separate, thus adding to 13.
The literal arithmetic structure of the number 3 being a part of the
number 10 would not have fit the subliteral meaning, which added up
to the total group membership. In other words, to have said something
like 3 people came in and sat down with the other 7 people at the bar,
which made a total of 10 people, would have precluded the subliteral
adding of 3 and 10 to total the 13 members.16 (See Figure 7.1.)

5todes 9-10

The significance of the next group of literal stories, (9) 3 Seniors Who
Were Drunk (on an Airplane During Their High School Class Trip) and
(10) 3 Old Greyhound Buses (That Took People from the Airport), is that
in using the terms seniors and old subliterally correspond to the age dif-
134 VEEP Ll5TENINC;-

ferential of the triad, which was composed of myself, an older woman,

and a male who was slightly older than the remaining ten female mem-
bers.

Stories 11-13

These stories are considerably more complex numerically, and this

complexity is methodologically telling. (11) Being Under 21 Years ofAge
is a literal story about being too young to legally drink. Like the direct
references to the triad using the number 3, it also subliterally references
the triad. This is indicated by taking the number 21 and separating it
into two single numbers and adding them together: 2 plus 1 equals 3. In
addition the use of the word under in the topic of Being Under 21-
with the 21 being the triad-refers to the fact that the group was under
the influence of the triad. But it gets even deeper. Much deeper.
The reference to the number 21 breaks the triad down into its appro-
priate numerical as well as gender components, with the 2 subliterally
representing the 2 males and the 1 subliterally representing the 1 older
woman. 17 Now, you may be wondering why the 2 couldn't represent the
older female and the older trainer, with the 1 representing the younger
male. It's possible but not probable. First, I have found that when two
members of the same gender are part of a subgroup, they are typically
referenced by a single number. It would be unusual for a male and a fe-
male to be referenced by a single number in this kind of context. Sec-
ond, this particular gender grouping is congruent with two other
stories in this group session, stories you should consider before you
brush off this gender and grouping aspect of the number 21 as being
too far-fetched.
Consider story (12), LCB Men Were Coming, Like in 2 or 3 Weeks.
Here, we once again see the triad subliterally referenced and broken
down into its numerically correct subgroups, only this time the sub-
group of the 2 males being subliterally mentioned without the 1 female
in the 2 weeks part of the story, and the female being subliterally in-
cluded only when the entire triad is referenced by the 3 weeks part of
the story. It's also possible that the 3-letter acronym LCB, literally refer-
 Figures of speech in Conversation 135

ring to the Liquor Control Board, also subliterally references the triadic
structure, since Liquor Control Board represents authority. But I won't
push this last point too hard even though I have other similar data in-
dicating that acronyms can be used in such a subliteral way.
Finally, the numbers in story (13), This 1 Girl Who Was with These 2
Guys, like the examples above, not only add to 3 and thus subliterally
reference the triad numerically, but also, as in the above story of being
under 21 (i.e.,2 + 1 = 3), indicate the correct gender of the here-and-
now triad-only this time explicitly by using the nouns girls and guys.
The 1 girl represents the 1 older woman, and the 2 guys represent the 2
males in the triad. 18
Again, you might be wondering why the older woman is referenced
as a girl, especially since in stories 9 and 10 the literal references to se-
niors and old correctly indicated the older age of the members they
subliterally refer to. To make a long story into a short one, I have found
that sometimes terms are used generically. That is, terms like girl are
used as simply a gender reference, not a reference to age, and the con-
text of the reference will typically indicate when a term is being used
generically.
It should be clear by now that while the linguistic structure of deep
talk is consistent and determined by rules, the rules are often deter-
mined by the context they are used in. The important point is that the
rules are applied consistently. If sometimes there seems to be inconsis-
tencies and contradictions, it's likely because I haven't yet discovered all
the rules. And if sometimes the rules seem strange, it's because nature's
mind is not the same mind that logicians use. (See Figure 7.1.)
If, at this point, your mind is still working and hasn't turned into the
consistency of oatmeal, there are a number of additional interesting
observations to make regarding these 13 subliteral references to the tri-
adic leadership structure of the above conversations. First, the total
number of topics, 13, may represent the 13 members of people in the
group that day (including myself).19
Second, with the exception of the first two topics, which were initi-
ated by the male member, the remaining 11 topics equal the total num-
ber of females in the group. Methodologically, it's interesting that all 11
136 VEEP LlSTENINCr

topics were initiated by the females. The question is whether it's just co-
incidence that the total number of topics, 13, equals the 13 members in
the group and that the 11 stories-all initiated by young females-
equals the exact number of females in the group. Perhaps. Lacking fur-
ther examples of this kind from other groups, I am willing to concede
that this particular analysis may be coincidental, though given the
highly structured nature of these subliteral findings, it's reasonable to
hypothesize that these two findings are real.
As for all the numerical references to the number 3 being coinciden-
tal, this is another matter altogether. At this point, would you seriously
contend that the 13 statements with the number 3 are not subliteral for
the triadic leadership structure of the group, that they are coincidental?
I think not. At least I think it wouldn't be reasonable to hold such a po-
sition.
If we look back upon the 13 stories and their relationships, it seems
clear that for this series of consistent and structurally integral numbers
to occur, each numerical representation and its other consistently asso-
ciated aspects and corresponding meanings must somehow be mapped,
tracked, and stacked systematically throughout multiple levels of meaning
and through the various story permutations, all remaining invariant with
respect to the specific set characteristics (for example, age, gender) and
meamngs.
In addition, there must exist a set of underlying operations that func-
tion as if there were a set of transformation rules creating this invariance
offeeling and meaning. Exactly how all this is neurologically possible, I
confess that I don't know (though I am working on it). The fact is,
however, these cognitive operations happen.
If the other deep talk presented in previous chapters seemed strange,
but you were willing to suspend your prejudices, this chapter on sublit-
eral numbers may have put you over the edge. I don't blame you. It's
deep. Very deep. Even after all these years of working with this material,
I sometimes look at the complex cognitive operations that I've consis-
tently found and say to myself, "WHAT!-G-i-v-e m-e a b-r-e-a-k!"
The fact is, however, I have to believe what the evidence suggests, not
only from my systematic method of verification, but from similar cor-
 Figures of speech in Conversation 137

roborating cognitive and linguistic operations found in dreams, primi-

tive myth narratives, and the works of great poets.
A famous German philosopher, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), once
said that every poet poetizes out of a single poem. 20 The work of any
poet, painter, sculptor, or novelist, then, can be said to spring from the
depths of his Being, and an artist's complete work is a working out of,
or variations on, a fundamental theme or feeling. In the same way, a
conversation "poetizes" out of a single concern. (Exactly what uncon-
scious "poem" this book originates from, I can't say.)
 Sex and CTender: Women
under the Influence

If there's no meaning in it, said the King, that saves a world

of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any.
LEWIS CARROLL
Alice in wonderland'

It's certainly no secret that one of the most enduring of human con-
cerns when men and women gather together is sexual tension. We cer-
tainly didn't need Freud to tell us that where males and females are,
there shall sexual tension be. Contrary to pop psychology, at their base
these concerns have less to do with things Freudian than they do with
things Darwinian. As Charles Darwin clearly showed us, the role of sex
is cardinal to our survival as a species. While this seems obvious
enough now, I don't think we really understand the emotional depths
to which these concerns are ever-present and concealed.
There are strong taboos in most social situations prohibiting the di-
rect expression of sexual feelings. On top of these taboos, there are also
intricate biological and social rules defining the "mating game." Given
these primal and social forces, it should come as no surprise that un-
conscious feelings and attitudes about sex would be some of the
stronger forces generating deep talk. Some of these sexual feelings are
unconscious, some are not, some are simply hidden from social view.

139
140 DEEP L15TENINCr

Some are realistic, and some are stereotypic. Listening sub literally, we
can often tune into these otherwise hidden sexual tensions, concerns,
and perceptions. Just as deep listening to all stories and conversations
can be useful and informative, so can deeply listening to conversations
between the sexes be useful for recognizing underlying gender dynam-
ics that might not otherwise be evident.

Women Under the Influence

One enduring concern when men and women gather is social and sex-
ual dominance. This relative balance of power and its influence in so-
cial situations depends on a number of factors, including the kind of
situation, the topic being discussed, the assigned roles, and the relative
number of women and men present. Given the history of humankind,
the primary, or at least the overt, concern typically revolves around
male dominance of, and influence over, women.
In one of my groups, there were only two male members other than
myself. One of the males had been quite verbally dominant throughout
the sessions. The female majority of the group, while wholly disgrun-
tled with me for not providing structure, was respectful (that is, re-
tained a dependency to my role). Members of the group were
dissatisfied with what they perceived as their lack of progress in becom-
ing a cohesive group. At this point, the group went on semester break.
The dissatisfaction with the group increased upon their returning from
the break. As a consequence, the group was not working as a unit and
couldn't seem to even return to the level of functioning that they had
achieved prior to their break. They felt bad and often obliquely apolo-
gized to me.
The essential here-and-now concerns of the group were: (1) the
group had "died" over the vacation, (2) an artificial attempt was being
made to bring it back to life, (3) members were ambivalent about the
manipulation to revive it, and (4) members continued to be concerned
about dominance and control.
There was considerable talk about It's like what we had has come
apart. They felt that The group has died, and expressed their feelings
 Sex and (fender 141

that Coming back to life after vacation is difficult, that it was Like begin-
ning all over again. Then after a flurry of topics, the group settled upon
discussing an old late-night movie entitled A Woman Under the Influ-
ence. The next topic was about the movie Dr. Frankenstein. What
might all this literal talk mean subliterally? And how might you make
use of it.
In discussing the movie Dr. Frankenstein, a number of specific deep-
talk references were revealed about the feelings of the group members,
especially the women. The basic subliteral structure was: The monster
equals the group. The discussion about Dr. Frankenstein also equals a
reference to me. I am, after all, a "Dr." Thus, the talk of Bringing the
monster back to life is deep talk for resuscitating the dead group. That it's
A difficult task even for Dr. Frankenstein means that it's a difficult task
even for me.
In further talk about Dr. Frankenstein, it was also said that Scientists
must have patience. This is a double deep-talk reference. First, I (that is,
Dr. Frankenstein) must have patience. This is a play on words suggest-
ing that, like any doctor, I must have patients. This was the first deep-
talk reference to their feeling that I am working on them, that I am
artificially trying to make the individual parts (members) into a single
body (group). In other words, for Dr. Frankenstein (me) to construct
the monster (the group), he must have used a lot of bodies (patients, or
members).
Also, there was talk that the group, like the monster in the movie, had
to be Shocked to bring it to life. Finally, the dominant male member
equals Igor, Dr. Frankenstein's (that is, my) helper. After I had advanced
the general interpretation that the group was the monster and that I
was Dr. Frankenstein, a couple of members immediately, but jokingly,
referred to the dominant male member as "Igor." This demonstrates
that deep-talk meaning is often not far from consciousness.
The statement that It's like beginning all over again means it's like
bringing the monster in the movie back to life. The group and the mon-
ster are also like movies; they were all directed and constructed and
therefore unnatural, artificial. The themes of unnatural and artificial
are a frequent perception about T-group functioning.
142 DEEP Ll5TENJN~

The deep-talk meaning of the movie A Woman Under the Influence

equaled the women in the group being dominated by the males. (See Fig-
ure 8.1.) At first glance, it may appear that the two movies subliterally
dealt with separate issues, with A Woman Under the Influence subliter-
ally addressing gender issues, and Dr. Frankenstein subliterally address-
ing other issues about the group as a whole. But because these two
movies were mentioned together, they were psychologically connected.
Just as A Woman Under the Influence dealt with the group issue of the
two males being perceived as dominating the largely female group, so
too, Dr. Frankenstein dealt with domination and gender as well. Dr.
Frankenstein (meaning me) and his assistant, Igor (meaning the other
dominant male), dominated nature (the females). Both movies were
thus about the domination of the females in the group. 2

On Being Cocky

The following story is from a single-parents' group that met once a

week to discuss the problems of being a single parent. The group was
conducted and later analyzed by a colleague. 3 A female member of the
group was the mother of a seventeen-year-old daughter who was her
only child. She was a devout Roman Catholic. Her husband had died
over a year ago, and during the last several years of her marriage she
didn't engage in sexual intercourse with her husband; nor had she been
sexually intimate since her husband's death.
Her daughter had recently started to date a boy quite steadily and seri-
ously. Throughout the sessions, she expressed constant worry about her
daughter's having intercourse with the boyfriend and about her daugh-
ter's becoming pregnant. She repeatedly said that she couldn't trust her
daughter, even though she was in all other respects very trustworthy. She
feared that her daughter would violate her deeply held religious values
with respect to not engaging in sexual relations until after marriage.
The counselor suggested to her that Sometimes a parent without a
partner becomes jealous of a child (daughter) who she thinks is, or may be,
getting what the parent isn't. The sexual connotation of this comment
became obvious and the counselor mentioned the implication. Her re-
 Sex and (fender 143

Women Under the Inftuence Matrix Map

FIGURE 8.1 Women Under the Influence Matrix Map

sponse was: I think . .. guess? ... you're right. She then quickly switched
the topic since time was running out for the session. Just before the
group got up to leave, however, she said: You know. .. [her daughter's
boyfriend's nameJ ... belongs to a club called the Explorers (suggesting
that he wasn't a delinquent), but, she emphasized, He is cocky. The ses-
sion ended. So what does all this reveal about what the woman was
feeling unconsciously?
The woman had directly revealed her emotional issues around sepa-
ration and loss. First the loss of her husband and now the psychological
loss of her teenage daughter to a young man. She had also directly re-
vealed her sexual frustration and tentatively admitted a jealousy: Her
daughter might be enjoying what had been missing in her life, not only
for the sixteen months following her husband's death, but also for the
last several years of her marriage-sex.
A subliteral analysis of her last statement about her daughter's
boyfriend belonging to a club called the Explorers and the further em-
phasis that He is cocky can be seen as deep talk supporting her tentative
agreement with the counselor's interpretation that she was perhaps un-
consciously feeling jealous of her daughter, who might be having a sex-
ual relationship.
144 VEEP LlSTENINCr

Consider this: Phonetically, the term Explorers can be parsed into ex-
plore plus her, and the reference to cocky, given the context, subliterally
likely means cock in the vernacular, referring to a male's penis. The
mother thus feared that the penis of her daughter's boyfriend would
explore her daughter, an event which would simultaneously violate her
conscious religious values while unconsciously she desired a sexual re-
lationship herself.
If this example seem to be stretching meaning a bit too far, remem-
ber: to say that the woman was simply mentioning the word Explorer
and just happened to select the word cocky doesn't explain anything.
Scientifically we need an explanation for why the particular word Ex-
plorer was retrieved from memory and used at the particular time it
was, and why the particular word cocky was selected for use, especially
in relation to the particular context of the conversation. (Do you really
believe that if the woman's daughter had been a son, with his girlfriend
seemingly as assertive or self-confident as she perceived her daughter's
boyfriend to be, that she would have used the word cocky to describe
the girlfriend?)

The EternalSedllction Triangle

One of the deepest human dramas played out on life's stage is about
sexual seduction and intrigue. Since the beginning of time, sexual se-
duction is one of the grand eternal archetypal dramas in human affairs
(the pun is intended). Seductions can be obvious, or they can be subtle;
they can be conscious or unconscious; and they can be carried out ver-
bally or just with our body language. They can also be real or simply in
the mind of the beholder.
In groups of mixed-gender composition sexual seduction and rivalry
dramas are not uncommon. These dramas of sexual seduction and ri-
valry especially seem to go with power and authority: Followers often
lust after a leader, and leaders lust after their followers, as on-the-job
sexual harassment complaints often clearly show.
So you think you know when you are being sexually seductive, or
when someone is being seductive toward you? Think again. Seductions
 Sex and Crender 145

often happen unconsciously. Though this illustration occurred in one

of my groups, watch for its re-run coming to a workplace near you.
In a previous group session I had changed my seat, explaining as I
did so that a group leader should always be able to see each member
clearly. At the start of the following session, an attractive young woman
sat in the seat directly across from me. With a nervous laugh she said,
We can really look into each other's eyes now. There followed a heavy si-
lence to this comment, which carried obvious flirtatious implications.
Then, in an apparently unrelated vein, a slightly older attractive
woman sitting next to the younger female said to the group, I have a
problem that I would like your opinion on. She told of going with a mar-
ried man who was Separated from his wife. Continuing, she said The
other night she [his wife} was peeking in through this window at them.
Since it was rather warm in the room, I took off my blazer jacket, placing
it on the back of my chair. Almost immediately, the older woman who
told of going with the married man took off her pullover sweater, sharply
exposing as she did so the outline of her prominent breasts against her
tight jersey shirt. Then, returning to the topic, a male member said that
he thought she ought to talk about her problem and Get it off her chest.
What this conversation means is likely already obvious. Seduction is
at work here. Let's look at it in a little more detail, for it will provide the
"evidence" that makes my subliteral analysis credible.
Throughout the group sessions, the two women had exhibited a great
deal of grooming and primping behavior (called "preening" by those
who study animal behavior) by fixing their hair, smoothing out their
skirts and blouses, and so forth. Such behavior in social situations is
considered by many psychologists and anthropologists to be sexual in
connotation-a kind of flirting invitation, as it were. Throughout the
previous sessions, the younger woman had made eye contact with me
more than other group members. In addition, the two dominant young
men had been vying almost openly-with each other and with me-
for leadership of the group (which consisted of eight young women
and five young men).
The young female's statement to me that We can really look into each
other's eyes now" was a literal or conscious link to my comment the pre-
146 VEEP L/5TEN'N~

vious session that a group leader should be able to see each member
clearly. Subliterally, of course, it was either a romantic feeling or fantasy
on the part of the younger female member for me, or feelings she be-
lieved that I may have had toward her. It's also a verbal expression of
her previous behavior of trying to make frequent eye contact with me.
The discussion by the older woman about her going with a married
man is deep talk about her feelings toward the younger female's previ-
ous remark to me of Looking into each other's eyes. Subliterally she con-
sidered the younger female's remark as an overture to linking up with a
married man (me). It thus suggests a typical rivalry for my sexual atten-
tion (as the "powerful" leader). The act of removing my jacket was per-
ceived as seductively undressing.4 The older woman then taking off her
sweater equals an unconscious, reciprocal, seductive undressing response
in this sexual drama.
Just as in the story she related about the eternal triangle of hus-
band/wife/lover, so too, in the group the young woman, the older
woman, and I correspond to the sexual triangle in the here-and-now
group conversation. In addition, the older woman's comment of going
with a married man puts the younger woman (that is, the wife) and me
(meaning the husband) on notice that she, too (the third part of the
triangle), was in on the competition.
The young man's remark to the older woman to Get it offyour chest is
deep talk for him noticing her breasts when she removed her sweater.
(For a similar example using a similar phrase, see the section below.
Similar examples add supportive evidence that the example is not an
aberration.)
The older woman's recounting an event about the wife of the man
she is going with peeking in the window is equivalent to her observing
the ostensible relationship between myself and the younger woman. In
other words, just as the wife was peeking in at the husband and herself,
she was watching the younger woman and myself. The remark about
peeking in was stimulated by the younger woman's earlier comment to
me of being able to look into each other's eyes. The main dynamic this
deep talk reveals is the rivalry between two female members for a
leader's attention.
 Sex and G-ender 147

This conversation also illustrates the shaping and selection of topics

and words by the physical events that take place during a conversation
(see Chapters 1 and 9). For example, the remark Get it offyour chest was
precipitated by the older woman's physically taking off her sweater and
exposing the outline of her breasts on her shirt.
Finally, the particular remark by the older woman about her male
friend's being separated from his wife was physically predicated on the
young woman's changing her seat from sitting beside me to sitting across
from me, that is, separated from me. In terms of imagery reflecting
physical action, the remark by the older woman about the wife who
was peeking in through this window was precipitated by (a) my remark
the previous session about sitting so I could see all members clearly,
and (b) the younger female's opening remark to me of Looking into
each other's eyes now.
All of these correspondences are lent further validation by more
specifically examining the grammatical aspects of the language used.
For example, the remark about the wife who was peeking in through this
window is significant. The use of this as an adjective referring to a per-
son or thing that is present, instead of either the more appropriate in-
definite article a, as in peeking in through a window, or the window, or
that window, or my window, changes an event in the past to one that is
happening now. This temporal shift psychologically links the literal
topic to the here-and-now situation in the group.

TV Talk Shows and Commercials

Deeply listening to TV talk shows also can reveal deep talk. Most talk
shows are, after all, relatively unscripted conversations. Some years ago
on the late-night Johnny Carson show, Carson was welcoming Dolly
Parton, a well-known female country western singer. As she walked to-
ward him, it was obvious that she had extremely large breasts. Carson
seriously welcomed her, saying, Sit down and take a load off your feet.
This is a phrase that's sometimes used to mean "have a seat." But given
the context, he had no more than gotten the words out of his mouth
when he apparently realized what he had "really:' that is, unconsciously,
148 DEEP Ll5TENIN(f

said: Those huge breasts must be heavy to carry around. You had better sit
down and relieve yourself of that load! You could see his face turn red.
He fumbled around trying to cover it up, but to no avaiL
When he recognized what he had really said, Carson blew the scene
by socially revealing to his guest his withheld perception of her physical
appearance. This example illustrates what is perhaps a rather common
perception males have of big-breasted women: that they need to relieve
themselves of their burden. (Recall the Get it off your chest illustration
above.) The example also clearly illustrates the process of hidden per-
ception slipping into the conscious mind and determining the shape of
the language used. While it's possible that Carson's remark was scripted
(as he was known to do), it was reasonably clear from his face turning
red that it wasn't scripted. It is nearly impossible to fake blushing.
Deep talk can also be seen in commercials. Indeed, it's no secret that
advertisers consciously use symbolism-Freudian and otherwise-in
their ads. A great deal has been written on symbolism and the use of
puns in advertising. While most of the following TV commercials may
seem fraught with Freudian symbolism, I will be more concerned with
how those who create the ads subliterally communicate meanings to
your unconscious mind. The people who design and carefully con-
struct advertisements consciously know that meanings get wrapped
around our psyches in various ways, some obvious and some not so
obvious. The illustration I am about to present shows how advertising
writers know exactly what they are doing with the double meanings of
words.
When the Reynolds Company first introduced a new product to
wrap food to keep it fresh (The product is now well known as Reynolds
Wrap), it ended its ad by simply saying, Reynolds Wrap, The Best Wrap
Around. When I heard this phrase, I initially heard what the Reynolds
ad designers wanted me to hear, namely, that the Reynolds product was
the best on the market. But it wasn't that simple. Not by a long shot.
The ad generated at least two other levels of hidden meaning.
The first is based on sound symbolism, or a kind of pun. This mean-
ing tells listeners that the talk they are listening to is the best. That is to
say, the words they are listening to constitute the best {w)rap around;
 Sex and (fender 149

the words are truthful. The connection here, of course, is to the defini-
tion of the word rap, meaning to have a conversation.
The ad's last meaning, I believe, was intended to be a sexual associa-
tion. That is, the phrase wrap around is semantically connected to a
network of sexual associations. The non-conscious subliteral connec-
tion is to sexual intercourse, as in one's arms and/or legs being wrapped
around one's partner when engaged in sexual embrace: Indeed,
Reynolds implied that this kind of sexual wrap-around is the best
wrap-around (I am tempted to add my own commercial here: that
deep talk, too, is the best (w)rap around).
If all this talk of subliteral sexual content to ads sounds far-fetched,
the history of advertising clearly shows that since the early 1950s it has
been heavily Freudian, with advertising agencies making use of their
understanding of psychoanalytic symbolism. In addition, the field has
made extensive use of the understanding and adaptation of association
psychology, where ideas and images are connected to each other by as-
sociations we have to them. Advertisers' belief is that using unconscious
symbolism will function like a subliminal message or a post-hypnotic
suggestion causing viewers to buy their product. We must remember
that ads are constructed very carefully. Nothing-neither words nor
objects in the background-is put into an ad that isn't very carefully se-
lected for a reason. Every detail of an ad is consciously designed. With
this said, let's now look at what I consider a more bizarre example of
deep listening to sexual communication in another ad.
Yes, another good illustration of the conscious use of double mean-
ings that advertising writers hope will bypass your conscious attention
is an ad that ran a number of years ago. As I explain the ad, it may seem
terribly obvious, but people only half-watch such things, thus often
missing the subliteral meanings. I checked with a number of my friends
who had seen the ad and they seemed genuinely surprised at myanaly-
sis, even though they had seen the ad numerous times.
The ad was for a new roll-on deodorant for women called Tickle.
This ad employed almost inclusively visual images instead of lan-
guage. The elongated container had a huge ball-like top. A white fe-
male with an ever-so-slight French accent says, This is like no other
150 VEEP LISTENING-

one; it has a bigger ball than most. Then she touches its head with the
tip of her finger very hesitantly and coyly, quickly withdrawing her
finger from it as she giggles. The next scene shows another white
woman slowly sliding on a turtleneck sweater. The final scene shows
an African-American female in a baseball field, throwing a baseball
into her baseball glove. This collage of images is no accident, of
course.
The elongated container-like so many women's cosmetic contain-
ers-was an "obvious" phallic symbol with a huge ball-like head. More
than this, the container was made to look like what is called a French
tickler, a male prophylactic device, a "safe." A French tickler is so named
because it has minute protrusions along its shaft to increase stimula-
tion of a woman's genital area during intercourse.
Hence the French accent and the product's name Tickle. Saying it has
a bigger ball than most suggests a big penis. What is more, saying that it
has a big ball on its tip is subliterally connected with an associated
meaning for sexual intercourse, as in to ball someone. In standard
Freudian symbolism, a bald-headed male signifies sexual potency, pre-
sumably because within a kind of dream language a bald-headed male
is a walking erect phallic symbol.
The forbidden fruit of touching the male penis is symbolized by the
woman's touching the container's head quickly and coyly, withdrawing
her finger while giggling-after tickling it. Still more, the male penis has
been popularly symbolized as a worm. The scene with the women
slowly and slinkily sliding a turtleneck sweater over her head is subliter-
ally connected by association to the imagery of the foreskin of the penis
being pulled back from its head. As a supportive linguistic association,
there is even a fairly well know joke (among males, at least) about the
male penis being a worm with a turtleneck sweater on.
In the final scene, the black female in the baseball field is throwing a
white baseball into a colored glove, that is, a vagina. Again, ball is asso-
ciatively connected to bald, and field is associatively connected to feel.
In deep-talk terms, the white baseball is the head of a white male' penis
penetrating an African-American vagina-in other words, a white male
having a ball, or balling, a black female.
 Sex and ~ender 151

Subliterally tying the ad altogether is an associative matrix of visual-

similarity-implied sounds. We have tickle-turtle-giggle, ball-bald, field-
feel. Other more peripheral subliteral associations related to the
baseball imagery are: scoring as in a male successfully seducing a fe-
male, or winning her and being safe at the plate as associated with the
safe or prophylactic, which in this case is a French tickler. The associa-
tion of sliding into home base, of a double header, that is, a big-ball
game, and of repetitively throwing the baseball into the glove all are as-
sociated with the sexual intercourse activity of going in and out. Of
course the implied baseball term strikes is associated with sex and ag-
gression as is the ball's being thrown into the glove. Are we to seriously
believe that all these images and associated sounds are accidents? No,
they are not. Unfortunately many people still don't believe such analy-
ses of ads.
Poetry, too, is full of such intentional and unintentional use of lan-
guage. Such conscious uses of language make it clear that if we know
how to use language like this on a conscious level, it shouldn't be sur-
prising that it occurs on an unconscious level.

Playing It Straight
Just as in our perceptions of ethnic and racial relations, many still har-
bor stereotypes and other feelings about a person's sexual orientation.
Recently, a woman I know was in a store that she frequents and was
waiting to pay for her purchase. In front of her was a man wearing a T-
shirt with Secret Service embossed on it. He was inquiring about a
product. The woman knew the store clerk, who is gay. Though the
clerk's demeanor was not the typical stereotype of a gay male who acts
extremely effeminate, his behavior could be seen as such, and thus it
wouldn't be unreasonable for someone, especially a macho male, to
suspect that the clerk might be gay. The clerk had just finished a long
and rather dramatic explanation of a product to some other customers.
It was then the man's turn.
As the clerk was answering the man's question, the man said to the
clerk, Be straight with me, now, by which the man literally meant, don't
152 VEEP Ll5TENIN~

just give me a sales pitch to sell the product, is it really good? The
woman observing all this said the clerk did a subtle but clear double
take on the man, asking him to be straight with him. The three com-
mon meanings of the word straight, of course, are to be (a) socially
conventional or normal, (b) to be honest, and (c) to differentiate some-
one who is heterosexual from someone who is homosexual. The gay
clerk certainly consciously understood these meanings. The question
is: Was the man's Be straight with me 'remark a subliteral statement re-
flecting that he unconsciously recognized-or at least that he was hid-
ing his belief-that the clerk was gay?
Not having more information, I can't absolutely assess that the state-
ment was in fact deep talk. However, given (a) that the instance oc-
curred in a small, and rather provincial town, (b) in a state where there
had recently been a referendum on gay rights legislation, and (c) where
there had been beatings of gay men, it seems reasonable-being a
member of this provincial linguistic community-to assume that the
selection of the word straight was no accident. Judging from the clerk's
double-take, it certainly didn't seem an accident to him. The clerk's un-
conscious tuned in on the possible subliteral meaning, which then be-
came conscious.
Then there is the matter of the man's T-shirt embossed with the
words Secret Service. After the man's statement, the clerk asked the man
if he was in the Secret Service. The man said he wasn't. Why would the
clerk ask the man if he was a Secret Service agent? Perhaps the clerk's
subliteral mind's picking up on the word straight was in part based on
the words embossed on the man's T-shirt. While in most states it's no
longer illegal to engage in homosexual activity, it's still illegal in some
states to engage in anal sex (called sodomy). Perhaps the clerk on some
unconscious level was reacting to this illegal association with a possible
officer of the law.
Finally, the noun service used as an adverb as in "to service" is also
used by both gay and heterosexual males to refer to providing sex activ-
ity to another, as in servicing someone. In fact, in most dictionaries this
is one of its meanings (but it's usually defined as having sex with a fe-
male). If the illegal aspects of my analysis of term servicing seems far-
 Sex and Crender 153

fetched, consider that in the area where this deep talk occurred, every
so often there is a news item that the police are cracking down on an
area where gay men meet to have sex, to service each other. (I don't re-
call similar news items about heterosexual gathering places, like Lovers
Lanes-at least not since the Happy Days of the 1950s.)
Yet another example of a gay stereotype. A female in one of my
groups, who was being trained to work in counseling groups at her
workplace, asked me, Were you absent last time on purpose in order to
see what our response would be? 1 replied, No, I wasn't absent on pur-
pose. 1 was just about to explain that during each group I plan to be
absent a couple of times during a semester, when the dominant male
member of the group sarcastically interjected, saying, Oh, come on,
don't give us that. There followed a heavy silence because typically
statements that appear to challenge a leader are both consciously and
unconsciously felt by other members to be "dangerous." They fear that
the challenge may bring retaliation not only to the member who made
the statement, but upon them as well (shades of family life and par-
ent/child relations).
Then apparently unrelated to any previous topic, the female member
began talking about the counseling group where she worked, saying she
Feels so sorry for this one member. He is a homosexual and announced it
at the first meeting, adding, This made me wonder if he really felt com-
fortable with it. She went on saying that in the counseling group there's
A male member who is always making remarks about this homosexual,
but the fellow who is homosexual will not respond to them. He just sits
there passively. I feel so sorry for him. She then explained that she didn't
know whether to say something to the male who was making the re-
marks about the homosexual or not, as she was Just beginning to estab-
lish a good relationship with him in the group. Silence. Some small talk
ensued, and the session ended.
The context for this conversation was this: In previous sessions, the
dominant male member had frequently made derogatory and chiding
remarks to me to which I didn't respond. Each time this occurred, she
looked aghast at me, clearly expecting me to reply to his remarks. She
had also mentioned in previous sessions that she felt that she and the
154 DEEP L/STENINCr

dominant male member in the group were just beginning to establish a

comfortable relationship. The deep-talk picture should be coming into
focus now.
The older woman's reference to the gay male in her counseling
group is deep talk about me, as, like him, I will not respond but just sit
there passively in the face of remarks by the dominant male. Thus, the
dominant male member in her counseling group who was always
making remarks about the homosexual equates to the dominant male
member in the here-and-now group who makes remarks about me.
Therefore, her remark of Feeling so sorry for this member reveals her
feeling sorry for me.
Members frequently feel perplexed and sorry for the trainer in group
situations where the trainer is nondirective and passive. (The British
group analyst Alfred Bion once said that groups don't understand a
leader who neither fights nor runs away.) That the gay male announced
his role at the first meeting of her counseling group corresponds to my
announcement during the first meeting that my role was not that of an
active member (implying that I would be "passive").
The woman's wondering whether the gay male at work was comfort-
able with his role equals with her wondering whether I am comfortable
with my role, that is, being addressed in such a manner by the male in
the group. Her statement about not knowing whether to say something
to the male in her counseling group because she is just beginning to es-
tablish a working relationship with him equals her concern about say-
ing anything to the male in the here-and-now group because, as she
said in a previous session, she is Just beginning to establish a relationship
with him.
This episode demonstrates the dynamic of the woman's feelings to-
ward (a) me in terms of a person and as a trainer and (b) the male
member. It may also reflect some concern she has for another group
member who could be construed as being gay. No one bothers him, but
he did just sit there passively. Once again we can see that the particular
language that is unconsciously selected linguistically signifies the
topic's linkage to the here-and-now group. In the woman's statement
about a male in her counseling group who is always making remarks
 Sex and ~ender 155

about a gay male, instead of saying the homosexual, or a homosexual,

she used the pronoun this in referring to the gay male. Thus, she psy-
cholinguistically shifted the reference to subliterally reflect a here-and-
now meaning. Likewise, in the statement, But the fellow who is
homosexual will not respond to them, which literally refers to the other
male's comments, the them subliterally, means: In my nondirective
leadership style, I do not respond to members, that is, them.
There is yet another level of deep listening to this episode. During the
group discussion, I didn't feel as if I had identified all aspects of the
subliteral meaning connected to the gay male topic. I asked the woman
to make an appointment to see me in my office. In response to my re-
quest that she reiterate the story she told about the gay male in her
counseling group, she said that he did not return to the counseling
group. She went on to say that He's very intelligent. As a matter of fact,
she said, He's the most intelligent person in the group so I guess he wasn't
getting anything out of the group. During the session, just prior to meet-
ing with me in my office, the woman had expressed that she Wasn't get-
ting anything out of the group and that she felt like not coming to the
group any more.
It's likely that in the woman's own unconscious mind, she identified
with the gay male; that is, being older than most of the members, she
felt she was more intelligent, in the sense of having more experience,
and that like him she, too, felt like not attending the group any longer.
Further support that the gay male subliterally corresponded to me is
the woman's comment that He's the most intelligent person in the group
so I guess he wasn't getting anything out of the group. Contextually,
groups often mention that professors are very intelligent. More specifi-
cally, groups often talk about their belief that since I have conducted
these groups for years, I probably don't learn anything new and am
probably bored (neither of which is correct).
The literal topic about gays, then, becomes a multi-leveled set of sub-
literal meanings and a window into the deep-rooted stereotypes in our
culture. The stereotypes here are that gays are (a) effeminate, (b) pas-
sive, (c) emotionally female, (d) deviant, and (e) highly intelligent. Just
as with racial and ethnic stereotypes, these deeply rooted emotional be-
156 DEEP Ll5TENIN4-

liefs become generalized to other situations that are perceived to be

similar.
All these subliteral topics were transformations of basic concerns
about sexuality, including domination, competition, stereotypes, sexual
preference, physical touching, and disrobing, with each different topic
being a permutation or variation revolving around a single complex of
emotional concerns. We also saw that subliteral transformations were
carried out using various cognitive and linguistic operations. These in-
cluded the use of movie themes reflecting here-and-now meaning,
pun-like sounds, the use of words that have multiple underlying mean-
ings, the physical events precipitating corresponding or subliteral top-
ics and meanings, the use of plural and pronoun shifts, and oronymic
use of words. And once again, we saw that much can be learned about
particular unconscious feelings and thoughts and interpersonal rela-
tionships by deep listening.
 A Niggardly Issue?
Race Matters in
Btack and White

Gump's first encounter is with a 'white feather' ... his first

human encounter is with a black woman wearing 'clean
white shoes: ... Gump identifies himself as a descendant of
the southern Confederate founder of the KKK.
AARON DAVID 4-RE550N
"Reading Forest Crump'"

As we come into the twenty-first century, we live in an age in which the

earth has been reduced to a global and incredibly diverse multicultural
village. Ostensibly it's an age of enlightenment, an age in which educa-
tion has supposedly replaced superstition with facts. But in social gath-
erings of mixed ethnic composition, prejudicial feelings, attitudes, and
concerns are ever present in most people, regardless of skin color or
ethnicity.
As with our individual lives, so too our work and social lives have be-
come increasingly made up of different groups of peoples from around
the world who not only look different from each other but who have
different beliefs and cultural practices. It's important to understand
and recognize behaviors and attitudes toward different peoples if we
are to reduce personal and global conflict in our lives. 2

157
158 DEEP lISTENIN(l-

Many non-minorities think that racial prejudice has been almost

eradicated since the civil right movement that began in the late 1950s.
Certainly, with the exceptions of the still-active Ku Klux Klan and other
white supremacist groups-and on the other side of the race issue, the
Nation of Islam-it's nearly impossible to get someone to admit on a
questionnaire survey that they are prejudiced against certain ethnic
and other minorities. But the issue of prejudice and discrimination
looms, if not larger, at least as pervasively and certainly more subtly. We
have driven some of it underground, just as we have driven some sexist
prejudice underground.
As the extreme and overt forms of prejudice decline, the breadth and
depth of more subtle and unconscious forms of prejudice and discrim-
ination seem to increase. Even now we tend to exaggerate and selec-
tively experience something that we fear or dislike. A Gallup PoW in
1990 showed that most white Americans believed that African-Ameri-
cans made up 32 percent of the population and that Hispanics consti-
tuted 21 percent, when in reality the figures were 12 percent and 9
percent. Perceptions haven't changed. When I asked my students and
friends what percentage of the u.s. population they thought were
African-American, I received answers all the way from 20 percent to 50
percent. Amazing, isn't it? Perceptions of the race issue in the United
States remain deeply divided.
We saw this division in perceptions of the race issue during the 1995
trial of black football star O. J. Simpson on charges of killing his white
ex-wife and a white male friend of hers. The vast majority of whites felt
race was not an issue in the trial process. Conversely, the vast majority
of African-Americans felt that race was integrally involved.4
One way to uncover these more subtle and covert forms of prejudice
is by listening to conversations with a subliteral ear. In this way, we can
hear both current and vestigial remains of these feelings and stereo-
types causing much of our racial and ethnic conflict and misunder-
standings. I have been listening to such subliteral racial and ethnic
stories for years. 5
It's widely recognized that in everyday conversations certain eu-
phemisms are consciously employed to cryptically talk about ethnic
 A Niggardo/ Issue? 159

out-group people such as "you know how they are:' Similarly, certain
phrases in a conversation may consciously be used to represent black
versus white prejudices, stereotypes, and concerns such as topics about
city versus rural or talk of inner city and welfare. This is simply called
"coded speech:' by which everyone knows what's "really" being dis-
cussed. But, again, I am not talking about coded speech, I am talking
deep stereotypes.
I have found in mixed racial groups of African-Americans and whites
that literal topics associated with color often creep into chitchat that on
the surface seems to have no bearing on race. Why would references to
the color black be selected into the interracial chitchat? For example,
why would talk of chocolate ice cream, or black eyes, or electrical black-
outs be selected into a "mixed" racial conversation?6
And as out of date as it may sound, why would the apparently literal
topics about people being lazy or about eating watermelons creep into
conversations with no conscious awareness of these topics' being
stereotypic racial references to minority members in the conversation?
It's as if the very physical presence of an African-American acts as a
stimulus that automatically evokes multiple layers of prejudices, stereo-
types, and other concerns. Some of the stereotypes that the deep-talk
illustrations in this chapter are based on may seem to no longer exist-
to be from a time long past. Let me assure you that this is not the case. 7
Many of them are still operating on deep unconscious levels.
Before I begin to more fully illustrate deep listening to racial stereo-
types, however, I need to sound a note of caution regarding interpret-
ing conversations that seem to reflect prejudice. While prejudicial and
stereotypic attitudes can be revealed subliterally, I have found that of-
ten deep-talk references to ethnic stereotypes may not necessarily
mean that the person speaking is prejudiced in a negative sense. Such
references may instead reflect the activation of cultural stereotypes
that most of us have had ingrained in us through mass media that may
be automatically evoked (see below and in Chapter 6). This caution
applies not only to all subliteral references in conversations, but it es-
pecially applies to racial topics. I also need to clarify some terms before
we begin.
160 VEEP Ll5TEN/N(1-

The Meaning of the Terms Prejudice and Race

The terms prejudice and race are widely misunderstood. Most people
think of prejudice as reflecting something negative. This is because the
everyday usage of the term in relation to racial and ethnic issues has
overridden its psychological meaning. Prejudice means simply a pre-
judgment about something before looking at all of the relevant infor-
mation. It can thus be positive, too. A related meaning is a preconceived
preference, opinion, or idea. Finally-and this is the meaning generally
applied-prejudice can mean an irrational dislike or hatred of a partic-
ular group of people on the basis of their ethnicity/race, gender, sexual
orientation, or religion. I use the term prejudice here not as a simple
prejudgment but rather in the typical sense of a negative or adverse
prejudgment, one that negates or devalues an individual or group. This
prejudgment is precipitated and organized by both conscious and non-
conscious belief systems made up of negative stereotypes and attitudes.
It's in this sense of the term prejudice that a person is said to be racist,
sexist, and so forth.
People who subliterally generate stereotypes may not be overt racists
or bigots, may not discriminate, and may in fact be involved in civil
rights activities. Such subliteral references may simply denote a per-
son's ignorance about a negative meaning or a buried culturally condi-
tioned stereotype that was automatically evoked. We may think of this
distinction as racial but not racist. I might note here that this distinc-
tion is my own. It uniquely comes out of my findings on subliteral talk
and is an important distinction both in terms of prejudice and in terms
of our cognitive structure. I will explain this more concretely at the end
of this chapter.
The term race is also problematic. I use the term as it's typically un-
derstood by the majority of the population, which apparently includes
many scientists. Race is considered to be a significant biological and ge-
netic distinction defining a group of people who belong to an ideal or
"pure" genetic pool. I use the term here because it's the accepted
medium of semantic exchange and therefore convenient in communi-
cating the subject of this chapter. However, I consider the concept of
 A Niggardly Issu.e? 161

"race" to be a myth, as the anthropologist Ashley Montague argues in

his book Man's Most Dangerous Myth. 8

Veep listening to Ethnic Prejudice

Race does matter. 9 One day my closest friend and colleague, Dr. Aaron
Gresson, and I were standing outside smoking our pipes. Gresson is
African-American. A white woman who was also standing there said, I
love the smell of pipe smoke; it smells so good. She then turned and look-
ing at Aaron and said of his tobacco, It smells like there's vanilla in it.
Once more we must ask, why did this come into the woman's mind out
of all the possible topics and other things to say? Even if the tobacco did
smell like vanilla, she perceived other characteristics of the situation as
well. And why didn't she simply chitchat about the weather, like most
people do? The likely deep-talk meaning is that my fairly light-skinned
black friend is part white, not only in his genetic heritage but in his so-
cializing-hence the remark about vanilla.
Outside the sports world and Hollywood, it's still relatively unusual to
see a white male and a black male chumming around together. On one
level, I think the woman's first statement, I love the smell ofpipe smoke; it
smells so good provides a positive context for her racial deep talk. In ad-
dition, most whites do not have the stereotype of African-American
males smoking pipes. So the statement It smells like there's vanilla in it
also likely means that Aaron was engaging in a white man's activity. In
addition, her remark may have been an oblique reference to her feeling
that Aaron was an "Oreo;' the phrase used to describe a black person
who is culturally white, like a chocolate Oreo cookie that has vanilla
(white) frosting inside. Because of the positive first statement, however, I
doubt this "Oreo" meaning. Nevertheless, human motivation and per-
ception is complex, so this statement likely reveals a number of feelings
and attitudes, even conflicting ones. All in all, this deep listening about
race matters was likely relatively benign in terms of prejudice.
Other similar references may not be so benign. One of the most
enduring beliefs about many minority groups, especially African-
162 VEEP Ll5TENINCr

Americans, is that they are genetically different in significant ways.

Thus, when a person is perceived as being of "mixed" genetic heritage,
for some people this becomes important. In a group discussion where
one of the members was perceived as being genetically "half black and
half white;' the topic turned to talk of animal pedigrees, with an ensuing
discussion of pure strains versus half breeds of dogs. Later in the same
group conversation, there was mention of the pipe tobacco called Half
and Half. I don't belief these ostensibly literal topics are coincidental.
These literal topics of animal pedigrees, pure strains versus half breeds,
and of the pipe tobacco called Half and Half are deep-talk references to
a person in a social conversation who is perceived as being of geneti-
cally mixed heritage. In other words, it's no accident that these topics
were selected into the conversation.
Clearly, these subliteral topics are not on the same level of conscious-
ness as typical talk about city versus rural or inner city and welfare,
where everyone knows that race is "really" being discussed. The use of
the quantitative metaphor "half" is used, because historically-and I
think even now-prejudiced thinking by whites maintains that people
who have any African-American heritage, however small, are consid-
ered black. (Actually, a light-skinned "black" person is almost never
considered to be half-black. In fact, a person who is thought to have
any African-American heritage at all has generally been considered
only black.) The use of the metaphor "half" is a strange kind of uncon-
scious math that rounds off any fraction into a whole number. At the
very least, this deep talk about genetic matters is not benign because it
shows that race matters. That such racial stereotypes are still operating
today may seem hard to accept by many whites. To most older African-
Americans, however, the fact that these stereotypes are still operating is
no surpnse.

Norman Mailer and (j-eorge Plimpton

Versus (j-eorge Foreman

While I was working on this chapter, I was watching a recent documen-

tary on the 1974 Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight in Zaire,
 A Niggard\>, Issue? 163

Africa. 1o Ali, who was much younger than Foreman, was attempting a
comeback for the championship title. Ali won the match. During the
documentary, George Plimpton and Norman Mailer, the u.s. novelist,
were extensively interviewed, since they had both been in Zaire for the
1974 fight. In two descriptions made by Plimpton and Mailer, deep-
talk racial references were evident to me.
The first-and perhaps somewhat more subliterally problematic
comment-was one by Plimpton. It occurred in the course of his de-
scribing the then reigning champion George Foreman as a giant of a
man whose image or persona was bigger than life, so to speak. He went
on to say that when such a figure loses he seems to "shrink" to the size
of a _ (you fill in this blank and see below) _ . Now any number of
words were possible to describe Foreman's shrunken persona or status.
He could have selected the word midget or dwarf, or said that Foreman
seemed to shrink to the size of Tom Thumb, or made any number of
other typically associated descriptions to the word shrunk; or he could
have simply said that when larger-than-life figures fall from their sta-
tus, they seem to shrink in stature and left it at that. He didn't.
Plimpton said Foreman seemed to shrink to the size of a pygmy. Pyg-
mies, of course are a group of equatorial Africans standing less than
five feet tall. Why was pygmy selected to describe Foreman's shrunken
persona instead of the many other alternatives?
First of all, being an upper socioeconomic class recipient of private
prep schools, Harvard, and of Kings College at Cambridge University
in England, Plimpton was certainly aware of the long history of the
English in Africa. Second, the term pygmy is obviously more congruent
with racial associations than are the other terms that I suggested above.
In addition, the term shrink has stereotypical associations with head-
shrinking cannibals.
When I began describing this incident, I said it was somewhat more
problematic than the one I will describe in a moment. This is so for a
number of reasons. The first one is (a) Foreman is of African heritage,
and (b) the fight did take place in Africa. Therefore one could say the
term pygmy was quite logical and had nothing to do with race. I don't
buy this explanation-not for a moment. I don't buy it because Fore-
164 DEEP Ll5TENIN~

man is not an African but an American, in the same sense that Plimp-
ton is American but of Anglo-Saxon heritage. And what if Foreman
had been white? Would he have been compared to a pygmy? Highly un-
likely. The fight was billed as a "rumble in the jungle:'
Further, I don't think that my interpretation of "head-shrinking canni-
bals" is stretching the analysis. During the documentary a most peculiar
segment involving an African witch doctor's prediction of Foreman los-
ing kept being woven into the story. By the same token, I don't ever recall
(though I am no avid follower of boxing) stories of psychic mediums be-
ing woven into documentaries on boxing matches in the United States.
So is Plimpton's use of the term pygmy racial? Certainly, I believe it's
racial. I don't believe it's racist or reflects prejudice, however, in the typi-
cally negative sense. The use of the term likely reflects (a) an automatic
activation of a cultural racial stereotype, (b) though it's possible that it
also reflects an actual deep-level unconscious belief in the stereotype.
From all that I have gathered about Plimpton, he doesn't appear to
be racially discriminatory in his everyday behaviors. Regardless of
racism and prejudice in the negative and active sense, at the very least
the incident certainly shows that race matters. There are many different
shades of prejudice.
The second illustration of deep listening to racial material in the doc-
umentary was evident in the commentary by Norman Mailer. After
showing and describing Foreman repetitively hitting a punching bag
during practice (the big "heavy bag") in the same spot with great force,
Mailer said that Foreman's great punching strength left the bag with an
indentation the size of_ (you fill in blank and see below). Again, any
number of words were possible to describe the size of the indentation.
Since it was a sports event, he could have said that the indentation was
the size of a softball or perhaps a soccer ball. But he didn't. Mailer de-
scribed the indentation as Half the size of a small watermelon. Recall
that eating watermelon is historically and classically associated with
African-Americans in the United States. So, we must ask again: Of all
possible objects, why was a fruit selected to compare the size of the in-
dentation, and second, why the particular fruit watermelon? Why not a
cantaloupe?
 A Niggardly Issue? 165

More importantly for assessing the validity of the deep-listening

meaning, note that Mailer's mind had to make the watermelon stereo-
type fit the actual size of the indentation. The indentation was not in
fact as big as a typical watermelon. Nor was it the size of a small water-
melon. It was half the size of a small watermelon. It's very peculiar
phrasing to say that the indentation was not only "half" the size of a
watermelon, but it was "half" the size of a "small" watermelon. What's
significant here is that Mailer's mind had to linguistically gerrymander
the size of the watermelon to make it fit a stereotype. I suggest that this
was no accident. 1I Why not have said twice the size of a grapefruit?
But is this a racist comment in the typically negative sense? Probably
not. Over the years, Mailer has been known for his "liberal" and "hip"
views (he even wrote a book in the late 1950s entitled The White Ne-
gro). As with the Plimpton incident, at the least Mailer's comment
shows that, on some level, race remains a significant matter. So does
deep listening to Plimpton and Mailer's interviews at least inform us
about the automatic activation of cultural racial stereotypes? You bet.
Are they racist? Probably not-at least in the negative sense.

A Niggardly Que5tion?: Racial or Racist-or Not?

In January 1999, a story about a potentially explosive racial incident in-

volving the use of the word niggardly in reference to a financial budget
was widely reported. Ordinarily, this word might not be newsworthy,
despite its seeming association to the so-called N-word, "nigger;' even
taking into consideration the ethnically sensitive times we live in. How-
ever the word was used by a white aide in the office of Mayor Anthony
Williams of Washington, D.C., an African-American. Some blacks at-
tending the meeting immediately walked out in protest when hearing
the word niggardly.
The incident elicited considerable national media attention, includ-
ing two pieces in the New York Times, one by a reporter l2 and one an
opinion piece by Steven Pinker, a widely respected M.I.T. cognitive sci-
entist cum linguist. 13 Most of the press, along with Pinker, did not find
any racial (stereotype) or any racist (negative) intent by the white aide.
166 VEEP LlSTENINCr

More importantly, the NAACP issued an almost instant press release

agreeing that the white aide's use of the word niggardly had no racial or
racist meaning. After all, the NAACP's reasoning went, the word means
"miserly" and has absolutely no grammatical linkage or linguistic his-
tory that would suggest anything racial. Indeed, the word was simply
coincidental. End of newsworthiness. So the African-Americans who
thought the term was racial were thought to be overly paranoid, or at
the very least over-sensitive, right? I don't think so. At least, not exactly
so. It was a clear piece of deep talk.
From my deep-listening perspective, the significant question that
was again left unasked was this: Why was the particular word niggardly
selected into this particular context as opposed to its many other syn-
onyms, especially given the ethnic composition of the meeting? Indeed,
why was miserly not used, or stingy, or tight, or tightfisted, or penurious,
or penny-pinching or frugal, and so on? This is the significant question
that must be answered if we are to fully understand the racial implica-
tion of what happened in Mayor Williams's office.
As most linguists agree, a large part of our everyday use of language,
including accessing and selecting words, is accomplished uncon-
sciously. This is especially the case with our use of complex grammar.
(Out of the many hundreds of grammatical rules that you use every-
day, how many can you recite?) While sometimes linguists can demon-
strate on the basis of the context surrounding a conversation and
syntactic consistencies why a particular kind of word will be selected
into a conversation, they can't explain why a particular word is selected.
Herein lies the ghost in the disavowing of any racial intent of the white
aide's use of the word niggardly.
There are three significant alternative interpretations of the word
niggardly in the context in which it was used that-in the rush to dis-
avow any racial undermeaning-were ignored. First, despite the tech-
nical meaning of the word, the white aide's use of the term could be an
indication of unconscious racial prejudice just by the white aide's mind
selecting a word sounding and looking similar to the word nigger or
niggardly. Secondly, it could have been a "simple" automatic linguistic
association expressing the recognition of a racial difference in the meet-
 A Niggardly Issu.e? 167

ing, without any negative prejudicial intent. In this second case, it

would certainly be "racial" but not "racist." In other words, the mind
simply by association expressed a perceptual difference it perceived in
its immediate environment. Third, it could have been an automatic ac-
tivation of a cultural stereotype. Let me briefly explain how I come to
these alternative explanations and their racial and social significance.
As Steven Pinker correctly noted, the similarity of sound and sight of
the two words niggardly and nigger linguistically access each other via
associations. The reason for this is-again as Pinker pointed out-that
any word selected during a conversation occurs in a two-stage process.
First, because words have multiple meanings, our brain reviews (called
lexical accessing) all possible meanings of a word that we are aware of
from our past experience. Then, from the context, our brain chooses
(called lexical selection) out of all the possibilities the assumed appro-
priate meaning in the context of its use. In addition, Pinker correctly
noted that the "ar" in the word nigg(ar)dly is often pronounced "er" as
in nigg(er)dly. Pinker used these linguistic facts to concur that no racial
meaning was present. This would seem to put this racial matter to rest.
But the ghost in this linguistic theory remains.
As I have explained previously, the perceptions, feelings, and con-
cerns that we harbor about a situation or person influence our uncon-
scious word choice. No one will deny that the color white is
perceptually quite different from black, and that many of us still harbor
various concerns on various levels about these differences. What I am
suggesting is that these racial differences and concerns about those pre-
sent in the mayor's meeting unconsciously determined the lexical selec-
tion of the word niggardly in this mixed racial meeting. Now, it's crucial
to emphasize that without knowing much more context about the aide
and the history of the people involved, admittedly there is no way to
know with certainty whether the use of the word was an unconscious
association to race in the racist sense.
In disavowing any racial meaning to the word niggardly, the analyses
were correct, as the technical definition of the word carries no racial
meaning. The linguistic analysis based upon associations was also cor-
rect. But socioculturally, I believe, the disavowal was not correct. Like
168 DEEP Ll5TENIN~

most of the above examples, the phrase likely reflected culturally

primed automatic racial images most of us have had ingrained in our
minds. Either way-racial or racist-the niggardly remark is likely sig-
nificant in terms of cultural prejudice. It shows that such images are
still ingrained in our psyches. 14 So, while the statement may not mean
that the aide was individually racist (though it might; see below), like
the watermelon example, it certainly reflects our cultural history of
racism. IS As for the all-too-swift and strong disavowal of the incident
by most people, to paraphrase Shakespeare: Me thinketh they dis-
avowedeth too much.

On 'Big 'Bucks and <.Taming

One day in the mid -1970s my friend Aaron and I were returning from a
leisurely talk on a wharf overlooking an expanse of ocean near my cot-
tage in Maine. At that time, a black person in the area was a rare event
(relatively speaking: It still is-I mean black representation is below the
1 percent level). As we passed a neighbor's cottage, a family was playing
a game of lawn tennis, with the men playing against the women. As we
approached, their game was nearing its conclusion. While we walked
slowly past the players, they briefly and quietly responded to our
friendly "hello" with stares of obvious surprise at seeing a black man.
While still trying to play tennis, the players were straining their necks
to look at my black friend. Just as he and I walked past, the game ended.
The male team had lost. It was clear from a flurry of brief comments
that they had wagered money on the game. Then the patriarch of the
family turned, looking at me and Aaron, and loudly exclaimed, There
goes that buck, literally meaning he had lost a dollar bet on the game (or
whatever the real amount was as represented by the dollar or buck).
From a deep-listening perspective, however, the statement There goes
that buck was a nonconscious expression of a racial stereotype-and in
this case probably indicated prejudice.
One of the oldest racial stereotypes is that of the large black male be-
ing sexually potent and animalistic by nature. It's well-known that large
male game-animals are seen by many as sexually potent and are often
 A Niggardry Issue? 169

referred to as bucks, as with a male deer. Indeed, Native American males

were often historically referred to as bucks. Similarly, it's well-known
that, large black males-who were stereotyped as sexually potent-
were also historically referred to as bucks in the same animalistic sense.
Thus the literal phrase There goes that buck subliterally referred to my
black friend as a black male buck.
Once again, out of a nearly infinite number of responses the white
man may have made, we must ask why was the particular phrase There
goes that buck selected as we were walking past him? Granted, the word
"buck" is a common one used to refer to a dollar. Any number of topics,
words, or phrases were possible to describe losing a dollar bet. The man
could have said, There goes that dollar, or Well, we lost that bet. Why this
specific phrasing? What's the rule that determines its lexical selection? I
am suggesting the selection rule is the unusual racial context the man
found himself in. In linguistic and cognitive terms some deep structure
or internal racial representation or memory schema functioned as a
rule for generating the specific syntax and semantics of the statement.
In this case it was the image of large buck game animals. By the way, my
friend was rather large in terms of being overweight.
Almost any dictionary will reveal the meanings of the word buck, in
this context as referring to some animals, as a highly spirited young
male, and as a disparaging term for a Native American or a black male.
We even have the phrase buck fever that refers to the excitement at the
first sight of game while hunting. After reading this example in my
book Between the Lines, people have said to me that, while the incident
is instructive in showing how language and the mind work, it refers to
an old, outdated stereotype that no longer exists and therefore doesn't
tell us much about the current state of racial stereotypes and prejudice.
Unlikely.
Since the publication of Between the Lines, I have found further,
more current evidence for my deep-listening analysis of the use of the
word buck in a racial context, which show the term is still in the cul-
turallexicon. In a book by a well-known psychologist, the author de-
scribes the activity in the emergency room of the famous Bellevue
Hospital in New York City on a "hot Saturday night, when the place is
170 VEEP LlSTENIN~

jumping with the raw problems of city living:' The author goes on to
describe the scene by saying that people are crowded into the hallways
when "in walks yet another teenager, this one literally out of his mind
from drugs:' Apparently enraged and on alcohol and PCP, "the young
buck jumps around all the medically ill like an overactive ape:'16
Now! Aside from this quoted passage's demonstrating that even in
the 1990s the term buck was still linguistically active and was used to
describe young sexually macho males. By itself the passage doesn't nec-
essarily apply to racial stereotypes. We need more information about
the context of the statement to find its probable meaning. Part of the
information we need is knowing that the emergency room of Bellevue
Hospital is widely known for serving the surrounding population of
poor Mrican-Americans and Hispanics. Thus we have a 1990s probable
example of the term buck's being used to describe young black males (I
am not aware of Hispanic males being specifically referred to as bucks).
Because the psychologist connects the use of the term buck with ape,
and given the generalized knowledge of a large African-American pop-
ulation who come to the Bellevue emergency room, I think it's reason-
ably clear that the association is again specific to black youth. (It's also
possible that this is an outright illustration of consciously coded
speech.)
In addition, I should point out that the author used the term buck in
the singular, not the plural. This is likely an important piece of linguis-
tic evidence. Recall that the author said, in walked "another teenager:'
implying there were other teenagers-likely of various ethnic back-
grounds-there. Using the term buck in the singular is thus not a refer-
ence to young macho males in general. More likely it's a reference to a
particular kind of teenager: a black male teenager. So, is this a racist
statement? Without further contextual information about the author,
it's not possible to say with any reasonable certainty. But I don't think
it's merely another automatic activation of a culturally ingrained
stereotype.
As I have been cautioning all along, what may appear to be racist may
in fact not be racist at all. A so-called racial incident from the sports
world that received quite a bit of press in the 1980s is an excellent ex-
 A Niggardly Issue? 171

ample of the problem of automatically assuming a comment to be a

racist slur. During a play-by-play description of Alvin Garrett, a Wash-
ington Redskins wide receiver who is black, the sportscaster Howard
Cosell described his running down the field by saying, "Look at that lit-
tle monkey run:'l7
The immediate reaction is to see this remark as a reference to the
stereotype of African-American's descending from monkeys and apes.
Again, in earlier decades, blacks have often and openly been likened,
not only to bucks, but to apes and monkeys. So, was Cosell's remark in-
dicative of a deep personal racial stereotype? Probably not. Once more,
the context of such a remark must be considered. Contrary to much of
the popular media, it probably wasn't racial because of Cosell's individ-
ual context of using the phrase: Cosell apparently used this phrase fre-
quently not only to describe white players, but in his own family to
describe children running. Indeed the phrase is one in our everyday
vernacular that's used to describe little children who can run very fast.
Cosell's remark, however, could have been racial in the sense of being
based on an automatically activated cultural stereotype of African-
Americans. Even used with reference to children, monkey is still an as-
sociation with our primate ancestors, isn't it? Or with blacks as being
like children, as was historically implied? Finally, since Cosell didn't use
the phrase all the time, the questions remains as to why he "automati-
cally/unconsciously" selected it in certain situations.
If someone still thinks that I am reading too much into the use of the
outdated term buck, then consider the following.

Big Bu.cks Basketball

This example comes from a 1992 issue of People magazine. There is a

picture of two well-known black basketball players, Kareem Abdul-Jab-
bar at seven feet two and a half inches tall and Julius "Dr. J" Erving at
six feet seven inches in a mutually intimidating in-your-face posture
(see Figure 9.1). The article that went with the picture was about the
large salaries of star basketball players (by implication black players).
The bold-face caption on this picture read: "BIG BUCKS BASKET-
172 DEEP Ll5TENIN~

BALL:' Yes, again, I am quite aware that the phrase "big bucks" is com-
mon vernacular for "big money." I am also aware that "Dr. J" played for
the Milwaukee Bucks, but those facts don't change the psychological se-
lection process I am talking about-they contribute to it.
There are still many other phrases that could have been selected for
the headline. (As it happens there was another headline to this same
photo. See below.) Whether the writer was aware of the raciallracist
implications of this headline or not, I can't say. There are two possible
takes on this example, both of which represent racial stereotypes. The
first is that the headline Big Bucks Basketball is the deep-listening
equivalent of the There goes that buck example, that is, it reflects an un-
conscious stereotype. A second possibility is that the writer knew ex-
actly what he was doing and thought he would put one over on the
reading public. Writers and artists often consciously "slip" hidden refer-
ences into their work.
An even more current example using the term buck to refer to an
African-American male occurred on the nightly news in 1999. 18 NBC's
Pete Williams was reporting on the progress of locating the suspected
abortion clinic bomber, thirty-one-year-old Eric Rudolf (who is still
hiding out in deeply wooded mountainous terrain). Rudolf's sister-in-
law, Deborah Rudolf, was being interviewed. In describing him she said
he harbored racial prejudice. As evidence, she said hesitatingly-you
could plainly see that she was embarrassed to be vocalizing what she
was about to say-that whenever he saw an interracial couple, where
the female was white, he would remark, Look at that big black buck. Un-
like the other examples, there is no mistaking the consciously intended
racial meaning in this news item, and the currency of the term buck in
relation to African-American males. 19 But there is still more to this
story of big bucks.

Net Profits: Big Bucks B~balls

The identical photo of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius "Dr. J" Erving
was used in an earlier Time magazine piece, but without the "BIG
BUCKS BASKETBALL" headline. 20 In this earlier version the headline
 A Niggardly Issue? 173

Composite "Buck" Matrix Map

LiIe...........ix
Interracial

FIGURE 9.1 Composite "Buck" Matrix Map

read: "NET PROFITS." Now, the pun/double entendre on the word net
in this headline was obviously a conscious one, referring, of course, to
money and the net that surrounds the basketball hoop. The psycholog-
ical processes responsible for this literal double entendre, however, are
likely the same as those that created the substituted "Big Bucks Basket-
ball" headline in the later People magazine article.
Given the rather obviously conscious double meaning in this head-
line, it's not too unreasonable to suggest that the double meaning of the
"Big Bucks Basketball" headline, if not consciously constructed, then at
least as a "slip," it was created by a habitual tendency to make such dou-
ble meaning headlines. Having been a journalism major in college for a
very brief time, I did learn that this double entendre-ing was quite
prevalent in the field. Given this, it is not unreasonable to assume that
there was unconscious racial meaning beneath the "Big Bucks Basket-
ball" headline.
Now for the rest of the story, a story that you may think is just a little
too bizarre. So be it:
The wording in the Time story of "Net Profits" is also interesting
subliterally because the end of the short article refers to Abdul-Jabbar
174 DEEP LlSTENIN<;-

as "b-ball's" top scorer. The letter b, of course, stands for the word bas-
ket. Though this abbreviation is sometime used, I suggest that here it's
the subliteral equivalent of the "Big Bucks Basketball" headline. It's
likely that "b-ball's" is an association to Mrican-American males' testi-
cles; that is, the vernacular refers to them as balls-again harkening
back historically to the stereotype of large black males being sexually
potent.
If this reference to black testicles sounds absolutely outrageous, per-
haps even irresponsibly outrageous, consider all that I have explained
in this book up to this point about subliteral cognition and all that I
have shown in this chapter relative to the activation of racial stereo-
types. Consider, too, that behind this wording is a long racial history in
the United States of black men's sexuality being of great concern to
many white men; indeed when black men were lynched, their testicles
were sometimes removed, even mutilated. In addition, consider more
specifically the context of the article itself.
First, the article opens talking about basketball's being a fixture of
every Fractured-asphalt school yard in the country. The phrase "frac-
tured-asphalt school yard" is clearly a stereotypic reference to ghetto
(read black) kids all playing basketball in hopes of becoming stars one
day. Indeed, this phrase clearly seems to be coded speech for the issue
of race. Second, as I have shown, the stereotype of African-American
males and sexuality forms a backdrop for the entire short article.
Third, a further sexual association in the piece is its mention of a
pay-TV benefit for the War on AIDS, which, fourth, specifically men-
tioned Magic Johnson, the black basketball player who contracted
AIDS by his admitted penchant for heterosexual forays.
Fifth, it should be noted that b-ball's was used in specific reference to
the black player, that is, in the possessive case. In short-in deep-listen-
ing terms-the ball(s) belonged to a someone. Finally, for those editors
who may be reading this, the abbreviation b-ball was not used for the
longer word basketball to conserve space in the column. There was con-
siderable white space at the end of the piece.
If the deep-talk meaning behind this illustration still seems far-
fetched, I should note this analysis is at the very least congruent with
 A Nl&g'ardo/ Issue? 175

the kind of word associations that laboratory research for over a hun-
dred years has demonstrated. 21
Now let me make three final subliteral references from the article that
also may seem far-fetched. First, regarding the use of the phrase b-
ball's, is it coincidence that the repetition of the letter b is in reference
to the name Abdul-Jabbar with its repetition of the letter b?
Second, note that the article pointed out that Kareem (Abdul) Jabbar
and Julius Erving were competing for a Six-figure prize? Again, given
what I have illustrated so far in this book, is it coincidence, too, that each
of the names K-A-R-E-E-M (ABDUL) J-A-B-B-A-R, and J-U-L-I-U-S
E-R-V-I-N-G contain six letters, yielding a further deep-level cognitive
connection to the deep talk? Perhaps. But I doubt it. What this last ap-
parently bizarre illustration shows is the same kind of cognitive machin-
ery that was demonstrated in the chapter on subliteral numbers.
Finally, think about this. The headline NET PROFITS, being pub-
lished first, could have lead to the second BIG BUCKS headline. Maga-
zine editors often scan other magazines. At the very least, these stories
harbor subliteral racial references and reveal cultural concerns with
race. At worse, they may reveal individual prejudice. 22 (See Figure 9.1.)

Automatic Activation of Stereotypes Versus

Prejudicial Negative 'Beliefs

Throughout this chapter, I have alluded to some of this deep talk about
race as not necessarily reflecting prejudice in the negative sense on the
part of the speaker but instead reflecting the automatic activations of
ingrained cultural stereotypes.
Before I explain further, however, let me make as absolutely clear as I
possibly can what I mean when I say that some apparently racist re-
marks are not in fact racist. I am not trying to explain away racial prej-
udice or to provide racists with a rationalization for their prejudiced
beliefs and attitudes that slip out in their talk. Sometimes unintended
remarks do reflect unconscious racism; sometimes they don't. More of-
ten than not, however, they probably do on some level. What I am try-
ing to accomplish here is to bring a much needed sense of proportion
176 VEEP LISTENING-

to the prejudice issue. This is the only way it can begin to be resolved.
The lack of proportion by both African-Americans and whites sur-
rounding this issue is partly why we have failed to resolve it.
Early on in my subliteral research, I came to see that some of what
appeared to be racist comments were not racist or the consequence of
prejudice as we commonly understand it. In an article I noted that, "lis-
tening to apparent casual verbal reports in a systematic and linguisti-
cally informed manner continues to reveal both personally current and
psychosocially vestigial remains of racial conditioning."23 The operative
word in my quote is vestigial. In biology the term refers to a part of our
body that may once have had a function but which no longer does. Our
appendix is usually considered such a vestigial body part. It's impera-
tive to understand this distinction not only for validating and analyzing
subliteral conversations but more importantly for understanding the
nature of prejudice.
My deep-listening approach to studying unconscious meaning and
the role of language is made-to-order for use in everyday life. Even
though I have developed an extensive and systematic method for ana-
lyzing and verifying my analyses of deep listening, as with any new
idea, it's always a good sign if there are related and corroborating re-
search findings-especially laboratory experiments. Findings from
controlled laboratory experiments are, after all, typically seen as being
"real" science. Since my early view of vestigial expressions of racial
stereotypes, there have been some fascinating experiments that both
explain and provide support for my analysis of unconscious racial prej-
udice. For those who are already convinced that unconscious prejudice
exists, the experiments will still be fascinating. For those who are skep-
tical about our unconscious creating hidden meaning and influencing
our behavior, the findings may prove helpful.
An early, but very telling, study was conducted in 1976 by Birt Dun-
can with University of California at Irving students.24 He showed them
a video tape of a white man and a black man having a rather low-key
argument. In one version of the video the white male was seen lightly
shoving the black male. In another version, the black male was seen
lightly shoving the white male. In the video with the white male lightly
 A Niggardo/ Issue? 177

Composite "B·balls" and ·SIx Figure" Matrix Map

FIGURE 9.2 Composite "B-balls" and "Six Figure" Matrix Map

shoving the black male, only 13 percent rated the incident a violent act.
However, in the version where the black male was seen lightly shoving
the white male, 73 percent rated it a violent act. If some readers believe
that this reflects outdated attitudes, consider the studies below. But first
let me comment on the mental processes presumed to undergird this
study.
The cognitive processes undergirding the findings of this experiment
are similar to those involved in the famous Rorschach or so-called ink-
blot test where people are asked what an ink-blot shape reminds them
of. The processes are also similar to another famous test, the Thematic
Apperception Test (T.A.T.), in which ambiguous pictures are shown to
people who are then asked to imagine what is going on in the picture.
The idea is that when a situation is ambiguous (that is, it can mean
many different things) people "project" meaning from their own un-
conscious onto the picture. In other words, a young person who has
unconscious fear of authority may respond to a T.A.T. picture showing
a young person standing in front of a desk with an older person sitting
in a chair behind it with a story about a student's being called down to
178 VEEP LlSTENIN(j-

the principal's office to be reprimanded. In contrast, a young person

with no such authority concerns may tell a story about a student dis-
cussing a sporting event with a coach.
The same processes apply to the above experiment involving the
somewhat ambiguous video tape; unconscious prejudice is projected
onto the version of the tape where the black male is seen lightly
shoving the white male. Many other experiments have shown that
people with unconscious stereotypes and prejudice are more likely
to overtly project their prejudice when shown ambiguous pictures if
they are angered, in a hurry, or otherwise feeling stressed. It seems
that under those conditions we cognitively regress to our more un-
conscIOUS concerns.
Now for the two other very revealing experiments showing uncon-
scious prejudice. White volunteers who believed they were not preju-
diced in any way were connected to electrodes that registered minute
facial muscle activity.25 They were then shown pictures of both whites
and African-Americans and asked to imagine interacting with them
and to select who they thought they might like the best. With most sub-
jects who indicated liking the African-Americans, their facial muscles
belied their beliefs-at least on some level. When the pictures of blacks
were shown on the screen, these subjects' frown muscles registered
more active than their muscles that were used when smiling. This was
not the case when shown pictures of white people. Similar experiments
have been conducted using gender and age as the focus and have shown
the same results. Indeed, findings are similar for any person who is not
considered a member of the subjects' in-group.
Under experimental circumstances such muscle responses are nearly
impossible to consciously control. This technique of measuring muscle
activity is not new. We have known for sometime, for example, that
when we even just think about hammering a nail our arm and fingers
produce consciously undetectable minute muscle activity as if we were
already hammering the nail. It seems we unconsciously telegraph our
intentions-indeed on many levels and about many things. Experi-
ments like these demonstrate not only the existence of unconscious
 A Niggardly Issue? 179

processes, but also that these unconscious processes can influence our
overt behavior and judgment.
In another experiment with a group of volunteers, researchers
flashed either words or pictures onto a screen at a rate too briefly for
them to consciously "see" what appeared on the screen (This technique
is called "priming." You may also note its similarity to subliminal per-
ception). Words or pictures were flashed that represented racial mi-
norities. With the second group, no images were flashed during the
presentation. What the researchers then did was to anger the subjects.
They then asked them a series of neutral questions. Subjects who were
exposed to images of an African-American male were more likely to re-
spond in a hostile manner to annoying questions than those who were
also angered but who weren't primed with racial images. 26
More recent is the work of Anthony Greenwald at the University of
Washington and his colleagues. He has developed a method called the
Implicit Association Test (IAT) using stereotypic ethnic names associ-
ated with either whites or blacks. 27 His meticulously designed research
has found that whites unconsciously (automatically) select (prefer)
white names and, indeed, associate positive attributes to white names
and negative attributes to black names. Greenwald has developed a
similar test using photos of whites and blacks. These experiments can
be seen as supporting my deep listening about race matters.
That unconscious racial concerns are still with us, then, should be
beyond reasoned dispute. 28
 10

Veep Action:
Crossing the Rubicon?

Something is happening here,

What it is ain't exactly clear.
THE BUFFALO SPR/N(1-F/ELD
For What It's Worth

Just as our unconscious mind reveals itself through deep listening, so

too, it reveals itself through our behaviors or actions. Freud and others
have written about what are called "action slips." Freud presented a
number of such action slips in his classic and quite readable Psy-
chopathology of Everyday Life. And Donald Norman, a well-known and
respected figure in psychology, has also written extensively on action
slips.! Most researchers view them just like speech errors, as simple
mistakes, like your opening the refrigerator door instead of the oven.
Freud, however, saw them as analogous to verbal slips of the tongue
that reveal unconscious meaning. You may recall that in Chapter 6 I
presented a revealing slip of the pen by a murderer that Freud reported.
But this chapter is about more than action slips. It's also about outra-
geous analyses of unconscious meaning. In the final section of this
chapter, I will present an analysis of apparent unconscious meaning re-
vealed in a famous ransom note. I will begin with a couple of simple
examples of deep action.

181
182 DEEP lISTENINCr

Slips of action can often be found in newspaper articles. While I was

being interviewed for a feature newspaper story on my idea of deep lis-
tening, the reporter kept asking me if I was picking up on any "slips" of
unconscious meaning he may be making in our conversation. He was
very curious about this. Actually it would probably be more accurate to
say he was concerned. I said, "No, I hadn't recognized any:' When the
story appeared, however, there was a clear action slip. A deep-talk
episode that the reporter had included in his article involved the issue
of gender. When the story appeared, instead of the word gender, the
word genetics had been substituted, presumably by mistake. I don't be-
lieve, however, that this was a simple mechanical typo. Think about
this: After the initial syllable gen, to type the remainder of the word
gender, that is, der, requires only the left hand, whereas to type the re-
maining syllables of the word genetics, or etics, requires both hands to
be used-and twice, not just once.
In addition, the word genetic was not a totally irrelevant word to sub-
stitute. After all, it's our genetic makeup that creates the concept of gen-
der (at least as popularly understood). Moreover, what this action slip
likely expressed is that whoever made the slip probably doesn't be-
lieve-as is currently widely held-that the differences between males
and females are largely due to learning or socialization as indicated by
the term gender (which technically indicates a social role), but instead
believes male and female differences are natural or genetically caused.

It's frequently the case that handwritten words are illegible enough so
that when we go to type them, their ambiguous character becomes like
the well-known Rorschach or ink-blot test, with a typist projecting
onto an ambiguous word his or her own unconscious meanings. This is
especially true of controversial or emotionally laden material. In typing
some of myoid handwritten notes for a chapter I was working on, the
typist misread the word psychically and typed psychually. Does this
word bring anything particular to your mind? It should, especially if
you speak the word instead of just looking at it.
If nothing comes to mind, let me provide some context to this exam-
ple of deep action. First, it's important to note that the typist seldom
 Veep Action 183

made such typos, or "mistakes." As illegible as my handwriting is, she

would usually figure out what I meant or leave a blank space on the
page. On this occasion, however, she didn't. Second, the notes that she
was typing were for a chapter on deep listening about race and preju-
dice. Thirdly, and more specifically, the notes were about the historical
stereotypes of black males.
When I quizzed her, asking if she noticed anything particular about
this combination of letters, she looked at them and with a quizzical
look on her face and said, "No:' She did say that while she was typing
the word, at first she thought it was physical I asked her to look at the
word again. But she still had no recognition of its subliteral meaning.
However, when I asked her to pronounce the word psychually quickly,
with a look of great surprise she said, "Oh! s-e-x-u-a-I-I-y."
The word psychually, then, was a fusion of four unconscious
thoughts. The first is about something physical, the second is sexual,
which obviously goes with physical. Third, since the subject matter of
my notes was deep-talk expressions of racial references about black
males, the word automatically activated sexual associations in her
mind. Fourth, since she was well aware of my theory of subliteral
meaning, I think the typing of the syllable psych may have been an un-
conscious leakage of her deep recognition of the racial association.
Otherwise, why didn't she combine what she consciously thought was
the word physical with the unconscious word sexual, ending in the mis-
take phy-ually or phys-ually? Moreover, words beginning with phy or
phys begin with an "f" sound which would not have provided the
needed "s" sound that psych does. Nor would phy or phys have provided
the glottal stop in the back of the throat produced by pronouncing
both psych and sex(ual) which when coupled with ually produces the
phonetic equivalent sound as sexually.
This subliteral action slip doesn't necessarily mean that the typist is
prejudiced; more likely the slip reflected-as we saw in Chapter 9-an
automatic activation of a cultural sexual stereotypes of African-Ameri-
can males.
Subliteral meaning, then, can be expressed not only by words but by
our written words. As we have just seen, typographical errors are not
184 VEEP LlSTENINeT

necessarily mechanical "mistakes"; they can be the translation of sublit-

eral meaning into "slips" of the fingers. Instead of our tongue, our fin-
gers become the delivery system. In the next example, we will see a
more subtle translation process into a not-so-subtle action.

Crossing the Rubicon?

Let me be up front with you on this one. The following illustration of
deep action is a very speculative and imaginative one. It's right on the
border between being quite possible, on the one hand, and an example
of what shouldn't be done with analyses of unconscious meaning on
the other. The analysis resides, however, on the acceptable side of rea-
son. In any case, in principle (or in theory) the analysis is a sound one.
Whether it's valid, I can't say. I can promise it will be interesting.
This example is so uniquely bizarre that I have given it its own head-
ing. Reading through this book, you have seen many examples of deep
listening that in their own right certainly deserve the adjectives weird or
strange. But this one might appropriately be called bizarre. I am talking
mega-bizarre, here. Despite this, it struck me as compelling. You be the
judge.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story about a man accused of
bludgeoning his father in the head, almost killing him. 2 It seems the
man had gone without food, water, and sleep for days while he was
working on a master's thesis for his job as an industrial arts teacher.
Despite the grotesque and tragic nature of this story, as it was reported,
there doesn't appear to be anything too extraordinary about the alleged
crime, except that the man had tried to kill his father-though even
this doesn't seem all that extraordinary these days.
As I continued to read the background on this news item, however,
possible subliteral meaning began to nudge at me. So, I contacted the
reporter and he sent me the complete police report. 3 The man was a
teacher at nearby a high school and lived on Rubicon Street. His mas-
ter's thesis was about technology and education, with a strong religious
twist to it, involving beliefs about being able to kill people and reunite
with them in an afterworld. According to the police report, the man be-
 Deep Action 185

lieved that if he killed his young daughter, there would be some mother
somewhere in the world who would be killing her young son and this
would somehow unite cosmic opposites and be good for the world.
He apparently became so obsessed with his thesis, that his father said
he had reached the point of trying to prove his beliefs, talking about
killing his family to prove his theory.
While discussing this thesis with his father, the man pointed to a golf
bag in the garage. When his father followed him into the garage, the
teacher attacked his father. You may be thinking that the man blud-
geoned his father in the head with a golf club from the golf bag. But he
didn't. He used a hatchet. Is it coincidence that the man used a hatchet?
Perhaps not. But as I continued to read the police report, I became
acutely aware of the possible subliteral nature of this story: On some
level, it's possible that the man's choice of a hatchet in trying to kill his
father was unconsciously influenced, that his choice was made of the
same stuff as the action slips described in the previous section of this
chapter and of the same stuff that I have described throughout this
book. But with a bizarre twist. Consider the following context sur-
rounding the incident.
First, the name of the town where the act was committed is
Menomonie. The name is derived from the Native American Ojibwe
language and the town is historically steeped in this heritage. Second,
the man was a teacher at the local high school, Arrowhead. Third, while
it wasn't clear from the story whether his master's thesis and his belief
that after death people could reunite with their relatives in an after-
world was specifically derived from Native American folklore or not,
such belief is generally consistent with some Native American spiritual
folklore. Fourth, a hatchet, of course, is an instrument typically associ-
ated in the United States with American Indians. Indeed, in many dic-
tionaries, hatchet is linguistically associated with Tomahawk, a
short-handled ax used by many Native American peoples. What we
have here is an association matrix with Native American folklore and
culture.
So, the use of a hatchet may not have been completely fortuitous. If it
isn't already clear, what I think is possible is that the man's delusional
186 DEEP Ll5TENIN(f

mind was influenced by his environment, which was heavily about

American Indian culture, religious beliefs and folklore, and Ojibwe lan-
guage, with names like Menomonie, his own Arrowhead High School,
and knowledge of Tomahawks. After all, why didn't the man use one of
the golf clubs he pointed to as a weapon, instead of a hatchet?
On top of all this, the man was somewhat delirious from lack of food
and sleep. In addition, given the general context, I wonder if the name
of the street the man lived on also unconsciously played into his delu-
sion about crossing over from life to death? Recall he lived on Rubicon
Street? The term rubicon has come to mean crossing or exceeding a
limit that when passed allows no return. 4 Again, coincidence? Perhaps.
But note: This man's perceptions and associations are precisely the
same kind of stuff paranoid schizophrenics often allude to in their
delusions and hallucinations.
At this point, let me say that I am only too aware that my analysis of
this story sounds far-fetched, if not completely ludicrous. But in con-
junction with my subliteral findings, it may not be as far-fetched as it
first appears. We have already seen in Chapter 1 that unconscious be-
liefs, physical events and conditions like tape recorders, and other
events not only are impressed on our unconscious and determine our
speech, but also can elicit behavioral actions.
Recall, too, the discussion in which the door opened just a crack and
a person in the hallway had peeked in, after which a person just hap-
pened to select a story about having a mouse that would just peek into
the garage. Since the speaker had no awareness that the event of the
door's opening and someone peeking in had activated his linguistic act,
it seems that this context shaped or influenced (I will resist the term
caused) his behavior. I have observed numerous other actions that were
unconsciously "caused" by events in the immediate conversational en-
vironment. In fact, my subliteral findings are all based on such "sub-
liminal" perception of events affecting both language and behavior.
The man's subliterally "caused" actions can also be viewed as belong-
ing to the same class of phenomena as post-hypnotic suggestions.
While in hypnosis a person can be given a suggestion to engage in some
behavior-like scratching her left earlobe-but not remember the sug-
 Veep Action 187

gestion when she returns to her normal state. Later, when asked why
she is scratching her left earlobe, she will not be aware of the real rea-
son. However, often the person will construct a reason, saying it's be-
cause her earlobe itches or some other rationalization.
I recall one day getting up from my writing and saying to my wife that
I guess I should take out the garbage. She said, «That's what I just asked
you to do five minutes ago:' I had no recollection of her asking me to
take the garbage out. Her request, however, registered in my mind be-
neath my awareness level and acted as a post-hypnotic suggestion.
In addition, subliterally «caused" actions can also be viewed as be-
longing to the same class of phenomena as what is called «Subliminal
Activation Research."s This research involves presenting a stimulus be-
low people's level of awareness, then observing its effect on their behav-
ior. You many recall reading reports on early experiments conducted in
movie theaters where either the words «Buy popcorn" or «Buy Coca
Cola" were subliminally flashed on the screen in order to increase pop-
corn and Coke sales. 6 While this experiment was discredited, there has
been considerable research on subliminal stimuli showing more posi-
tive-albeit still controversial-results/
We could also explain subliteral action from the well-accepted re-
search on what's called priming effects. 8 Similar to the subliminal re-
search, priming generally involves visually presenting-for example,
the word «ugly" paired with some pictures on a screen just below the
awareness level. Other pictures are presented below the level of aware-
ness without being paired with the word «ugly." Then all the pictures
are presented so the person can normally see them, and the person is
asked to rate the pictures as either pleasant or unpleasant. What we find
is that the pictures that were «subliminally" primed with the word
«ugly" were consciously judged as less pleasant compared to the pic-
tures that were not subliminally paired with the word «ugly." So, per-
haps I haven't crossed the Rubicon with my subliteral analysis of the
hatchet killing.
Since I have gone this far out on a limb, I can't resist a related obser-
vation about the significance of proper names on the person having the
name. I wonder how coincidental it is that one of the most famous U.S.
188 DEEP Ll5TENIN4-

Supreme Court justices and legal scholars was named Learned Hand.
Did his name influence his aspirations? I wonder, too, about the more
recent controversy regarding the cloning of human beings. Is it com-
pletely coincidence that the (rogue?) scientist making all the headlines
who wants to begin cloning humans immediately, and who isn't even a
biologist but a physicist, is named Richard Seed. Do such phenomena
occur purely by chance, or are some-certainly not all and likely a
small number of primed minds-more general instances of my sublit-
eral cognition effects?
The final two illustrations of apparently unconscious communica-
tion are from two books by "Freudian" psychiatrists. I present them as
exemplifications of the problem of interpreting unconscious meaning
without a systematic method of verifying that meaning. Indeed, these
two books provide object lessons for how not to analyze unconscious
meaning, in contrast to my deep-listening illustrations.

JonBenet Ramsey: A Note from the underground

Few people haven't heard of little six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, who

was killed in her Boulder, Colorado, home on December 26, 1996.
This unsolved but ongoing case still seems to capture our imagina-
tion and that of the media. One book on the case, A Mother Gone
Bad, purports to name JonBenet's killer by revealing an unconscious
confession ostensibly hidden within the text of the ransom note. 9 On
this basis, the book identifies JonBenet's killer as her mother, Patsy
Ramsey.
Written by Andrew G. Hodges, a "Freudian" -oriented psychiatrist,
this book, in my view, is an outrageously bad example of revealing un-
conscious meaning and a mark of scandalous professional irresponsi-
bility. Ironically, Freud would agree with me (recall Chapter 6). In
short, it's a scandalous object lesson in how not to analyze unconscious or
subliteral communication. I will present only a few examples from the
book, but they will be sufficient to illustrate how not to analyze uncon-
scious meaning and why a systemic method is required to validly ana-
lyze unconscious meaning.
 Veep Action 189

So that you don't think this "Freudian" interpretation of the Jon-

Benet ransom note is a psychiatric fluke, I will end this chapter by ana-
lyzing a book by yet another psychiatrist who purports to reveal
unconscious racial meanings. I might note that neither of these books
are from the naive or beginning phase in the development of psycho-
analysis; they are recent. I might also note, too, that, being psychiatrists,
both authors are M.D.s, and have supposedly been trained in research
methodology. Both books, The Isis Papers and A Mother Gone Bad, read
like a psychiatry gone mad. But you be the judge.
Where to begin? Contextually, let me point out that even if it's even-
tually found that Patsy Ramsey did kill her daughter, in no way does it
validate the author's analysis of the ransom note. Typically in the analy-
sis of a crime, discovering the motive is important. So the question is,
why would Patsy kill her own daughter? The basic idea is that Patsy
killed JonBenet when she discovered her husband, John, having sex
with the girl; she flew into a rage and killed JonBenet. Why she didn't
kill her husband supposedly involved rivalry with her daughter and
identification with her husband. For my purposes, we needn't be con-
cerned with this latter aspect. So, how are we to know from the ransom
note discovered in the house that the murderer was Patsy? Here goes.
The "real" telltale-confession ransom note, we are told in Hodges's
book, is hidden within the text of the actual note. This hidden confes-
sion note is unconsciously written to the police letting them know who
the killer is. The note opens with the ostensible killer's literally telling
the reader to "listen carefully:' Hodges says that this is really Patsy's un-
conscious mind writing to the police, telling them that if they "listen
carefully;' the note will reveal a confession by the killer (Patsy).
Similarly, the words "Follow our instructions" are said by Hodges to
be instructing the police that if they pay close attention to the note, it
will lead them to John and Patsy.IO The note makes reference to a "small
foreign faction" who has kidnapped JonBenet. We are told this phrase
unconsciously refers to the "foreign part of themselves that appeared
small but eventually erupted into a horrible catastrophic act."ll Part of
the reason the author knows the writer of the note is a woman is re-
vealed, we are told, by a mistake in spelling. The misspelled word
190 VEEP LlSTENINCr

"bussiness" leads us to think of "buss, bustle, and bust" [as in a

woman's breast]. It is then said that "A 'buss' is a 'kiss: Really? The
writer has changed John Ramsey's successful business and career into
'kissiness: which changes him from an aggressive male into a soft femi-
nine character:' Now how does the author know that this interpretation
is correct?
The author knows it because, he says, "It is consistent with the earlier
slip-up in the same sentence that in essence said, 'We (don't) respect
your bussiness.'" Now if you are confused, so am I. Not only is there no
objective basis for associating the misspelling of "bussiness" with "buss,
bustle, and bust" with "kissiness:' but the author saying it's consistent
with a previous phrase that essentially meant "We don't respect your
business:' is actually incorrect. The previous phrase actually said, "We
respect your business, but not the country it serves:'12 The author added
the "don't."
To further support his interpretation, the author shows two pictures,
one of Patsy and one of JonBenet, both wearing bustles. Let's not forget
that this word "bustle" is the author's own free association, somehow
derived from the actual misspelled word "bussiness:' It doesn't appear
in the note itself. The author goes on. And on. And on. All this is just
for openers. Certainly this evidence doesn't rise to the level of jacks or
better that are needed to open a valid deep-listening game.
Another apparent "slip" of the pen in the ransom note is the mis-
spelled word "posession:' which the author says relates to the word
"poses:' something that both Patsy and her daughter have engaged in
for beauty pageants. We are also informed that this misspelled word
implies "posse:' and Patsy "knew that a posse was after her." Really! The
author then concludes his particular analysis by asserting, "It is inter-
esting that in the two words the killer misspells, she adds an's' in 'bussi-
ness' and leaves one out of 'possession: We are told that this matches
Patsy's style of trying to add something like a bustle to make up for a
deficiencY:'13
Yet another revealing unconscious communication, says Hodges, is
the use of the word "attache:' Note that it has an accent mark on the sev-
enth letter, as does the name JonBenet. If this doesn't convince you that
 Veep Action 191

Patsy wrote the note, the author says this will: Note that attache even
rhymes with JonBenet. 14 Unfortunately, there's still more. In the ransom
note, a period that is spaced too far from the end of the sentence means
that the writer is out of contact with reality. Give me a breakP s (One be-
gins to wonder just who is out of contact with reality here.)
Further, we are told that the use of exclamation marks-which are
asserted to be phallic symbols-is said to signify dramatic actions like
being on stage at a beauty pageant. That there are three exclamation
marks in the note is said to reference the three people involved, Patsy,
John, and JonBenet. We are told they also show Patsy's explosive nature
and signify her exploding and killing her daughter. 16 We are also told
that another clue to the identity of the killer is the references to the "de-
livery" of the ransom money; it seems that this implies femininity, as in
giving birth! Similarly, we are told that the references in the ransom
note to "bank" and "delivery:' means, "Patsy unexpectedly came across
her husband molesting JonBenet-taking her valuables from her, i.e.,
intruding into JonBenet's 'bank.'" The author says that this follows
from his previous line of reasoning, "and stays with the same symbolic
meaning: 'Bank' is a woman, and the woman we're talking about is Jon-
Benet:'17 Please bear with me; I simply must belabor Hodges's examples
a little longer.
Hodges suggests that the phrase in the note "If the money is . .. tam-
pered with, she dies" reveals that Patsy and John had "tampered" with
JonBenet's little body. IS
And how about this one? Hodges says that the writer of the note mis-
spells "kindergartner" with an extra e (that is, "kindergartener"). On
this basis, he asks, "Was it Patsy's way of saying, 'e-gads'-revealing that
she wanted to change the fact that JonBenet was growing Up?"19 E-
GADS! Where does this come from?
This next series of interpretations of unconscious meanings is per-
haps the real clincher of a psychiatry gone mad (though it's difficult to
judge from among the many in the book). Hodges thinks he has struck
gold with his wildly free-associative analysis of the ransom note. While
there is gold in "them thar hills:' most of what he dredges up is pure
iron pyrite (fool's gold).
192 VEEP LI5TENIN(q-

For example, from my perspective one of the possible subliteral clues

in the ransom message involves the signed ending of the note with the
letters S.B. T. C. These initial were supposed to represent the "political"
group who was to have kidnapped JonBenet. Before I get to Hodges's
more reasonable analysis of these letters, let me show how loosey-
goosey things can get without the use of a systematic method.
Hodges says that Patsy or John Ramsey may have made up the initials
S.B.T.e. on a whim, or they may have been a random selection. "One
thing is certain:' he says, "S.B.T.e. came out of their deeper minds:' So
far, so good-maybe. But now he produces something that would be
the envy of most paranoid schizophrenics. Because Patsy had been
fighting cancer, Hodges says, "it's only fitting that the ransom note end
with a capital 'C' since cancer is known as 'the big e:"20 Further, he says
that the letters T. e. could represent The Cancer. He then suggests that
the letters S.B.T.e. could represent the hypothetical phrase that he
makes up, "Slain By The Cancer." Is this even remotely believable? Next,
he says that the letters S.B. and T.e., "could also represent 'Son of a B-
The Cancer. Saved because of the cancer' is another possibility as, in the
beginning, the cancer did open Patsy's eyes to the next world and more
important matters."21
Moreover, Hodges says that "S.B. is common slang for 's.o.b: which
has several meanings itself. People use this expression when they're in a
jam. Used as a degrading term it literally means son of a bad woman or
not quite so literally, the child of a bad woman:' As far as I know, S.B. is
not used as short for S.O.B, at least in the United States (I checked with
a colleague in the United Kingdom, and as far as he know, this short-
ened form is not used there either).
While I think Hodges is stretching his psychoanalysis of Patsy be-
yond the breaking point, I believe he is correct when he says of the ini-
tials S.B.T.e that "Surely the initials have some significance to Patsy
Ramsey:' Again, so far, so good. But then, he says, "Being the artist that
she is, Patsy likes to put a special hidden message into her communica-
tions, particularly at the end of an event because she is acutely sensitive
to separations."22 The use of these initials, however, could apply to John
Ramsey (and perhaps others who knew them) as well. In my view,
 Deep Action 193

Hodges then goes off the deep end once again. In order to make the
gender of this phrase (Son of a bitch) fit, he says that "Patsy could even
be revealing ... she had turned Jon Benet into a masculine sort of per-
son for the purposes of gaining power-she had symbolically turned
her daughter into a son. This fits with the showy finish of the ransom
note."23 It's showy, all right.
Further, Hodges claims that the "T.C could refer to 'T.L.e: (tender
loving care), almost the exact opposite of 'S.B.'" From S.B. meaning
S.O.B, to T.C meaning T.L.C? According to Hodges, "Here Patsy could
be revealing her other side, the good mother. The S.B.lT.C split could
represent Patsy's bad mother/good mother split, with Patsy's evil part
coming first." If you think this is "showy;', the following is downright
obscenely flamboyant: According to Hodges, "'T.C' is not far from 'T.S.'
('tough s-')." Not far from T.S.?-Say what! As possible evidence that
his interpretation is correct, he notes that T.S. is "an incredibly com-
mon expression that suggests Patsy is confessing that life was cruel to
JonBenet (and to her as well). Maybe that's how Patsy viewed her can-
cer-'T.S.' and she inflicted that same bad break on JonBenet." I am at a
loss for words here.
All this is just the tip of the author's psychiatric interpretations of the
unconscious-meaning iceberg. To illustrate further would get so con-
voluted that you simply wouldn't believe I was doing the author justice.
Some of his associations may possibly be correct on some deep uncon-
scious level, but we can't even begin to verify them other than with the
wildest of free associations. That's the problem. Again, let me say that
in terms of the ransom note, like Hodges, I too am convinced that
within the womb of the writer's unconscious mind gestates hidden
meaning. Unlike Hodges' birthing method, however, my natural-lan-
guage method is quite different. (Am I revealing here that I think Patsy
is the murderer?)
Hodges continues to interpret the letters S.B.T.C, but dismisses what
I think is the most important point regarding the letters. Hodges notes
that during World War II, John Ramsey was stationed at Subic Bay
Training Center, the exact letters of S.B.T.C, but dismisses this obser-
vation as having no real significance. In fact, the subliteral significance
194 DEEP Ll5TENIN~

of these letters is that they are much too coincidental. Now this doesn't
necessarily suggest that the writer of the note was John or Patsy Ram-
sey, since anyone who knew of John's military experience could have
used them consciously or unconsciously. Along with other subliteral
material (see below) it does, however, strongly suggest that the writer
or writers of the note were not strangers to the family.
Hodges does finally make what I think is a potentially significant-
and I emphasize potential-analysis of the letters S.B. T. e. It seems that
one of Patsy's favorite passages from the King James Bible was Psalms
118. During her bout with cancer, she had apparently claimed several
verses in this psalm as she turned to God for help. In addition, in a
book about healing cancer that Patsy had been reading, Psalm 118 ap-
pears. Hodges, points out that one of Patsy's favorite verses reads: "God
is the Lord, who has shown us the light; bind the sacrifice with cords,
even unto the horns of the altar" (verse 27). According to Hodges, the
first significant aspect of this verse is the phrase "bind ... with cords;'
which was how Jon Benet was bound, and possibly S.B.T.C. can be
loosely translated to mean Sacrifice Bound (with) the Cords, though
this part of the interpretation is a bit of a stretch.
The second significant aspect Hodges suggests is, "Various Christian
endeavors use 'T.e.' to mean 'through Christ' or 'Through the Cross.' A
capitalized 'T' even looks like a Roman cross (on which Jesus was cruci-
fied)." He concludes that '''S.B.T.e.' may also mean 'saved by the cross;"
maintaining that another possible meaning is: "salvation belongs to
Christ;' as Patsy Ramsey was looking for salvation. Gaining downhill
momentum, he says, "This fits in even a deeper, almost certainly un-
conscious way with the idea that Patsy's 'S.B.' side is taken care of
through forgiveness." Indeed, we are even asked to believe that S.B.T.e.
may have derived from John or Patsy's awareness of the TCBY yogurt
initials!
Just before the initials S.B. T.e. on the ransom note was the word
"Victory." Hodges slips and slides all over the psychoanalytic free asso-
ciations on this one, too. He suggests that the word "Victory" reveals
Patsy's hidden feeling of victory over cancer and references again to
Patsy's favorite biblical psalm, 118, which in some translations includes
 Veep Action 195

the word victory ("and now He has given me the victory").24 Hodges of-
fers at least a half dozen other associations to the word Victory.
His association of the word victory to Psalm 118 is interesting sublit-
erally, especially given the ransom amount of $118,000. But Hodges
misses another association that likely ties the Subic Bay initials to
someone who had intimate knowledge of John's military life: Both dur-
ing and after the war, the class of ship that was stationed at Subic Bay
was called victory ships.
The third intriguing aspect of Psalm 118 relates to the unconscious
meaning of numbers (see Chapter 7). Just as I suggested that the use of
the letters S.B.T.C., which are the same letters as the initials of Subic
Bay Training Center, was too coincidental not to be subliterally mean-
ingful, I think that the number of Psalm 118, which is the same as the
ransom note's request for $118,000, is likewise too coincidental not to
be subliterally meaningful-especially given that John Ramsey had re-
ceived $118,000 as a bonus that year. Like the letters S.B. r.G., the ran-
som amount of $118,000 strongly suggests only that the writer or
writers of the note were not strangers to the family. Noticing and con-
necting the significance of the ransom amount of $118,000 to Psalm
118, Hodges seems to have begun to get this one right. But it's a cosmic
leap to name Patsy Ramsey as the killer on this basis (though it would
appear that she may somehow have been involved in the writing of the
note).
Based on my deep-listening method for analyzing numbers, I would
hypothesize that the other numbers in the ransom note are also of sig-
nificance. Another possibly significant deep-listening clue is likely sug-
gested by the inclusion of the last two zeros in the mentioning of
$118,000.00. These are not included in the related numbers mentioned,
$100,000 and $18,000. I would also conjecture that the numbers $100
and $20, referring to the denominations that the ransom money was to
be in, and 8 and 10 Am, referring to time, are significant as well. With-
out sufficient information, I would only guess from my own experience
with how subliteral numbers are used that what stands out are the sep-
arations in each series of numbers (by commas and decimal point) into
sets of 3s and 2s, with the one exception of the number 8.
196 VEEP LISTEN/NCr

Based on my past analysis of the deep meaning of numbers I would

further suggest that the separations in a series of numbers refer to how
many people are being referenced and may indicate the gender of those
being referenced by the numbers. For example, in the $118,000.00, the
two "1's" in the "11(8)" likely indicate two people of the same gender
with the 8 indicating a person of the opposite gender. The zeros (re-
flecting a set of three and a set of two) likely indicate nothing since they
are "zeros;' or could be some other significant set of people in the mind
of the writer of the note. The same analysis may refer to the other num-
bers mentioned (again, see Chapter 7). The significance of these num-
bers is that they could provide a concrete set of clues that in the event
of their correct deciphering would provide a matrix revealing a coher-
ent and consistent set of unconscious meanings that would serve to in-
ternally cross-check these numbers and probably to cross-check the
subliteral analyses from words and phrases.
Under the best of circumstances the analysis or the interpretation of
unconscious meaning should only be used as possible "clues;' not as
conclusive evidence-as Hodges does. You will recall from Chapter 6
(on caution, and O.J.'s dream) that even Freud understood the limits of
interpreting unconscious meaning. When guided by a systematic
methodology, unconscious meaning has the potential for being a valu-
able aid in solving problems or in yielding "evidence;' just like hypnosis
is currently used in criminal investigations. In most all states, evidence
or other information obtained by hypnosis is not admissible in courts
of law. It still has value, however, in leading to evidence that can inde-
pendently (from hypnosis) be verified and used in court.
Now, consider this: Did you ever notice and wonder why the female
form of the name Frances is spelled with an e and the male form of
Francis with an i? Why not the reverse? The obvious answer is that our
ancestor's unconscious minds understood that the i being an elongated
shape was a penis/phallic symbol, whereas the oval shape of the e was a
symbol of the female vagina. Just joking, folks!
You see how easy all this symbolic interpretation stuff is? That's the
very problem, though. It's too easy. Unfortunately, there are many-
presumably Hodges and the next author, Frances Crest Welsing-who
 Veep Action 197

would agree with this "interpretation" about the unconscious signifi-

cance of the differential spelling of the names Frances and Francis.

Washlngton5 White Penis

The last exemplification of how not to analyze unconscious or subliteral

communication is a book by Frances Crest Welsing, a black "Freudian"
psychiatrist, entitled The Isis Papers. 25 Before we venture into the sym-
bolic muck and quagmire of the book, I need to make a few general
comments. The author correctly recounts the clear history of prejudice
and stereotypes by whites against African-Americans in the United
States. My quarrel with this book is not its own blatant racism, but
its-unfortunately typical-simple-minded analysis (I purposely use
this phrase) of unconscious meaning. It almost makes Hodges's book A
Mother Gone Bad look good. But not quite.
The author maintains that in the middle of predominantly black
Washington, D.C., stands a white penis: It's called the Washington
Monument. 26 Further, we are told that if one views the Washington
Monument from a certain angle and distance, visually it appears to be
beside the domed Jefferson Memorial, with this juxtaposition revealing
a penis with a testicleF 7 It only goes downhill from here, folks.
Are you ready for this: We are told that the Christian cross is an un-
conscious representation of black male genitalia, with its vertical line
representing the penis, its horizontal line representing two testicles.
The justification for this racist sexual analysis of the Christian cross is
that if we see a Christmas tree, we are told, schematically, it's an in-
verted cross. (I should note, in the spirit of postmodernism, that I am
not in the least personally offended by this analysis of the Christian
cross.) So the Christmas tree also unconsciously represents black male
genitalia (e.g., picture an arrowhead, which can be seen as the same
shape as a Christmas tree with its broken-off shaft as the remaining
part of the tree trunk). Even the swastika, the symbol of a pure Aryan
race, is said to conceal a hidden cross.28
How does this psychiatrist know that the Christian cross represents
whites' obsession with black male genitalia? First, because she says
198 DEEP LISTENING-

whites are fearful of being genetically annihilated by the powerful ge-

netic material of black males. Second, the cross signifies "castrated"
black male genitalia, and whites have historically been concerned with
black male sexuality and have often castrated black males. Though this
history is correct, how it gets translated into the Christian cross and the
Christmas tree's representing black male genitalia is, at best, an imagi-
native leap of cosmic proportions.
Even most "ball" games are said to express this unconscious concern
by whites of genetic annihilation. "The large brown football is kicked
through an upright opening (the goalposts) that can be viewed as the
uplifted legs of a white female in the act of sexual intercourse:'29 More-
over, we are told that white balls used in games are usually small (for
example golf), whereas brown or black balls are usually larger.30
The unconscious motive behind games using either white or brown
balls is symbolic of controlling black genetic material. These games re-
flect whites' reaction to this fear in that the games implicitly (symboli-
cally) represent the explicit game of world domination of people of
color by whites. In other words, controlling the black or brown balls is
an unconscious playing out of whites' fear of genetic annihilation and
their consequent defensive reaction of world domination of people of
color. Welsing notes that most players in games that use black or brown
balls are black men, but says that doesn't invalidate her argument be-
cause blacks weren't always most of the players and because, in any
event, the teams are owned by white males.
What about games that have white balls in them, like pool? Well, as
we all know, the last ball to be ejected from the table is a black eight ball
and the last ball standing is the white cue ball. And what about games
like bowling, played mostly by whites using a big black ball to knock
down white pins, which are seen as representing white penises? Isn't
this a contradiction? Not to Welsing. It isn't because in such a system of
"interpreting" unconscious meanings, anything goes. According to
Welsing, the white "bowler sees himself as master and possessor of the
larger black ball and thereby in control of the harm to the white male
genital apparatus (the white pins)."3! Come, now.
The same reasoning is used to explain Jane Goodall and Diane Fos-
sey, two white scientists who are famous for studying chimpanzees and
 Veep Action 199

gorillas, which are seen as unconsciously representing blacks. Goodall

and Fossey are said to be unconsciously forming an alliance with this
powerful (black) genetic material. 32 How racist can you get?
In Welsing's system, whether white ball or black ball-she wins. An-
other example of "she wins" is her analysis of the white male's formal
black tuxedo: Even though "the 'tails' hang in the back, they remain
phallic symbols."33 With Welsing's interpretations I guess even Bugs
Bunny isn't "safe."
It's clear that Welsing is aware of the Freudian cliche that if it's
longer than its wide, it's a penis symbol. Evidently she hasn't heard of
Freud's other legacy: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (incidentally,
Welsing doesn't miss the chance to note that white men like to smoke
big brown or black cigars). Frances Crest Welsing is not joking. She's
deadly serious.
Indeed it seems to Welsing that white folk not only have black penis
envy but also have something called Melanin Envy. Melanin is, of
course, what people of color have more of than white folk; it protects
the skin from the sun. Welsing, however, sees melanin as having other
functions. Welsing, an M.D., asserts that blacks are able to interpret
symbols better than whites because blacks have more melanin and
"melanin is capable of absorbing a broader spectrum of energy fre-
quencies or data.... Melaninated people are functioning with a sixth
sense, the additional sensory system being that of melanin pigmenta-
tion, while Westerners function with only five senses."34 What can I
possibly say to this, except that in effect, Welsing provides us with an
almost perfect textbook example of a closed paranoid system of
thinking.
Welsing builds an unassailable racial edifice to protect her fanciful
interpretation of unconscious meanings from both white folk who are
genetically rendered incapable due to our melanin deficiency and from
other black folk who disagree with her; if blacks disagree, it must be be-
cause they have been brainwashed by whites. In all fairness, there has
been no shortage of racist white psychiatrists in history who have wo-
ven similar "scientific" fantasies. Since the origin of institutional psy-
chiatry beginning with Benjamin Rush (a signer of the Declaration of
Independence) in the eighteenth century and through Nazi racist psy-
200 VEEP LlSTENIN(j-

chiatry in the twentieth century, racism has not been uncommon. But
this doesn't justify new forms of it. Finally, even if all Welsing asserts
had an element of truth, the point is we need systematic methods of
verification. Now for a few closing words on verifying deep listening.

Method and Meaning

As explained before, the selection of a word during a conversation oc-

curs in two stages. First, because words have multiple meanings, our
brain reviews all possible meanings of a word that we are aware of.
Then from the context of the discussion, our brain chooses the as-
sumed appropriate meaning for the word in the context of its use.
What Hodges and Welsing seem to do, however, is to assume that
nearly all the possible meanings of a word are meaningful within a sin-
gle context In a word, this is ridiculous.
An example is Hodges's freely associating to the misspelling of the
word "bussiness" and coming up with "buss, bustle, and bust" and fi-
nally somehow coming up with the word "kissiness." Or his associating
to the misspelled word "posession;' which is said to relate to the word
"pose;' something that both Patsy Ramsey and her daughter have en-
gaged in for beauty pageants, and to "posse," concluding that Patsy
knew that a posse was after her. Say what?!
We can see that the analysis of unconscious meanings without a
methodology is like a language without a grammar. It's grammar,
a.k.a. syntax, that creates meaning in language, not just the words or
semantics. Without syntax, words yield mostly serendipitous non-
sense. Worse yet, it leads to dangerous conclusions. At the very least,
some of the examples of unconscious meaning and action "slips" in
this chapter are fascinating to analyze, to think about, and to ponder
for their potential significance on our everyday behavior. But as I
have cautioned throughout this book and particularly in Chapters 6
and 9, we must be extremely careful in attributing too much meaning
to them.
While unconscious stimuli (note I don't say unconsciously "in-
tended" stimuli), cognitive operations, and the subliteral expressions
 Veep Action 201

deriving from those stimuli may demonstrate valid psychological phe-

nomena, it doesn't necessarily follow that they were unconsciously in-
tended. Neither does it follow that the "meanings" imply conscious
significance for the person uttering them in term of their beliefs or ac-
tions. Such meanings may only reflect our automatic cognitive machin-
ery at work.
Again, even Freud knew the difference between what he called psychi-
cal reality and material reality. By analogy, would you hold someone re-
sponsible for, and define them as a person based on the content of their
nightly dreams? Even with the detailed methodology that I have devel-
oped to analyze subliteral meaning, the intent of the method is not so
much to enable the valid assignment of responsibility to a speaker for
what she or he says as it is to analyze and understand the cognitive ma-
chinery undergirding spoken language. Once more, this is a most im-
portant point, a point that Hodges's and Welsing's analysis of
unconscious meaning totally disregards.

Back to the Future of Oeep listening

So what's in the future for deep listening? Certainly, much more re-
search on subliteral cognition and language needs to be done. While
you have seen throughout this book many of the mental mechanisms
our minds use to secretly reveal hidden meaning, I have only scratched
the surface in terms of illustrating an even wider array of cognitive op-
erations employed by our minds without our knowing it. Discovering
more of these operations will help us to further understand how our
minds work.
As we have also seen, in terms of assessing the degree of intent that
appears to lie beneath a person's deep talk, further careful research is
needed to avoid attributing intentional meaning (e.g., racist intent)
where it doesn't exist. Finally, as I briefly noted in Chapter 5, research
needs to be conducted on whether and how deep talk can be used
therapeutically.
Even as it stands now, however, deep listening will continue to be
useful in the context of listening to friends, media, and coworkers.
 Notes

Preface
1. Bob Dylan, from the album Highway 61 Revisited (Warner Bros., 1965).
2. S. Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (New York: Norton, 1960), 272.

Introduction
1. R. E. Haskell, Between the Lines: Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Life (Cambridge,
Mass.: Perseus Books, 1999). Also see www.perseuspublishing.com/authors.html at Perseus
Books' web page.
2. Details, June 1999,34.
3. Great Dialogues of Plato, translated by W. H. Rouse (New York: New American Li-
brary, 1956).
4. Also see R. E. Haskell, "An Analogical Methodology for the Analysis and Validation of
Anomalous Cognitive and Linguistic Operations in Small Group (Fantasy Theme) Re-
ports;' Small Group Research 22 (1991): 443--474.
5. See H. R. Pollio, M. K. Smith, and M. R. Pollio, "Figurative Language and Cognitive
Psychology;' Language and Cognitive Processes 5 (1990): 141-167; H. Fine, H. R. Pollio, and
C. Simpkinson, "Figurative Language, Metaphor and Psychotherapy;' Psychotherapy: The-
ory, Research and Practice 10 (1973): 87-91; H. R. Pollio, J. M. Barlow, H. J. Fine, and M. R.
Pollio, Psychology and the Poetics of Growth: Figurative Language in Psychology, Psychother-
apy and Education (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977).

Chapter 1
1. A. S. Reber, Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge: An Essay on the Cognitive Uncon-
scious (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),25,69.
2. See, for example, J. Piaget, Play, Dreams and Imitation of Childhood (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1962).
3. A. H. Maslow, ed., Motivation and Personality, 2d ed. (New York: Harper and Row,
1970).

203
204 NOTES

4. See R. E. Haskell, Reengineering Corporate Training: Intellectual Capital and the Trans-
fer of Learning (Newport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1998).
5. For a more elaborated explanation of the subliteral mind and other concepts in this
book, see my Between the Lines: Unconscious Meaning in Everyday Conversation.
6. See R. E. Haskell, "The Matrix of Group Talk: An Empirical Method of Analysis and
Validation;' Small Group Behavior, 2 (1982): 419-443.

chapter 2
1. S. Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis (New York: Washington Square
Press, 1960),40.
2. CNN, August 20, 1998.
3. CNN, September 13, 1998.
4. CNN, Burden of Proof, August 7, 1998.
5. See B. J. Baars, J. Cohen, G. H. Bower, and J. W. Berry, "Some Caveats on Testing the
Freudian Slip Hypothesis: Problems in Systematic Replication." In B. J. Baars, ed., Experi-
mental Slips and Human Error (New York: Plenum Press, 1992),308.
6. There is a serious and eternal controversy revolving around the reality of unconscious
meaning that splits psychologists into two basic camps. It involves, on the one hand, psy-
chologists in one camp who want to explain human behavior as it occurs in everyday life
and who want to apply the rigorous research findings that exist to explain and support
these explanations of everyday life events. On the other hand, psychologists in the other
camp are oriented to "pure research" and get very upset when their rigorously controlled
research is generalized to support explaining everyday life events. In reality these two
camps are extreme ends of a continuum. The two camps seldom talk to or respect each
other. I like to think of myself as belonging to both camps. Unfortunately, those at the ex-
treme end in the first camp tend to see my more rigorous methodology for analyzing sub-
literal language as belonging to the second camp, while those in the second camp tend to
see applying my findings and transferring their related research as belonging to the first
camp. As members of the reading public you, and the mass media, get caught in the middle
of these two camps and the result is often confusion.
Technically, it's understandable why the "purists" object to their carefully constrained
and controlled research being applied to everyday events. By design, their research is so
tailored to special experimental conditions that these conditions may not be applicable to
the conditions prevailing in everyday life. More practically, however, it has always seemed
to me that we must try to connect laboratory research with everyday life (There are other
differences between these two camps as well, but I can't go into them here). Overlaid on
this more general split, there is one more:. Freud's ghost haunts deep listening. Contrary
to popular knowledge, Freud is not held in great esteem by rigorous researchers. Thus
most cognitive scientists have understandably been reluctant to deviate from their tightly
controlled experimental laboratory methods in examining unconscious processes. As I
suggested in a similar context elsewhere, it evidently remains a fear that if the meticulous
experimental door to the unconscious is opened to other methodologies, ''All manner of
Freudian specters will be let loose in the cognitive laboratories:' If psychologists in the
 NOTES 205

first camp have been too loosey-goosey, those in the second camp have been too obsessive
compulsive.
7. Commonwealth v. Anthony Johnson, Appeals Court of Massachusetts Hampden Sr. No.
96-P-0759 700 N.E., 2nd 270 Cite as: 45 Mass. App. Ct. 473700 N.E. 2nd 270. Argued No-
vember 25,1997. Decided September 17, 1998. I would like to thank Professor William
Kaplin, School of Law, Catholic University of America, for locating this case for me.
8. G. Beyer, K. Redden, and M. Beyer, Modern Dictionary for the Legal Profession, 2d ed.
(Buffalo, N.Y.: William & Hein, 1996).
9. See W. Key, Subliminal Seduction (New York: New American Library, 1987).
10. See R. F. Bales, Personality and Interpersonal Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, 1970); D. 1. Smith, Hidden Conversations: An Introduction to Communicative Psy-
choanalysis (London: TavistocklRoutledge, 1991); D. S. Whitaker and M. Lieberman, Psy-
chotherapy Through the Group Process (New York: Atherton, 1964).

chapter 3
1. Depending on whether you are religious or secular, the master template will change.
Many psychologists-perhaps most-would consider the Parent Template as the master
template. From this perspective, it's our childhood experience with parents that generalizes
to a later belief in an all-powerful God.
2. See R. E. Haskell and G. Hauser, "Rhetorical Structure: Truth and Method in Weaver's
Epistemology;' Quarterly Journal of Speech 64 (1978): 233-245.
3. See, again, R. F. Bales, Personality and Interpersonal Behavior (New York: Holt, Rine-
hart & Winston, 1970); D. 1. Smith, Hidden Conversations: An Introduction to Communica-
tive Psychoanalysis (London: TavistocklRoutledge, 1991); D. S. Whitaker and M.
Lieberman, Psychotherapy Through the Group Process (New York: Atherton, 1964); see also
P. Slater, Microcosm: Structural, Psychological and Religious Evolution in Groups (New York:
Wiley & Sons, 1966).

Chapter 4
1. See J. Bruner, Acts ofMeaning (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 77.
2. The Merv Griffin Show, September 14, 1977.
3. I would like to thank my colleague John Heapes for this illustration. See my Between
the Lines for more on names used subliterally.

Chapter 5
1. R. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (New York: Bantam Books, 1974),
11.
2. R. E. Haskell, "Anatomy of Analogy: A New Look;' Journal of Humanistic Psychology 8
(1968): 161-169; see also R. E. Haskell, ed., Cognition and Symbolic Structures: The Psychol-
ogy of Metaphoric Transformation (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1968).
206 NOTES

3. M. Hesse, Models and Analogies in Science (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963).
4. See, for example, D. Gentner, "Structure Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Anal-
ogy;' Cognitive Science 7 (1983): 155-170; M. L. Gick and K. J. Holyoak, "Analogical Prob-
lem Solving," Cognitive Psychology 12 (1980): 306-355.
5. Socrates said, "I am myself a great lover of these processes of division and generaliza-
tion; they help me to speak and to think. And if I find any man who is able to see 'a One
and Many' in nature, him I follow, and 'walk in his footsteps as if he were a god.'" See
Plato, Phaedrus, translated by W. E. Helmbold and W. G. Rabinowitz (New York: Bobbs-
Merrill, 1956). Later, Aristotle echoed the same view: "The greatest thing by far is to be a
master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others. It is the mark
of genius:' See L. Cooper, The Rhetoric of Aristotle (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,
1960),101.
6. See R. E. Haskell, Transfer of Learning: Cognition, Instruction, and Reasoning (San
Diego: Academic Press, 2000).
7. R. E. Haskell, "Analogical Transforms: A Cognitive Theory of the Origin and Develop-
ment of Equivalence Transformation, Part I;' Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 4 (1989):
247-259.
8. See T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1970).
9. R. E. Haskell, ''An Analogic Model of Small Group Behavior;' International Journal of
Group Psychotherapy 28 (1978): 27-54.
10. See D. Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing (New York: Scribner,
1967).
11. R. E. Haskell, "Empirical Structures of Mind: Cognition, Linguistics and Transfor-
mation;' The Journal of Mind and Behavior 5 (1984): 29-48.
12. R. E. Haskell, "The Matrix of Group Talk: An Empirical Method of Analysis and Val-
idation;' Small Group Behavior 2 (1982): 419-443.
13. R. E. Haskell, "Cognitive Structure and Transformation: An Empirical Model of the
Psycholinguistic Function of Numbers in Discourse;' Small Group Behavior 13 (1983):
165-191.
14. See, for example, the following early works: H. Fine, H. Pollio, and C. Simpkinson,
"Figurative Language, Metaphor and Psychotherapy;' Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and
Practice 10 (1973): 87-91; H. R. Pollio, J. M. Barlow, H. J. Fine, and M. R. Pollio, Psychology
and the Poetics of Growth: Figurative Language in Psychology, Psychotherapy and Education
(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977); D. Gordon, Therapeutic Metaphors (Cupertino,
Calif.: Meta Publications, 1978); E. Rossi, ed., The Collected Works of Milton H. Erickson,
four volumes (New York: Irvington, 1980).
15. R. F. Bales, Personality and Interpersonal Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1970).
16. G. Gibbard and J. Hartman, "The Significance of Utopian Fantasies in Small Groups;'
International Journal of Group Psychotherapy 23 (1973): 125-147; J. Hartman and G. Gibbard,
''A Note on Fantasy Themes in the Evolution of Group Culture:' In G. Gibbard, J. Hartman,
and R. Mann, eds., Analysis of Groups. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974); R. Mann, Interper-
sonal Styles and Group Development (New York: Wiley, 1967); P. Slater, Microcosm: Structure,
Psychological and Religious Evolution in Groups (New York: John Wiley, 1966); T. Mills, Group
 NOTES 207

Transformation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964); D. Dunphy, "Phases, Roles, and
Myths in Self-Analytic Groups;' Journal ofApplied Behavioral Sciences 4 (1968): 195-225.
17. See H. E. Durkin, The Group in Depth (New York: International University Press,
1964); H. Ezriel, "A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Treatment of Patients in Groups," Jour-
nal of Mental Science XCVI (1950): 774-779; H. Ezriel, "Experimentation Within the Psy-
choanalytic Session, British Journal of the Philosophy of Science 7 (1956): 29-48; C.
Morocco, "The Development and Function of Group Metaphor;' Journal for the Theory of
Social Behavior 9 (1979): 1, 15-27; W. Schutz, Here Comes Everybody: Bodymind and En-
counter Culture (New York: Harrow, 1971).
s. H. Foulkes and E. J. Anthony, Group Psychotherapy (Baltimore: Penguin, 1957); P.
Mullahy, Psychoanalysis and Interpersonal Psychiatry: The Contributions of Harry Stack Sul-
livan (New York: Science House, 1970); D. S. Whitaker and M. Lieberman, Psychotherapy
Through the Group Process (New York: Atherton, 1964); I. Yalom, The Theory and Practice of
Group Psychotherapy (New York: Basic Books, 1970).
18. L. DeMause, "Historical Group Fantasies;' Journal of Psychohistory 7 (1979): 1-70.
19. See E. G. Bormann, "Fantasy and Rhetorical Vision: The Rhetorical Criticism of So-
cial Reality;' Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972): 396-407; G. P. Mohrmann, "An Essay on
Fantasy Theme Criticism;' The Quarterly Journal of Speech 68 (1982): 109-132; M. P. Far-
rell, "Collective Projection and Group Structure: The Relationship Between Deviance and
Projection in Groups;' Small Group Behavior 10 (1979): 81-100.
20. My thanks to Dr. David Livingstone Smith.
21. S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, 1st English edition (London: George Allen
and Unwin Ltd., 1954).
22. S. Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, translated by J. Strachey (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1960).
23. S. Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, translated by J. Strachey (New
York: W. W. Norton, 1963). For years, I have had to deal with the pop psychology notions
from students in my courses. Pop psychology books are characterized by wild speculation,
based only on a mental health professional's personal everyday experience, not scientific re-
search. This is done by people who should know better. At least in psychology, personal ex-
perience is not a good basis for knowing how the mind or the world really works. I consider
pop psychology as (1) psychological information, (2) widely disseminated to the general
public, (3) that is simplified and distorted, (4) has little or no rigorous evidence to support
it, (5) but which is believed to be true.
24. An interesting and thorough history of the unconscious mind can be found in H. El-
lenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychia-
try (New York: Basic Books, 1970); L. L. Whyte, The Unconscious Before Freud (New York:
Mentor Books, 1960); D. L. Smith, Freud's Philosophy of the Unconscious (Dordrecht,
Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999).
25. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
26. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, 209.
27. E. J. Caropreso and C. S. White, ''Analogical Reasoning and Giftedness: A Compari-
son Between Identified Gifted and Nonidentified Children;' Journal of Educational Research
87(5) (1994): 271-278.
208 NOTES

28. J. Lacan, "The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious." In Jacques Ehrmann,
Structuralism (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1966).
29. Smith is not only a philosopher of mind, he is a scholar on the history of psycho-
analysis. More importantly, he is trained in the philosophy of science. Not being an expert
on Freud, I thank and rely on Dr. Smith's extensive knowledge and scholarship on psycho-
analysis and its many interpretations and controversies. Any glaring mistakes, however, are
mine. I would also like to note that relative to the amount of expounding about Freud,
there are few real "experts" on what Freud really said, especially about unconscious com-
munication. See D. 1. Smith, Hidden Conversations: An Introduction to Communicative Psy-
choanalysis (London: Tavistock!Routledge, 1991).
30. Smith, Hidden Conversations, 52.
31. S. Freud, The Unconscious (1915), in the standard edition of the complete psycholog-
ical works of Sigmund Freud. Volume 14, translated and edited by James Strachey (Lon-
don: Hogarth Press, 1901), 174.
32. D. 1. Smith, Hidden Conversations: An Introduction to Communicative Psychoanalysis
(London: TavistocklRoutledge, 1991).
33. For a general view, see my Between the Lines, ch. 12, and R. Langs, Unconscious Com-
munication in Everyday Life (New York: Jason Aronson, 1983); see also R. Langs, Clinical
Practice and the Architecture of the Mind (London: Kamac Books, 1995); R. Langs, Empow-
ered Psychotherapy (London: Kamac Books, 1993); R. Langs, Science, Systems and Psycho-
analysis (London: Kamac Books Brunner/Mazel, 1992).
34. From Smith, Hidden Conversations, 146.
35. Under the best of conditions, in the popular culture and media talking about uncon-
scious material generally means that the person is a "shrink:' that is, a psychotherapist. This
is what psychology means in the popular media-mind. It isn't so. Most psychologists are
not psychotherapists. Moreover, being a "shrink" is only one small part of the profession of
psychology.
36. See R. E. Haskell, "Unconscious Communication: Communicative Psychoanalysis and
Subliteral Cognition:' Journal of the American Academy ofPsychoanalysis 27, (1999): 471-502.
37. See my early article: R. E. Haskell, "The Analogic and Psychoanalytic Theory:' The
Psychoanalytic Review 55 (1969): 662-680.
38. H. Wemer and B. Kaplan, Symbol Formation: An Organismic Developmental Ap-
proach to Language and the Expression of Thought (New York: Wiley, 1963).
39. To my knowledge there have been only two experiments that directly relate to deep
listening. See M. P. Farrell, "Collective Projection and Group Structure: The Relationship
Between Deviance and Projection in Groups:' Small Group Behavior 10 (1979): 81-100; M.
Horwitz and D. Cartwright, ''A Projective Method for the Diagnosis of Group Properties:'
Human Relations 6 (1952): 397-410.

Chapter 6
1. See R. F. Bales, Personality and Interpersonal Behavior (New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, 1970), 139.
2. R. E. Haskell, ed., Cognition and Dream Research (New York: Institute of Mind and Be-
havior, 1986); also published as a special double issue of the Journal of Mind and Behavior.
 NOTES 209

3. Freud, Interpretation of Dreams, 67.

4. Ibid., 620.
5. From S. Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, translated by J. Riviere (New
York: Washington Square Press, 1961).
6. Ibid., 73.

chapter 7
1. T. Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor
Books, 1930),5.
2. R. E. Haskell, "Cognitive Structure and Transformation: An Empirical Model of the
Psycholinguistic Function of Numbers in Discourse:' Small Group Behavior 13 (1983):
165-191.
3. See Tobias Dantzig's fascinating classic, Number: The Language of Science (Garden
City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1930).
4. See, for example, E. Cassirer, Mythological Thought (London: Yale University Press,
1955).
5. For examples of the pathological use of numbers in schiwphrenia see Kasanin's clas-
sic work, J. S. Kasanin, ed., The Language and Thought of Schizophrenia (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1964).
6. N. Fodor, "The Psychology of Numbers:' Journal of Clinical Psychopathology 8 (1947):
525-556; C. G. Jung, Dreams, translated by R.F.C. Hull (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1974); W. Stekel, The Interpretation of Dreams (New York: Liveright, 1943).
7. E. Gutheil, The Handbook for Dream Analysis (New York: Liveright, 1951).
8. S. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, first English edition (London: George Allen &
Unwin Ltd., 1954).
9. See, for example, R. N. Shepard, D. W. Kilpatric, and J. P. Cunningham, "The Internal
Representation of Numbers:' Cognitive Psychology 7 (1975): 82-138.
10. The literal topic of "We narrowed them all down to 3 different options" subliterally
refers to the emergence of the 3 dominant members. Psycholinguistically, it is important to
note that the member telling the story is a part of the triad. As the literal story line notes,
"we" (subliterally meaning the 3 dominant member) narrowed them (meaning the total
group membership) down to three "options" (meaning the emergence of the 3 dominant
members). For members who were not a part of this triad to have introduced this topic
with the particular wording "We narrowed them down" would not have been congruent
with the here-and-now situations because they didn't control the topics being discussed in
the group and, therefore, didn't narrow the leadership down to three people. This is what I
call psychosociometric validity (see Between the Lines appendix).
11. The phrase lucky spots has linguistic legitimacy because it's a phrase commonly used
in one variation or another to refer to desirable status positions. That the "Three Lucky
Spots" is a bar is also significant. Logically, the topic simultaneously relates to both a part
(that is, member) of and the whole group (that is, a bar). In other words, the number 3 is
not just an isolated number; it's associated with a group, a bar, just as the three leaders are
part of a whole group. Again, this story, too, has psychosociometric validity in that it was
introduced by a member who belonged to the three lucky status spots. Again, the number 3
210 NOTES

corresponds to the actual triadic leadership structure of the conversation. The reference to
lucky spots in the name of the bar is an additional semantic association that subliterally cor-
responds to the status of the 3 dominant members who were the leaders. The concern of
members is that they are being evaluated on their leadership and interpersonal and com-
munication skills. Thus in this situation, the 3 dominant members who occupy the 3 lucky
spots, are perceived as being the recipients of excellent evaluations.
12. It's interesting here to ask why the member making this statement would specifically
select "3" drinks as indicating too many? This would certainly not be a typical number of
drinks that would be considered too many, especially by young people. This particular
number selected for indicating too many drinks is not normative and is so extreme that it
functions as a clue that something subliteral is happening.
13. The statement "the 3rd day" is still another reference to the triad, which includes (as
in most of the topics above) a larger unit, a "bus;' which represents the rest of the group.
14. Once again, the number 3 in this topic corresponds to the actual group leadership
composition, with the number 3 being part of a larger group (total). Like the 3 people in
the bar, the "3 seniors" were a disrupting influence and removed. Emotionally, the rest of
the here-and-now group would like to remove the threatening triad. Once again, psychoso-
ciometrically, the member telling this story was not a member of the triad-which is sub-
literally being criticized via this story.
15. Like the other topics reflecting the triad in this group, the "3 old greyhound buses"
story corresponds not only to the triad but also to its being part of a larger whole; that is,
the 3 buses were part of an airport system.
16. In terms of other association-type connections, the phrase "and they wouldn't serve
any of them" is deep talk for the fact that the rest of the group would not accept the leader-
ship of the three leaders, that is, they would not serve as followers.
17. On another level, the "being under 21" subliterally references the remaining mem-
bers of the group, who were all younger than the three leaders, that is, they were literally all
under 21 years old. As partial verification of this analysis almost immediately connected to
this phrase was the statement "Over half of them were under age." As in the literal story, the
younger female members constituted the majority and were under the age of 2l.
18. The particular phrasing of this topic is equally revealing. In the phrasing This 1 Girl
Who Was with These 2 Guys, note the use of pronouns. The use of the pronouns "this" and
"these" were used, as if the people being talked about were present, instead of the more ap-
propriate "that" one girl and "those" two guys. This tense shift psychologically and linguisti-
cally links the story with the here-and-now conversational situation. Any number of
phrasings could have been used. For example, it could have been said, that "there was a girl
who was with two guys;' or so forth.
19. There were three other references in this session's protocol with the number 3 in
them. To simplify things, I didn't use them. In any event, they would not have changed the
meaning of the number that I have used. The three other numerical references were what I
call double numbers like 33 and 30; if I used them the total number of group topics and
total number of group members would have been 16, not 13. This wouldn't have changed
my basic analysis of the numbers as it would have been a reference to the total group mem-
bership including the three absent members. I might note that this fact might also support
 NOTES 211

my tentative analysis of the 13 topics equaling the 13 members (present) because including
the three extra numerical references ends with same result.
20. Quoted in R. Palmer, Hermeneutics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press,
1969),140.

Chapter 8
1. 1. Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, ch. 7.
2. For similar themes, see R. E. Haskell, "An Analogic Model of Small Group Behavior;'
International Journal of Group Psychotherapy 28 (1978): 27-54.
3. I wish to thank my colleague John Heapes for this deep-talk narrative.
4. A psychoanalytic colleague of mine has suggested that removing my sport jacket was
in fact a "seductive" move on my part. More factually, I would say that it may have been
perceived as seductive.

chapter 9
1. A. Gresson, "Postmodern American and the Multicultural Crisis: Reading Forest
Gump as the "Call Back to Whiteness;' Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education 1.
(1996): 26.
2. See J. Waller, Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism Across America (New York:
Plenum/Insight Books, 1998).
3. Gallup Organization, April 19-22, 1990, survey reported in American Enterprise, Sep-
tember/October 1990.
4. An indication of denial or of ignorance during the O.J. Simpson criminal case was
whites' saying that the mostly black jury engaged in jury nullification (that is, not abiding by
the evidence and the law). Even if jury nullification occurred, little mention was made by
white juries engaging in jury nullification for years when an African-American was on trial.
5. A couple of the illustrations in this chapter are from R. E. Haskell, "Social Cognition
and the Non-Conscious Expression of Racial Ideology;' Imagination, Cognition and Person-
ality 6 (1987): 75-97. For more illustrations see my book Between the Lines.
6. All the illustrations in this chapter reflect African-American and white relations. This
is not by design. The populations that I have lived and worked in have not been diverse
enough to provide me with occasions for recognizing subliteral narratives about other mi-
nority groups. In addition I assume that having black friends for over twenty years has sen-
sitized me to deep listening in black and white. The illustrations also are limited to ones
created by whites. African-Americans, too, create deep talk about race. I chose not to pre-
sent any of these because of space considerations. In any event, I might note that, at least in
my experience, deep talk about race by blacks-strangely enough-is not as negative as
that by whites (see my book Between the Lines).
7. See A. Gresson, The Recovery of Race in America (Minneapolis: University of Min-
nesota Press, 1995); A. Gresson, The Dialectics of Betrayal: Sacrifice, Violation and the Op-
pressed (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing, 1982).
212 NOTES

8. A. Montague, Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, 4th ed. (Cleveland:
World,1964).
9. See C. West, Race Matters (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).
10. NBC, 9:30 PM EST, September 4,1999.
11. The stereotype of watermelons is not dead. A few years ago there was a popular
country song about a lonely old gray-haired black gentleman sweeping the floor in a nearly
empty bar as he thought about the failure of most human endeavors. The story teller in this
song is "pourin' blended whiskey down." After thinking over his life, the song ends with the
old black man concluding that there are only three things "worth a solitary dime." The
three things are reflected in the title of the song: "Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon
Wine." Peruse some old books about African-Americans and you will find that blacks and
watermelons have historically been closely associated. Interestingly, and ironically, water-
melons were indigenous to the Kalahari Desert. They were brought to North America by
European colonists and African slaves.
12. New York Times, New England edition, January 29, 1999,A8.
13. New York Times, February 2,1999.
14. This event doesn't seem to want to go away. Over a year and a halflater (August 16,
2000), the issue was presented on the (Catherine) Crier Today program (see
www.courttv.com/onairlshows/criertoday). The show was based on a series of articles from
the Akron Beacon Journal by two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, Carl Chancellor and
Bob Dyer (see www.ohio.com/bjl). who have written a number of articles on the "nig-
gardly" incident. In one of the stories (Feburary 7, 1999) the chairman of the NAACP, Ju-
lian Bond, disavowed the incident, saying that this whole episode speaks loudly to where we
are on issues of race. Even "imagined slights are catapulted to the front burner."
15. When I have told of this incident and my analysis of it to friends and students, the
response has often been, "Rob, why didn't you write an editorial about this?" My answer
was, "I did:' It was, of course, rejected. It was rejected with no reply by two national circula-
tion newspapers. In my view, this rejection further points to the disavowal of racial prob-
lems in American society.
16. Italics added. Ethically (see Chapter 6), because of a lack of contextual data to vali-
date this example, and because it could socially stigmatize the author, I am omitting the
1992 citation to the book from which this example was gleaned. I will provide it only for
certain research purposes.
17. "Famous Howard Cosell Quotes:' Washington Post, April 24, 1995; italics added.
18. NBC Nightly News, July 27,1999.
19. If more convincing is needed to show that the stereotype of the black male as an an-
imalistic "buck" is still current, one only has to search the Internet using the words "big
black buck." What one finds is a host of pornographic type cites with all of the classic sex-
ual stereotypes of the black male.
20. "Net Profits:' Time, January 13,1992, p. 64. I would like to thank my former student
Mary Donahue for finding this equivalent photo and headline for me.
21. For a modern version of research on the role of psychological associations, see A. G.
Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, and J.L.K Schwartz, "Measuring Individual Differences in Im-
 NOTES 213

plicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test;' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
74 (1998): 1464-1480. See also http://buster.cs.yale.edu/implicit/.
22. Since the publication of my Between the Lines, it has come to my surprised attention
that because I notice so many racial incidences and explain their unconscious associations,
some readers believe this shows that I must be prejudiced. How else, the reasoning goes,
could I access, recognize, and be attuned to so many stereotypes and racist perceptions and
reasoning? This perception disturbs me gready, not only because it's untrue, but because it
logically faulty. The answer to why I recognize the many incidences that I do is this: First,
being a social and cognitive psychologist, it's my job to know about these racial and gender
issues. Second, I grew up during times when racism was much more socially acceptable
than it is now. Consequendy, my mind, too, has been culturally filled with the racial myths,
images, and stereotypes. Third, having for over twenty years a best friend and colleague
who is black has sensitized me to racial issues. Finally, my friend taught me a great deal
about racism.
23. See R. E. Haskell, "Social Cognition, Language, and the Non-Conscious Expression
of Racial Ideology;' Imagination, Cognition and Personality 6 (1986-1987): 75; italics added.
24. B. L. Duncan, "Differential Social Perception and Attribution of Intergroup Vio-
lence: Testing the Lower Limits of Stereotyping of Blacks;' Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 34 (1976): 590-598.
25. See, for example, E. J. Vanman, B. Y. Paul, T. A. Ito, and N. Miller, "The Modern Face
of Prejudice and Structural Features That Moderate the Effect of Cooperation on Affect;'
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73 (1997): 941-959.
26. See, for example, J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, and L. Burrows, ''Automaticity of Social Be-
havior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action;' Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 71 (1996): 230-244; B. Wittenbrink, C. M. Judd, and B.
Park, "Evidence for Racial Prejudice at the Implicit Level and Its Relationship with Ques-
tionnaire Measures;' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72 (1997): 262-274.
27. A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, and J.L.K. Schwartz, "Measuring Individual Differ-
ences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test," Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 74 (1998): 1464-1480. See also http://buster.cs.yale.edu/implicit/.
28. With this experimental research on "priming" having been presented, consider this:
After the initial hullabaloo over the "niggardly" incident that I discussed above, the fact that
the white aide was gay was hardly mentioned in the press, and probably righdy so as it
doesn't seem relevant to the story. And the gay issue is nearly as emotionally incendiary as
the racial issue. In the same series of articles in the Akron Beacon Journal (January 29,
1999), the fact that the white aide was gay wasn't mentioned. However, I don't think it was
coincidental that the accusers of the gay mayoral aide were quoted as saying that they were
wrong and "we went off, half-cocked:' As for the journalist using the headline ''APOWGIES
FLOW WRONG DIRECTION IN D.C.;' with its implicit references to something "flowing"
into something in the wrong direction and to the AC/DC vernacular meaning; and as for
the word "mustered" as in mustering up an apology, with its direct lexical access to com-
mon dictionary associations calling "troops together," to cause to "come together;' to leave
or be "discharged," I won't comment, except to ask again: Why these particular words were
214 NOTES

selected in this context out of the at least a hundred different ones that could have been
used? And finally why did I return to this end note hours later to add the adjective "may-
oral" (may plus oral) to describe the mayor's assistant? The automatic nature of deep talk is
indeed, relendess. No, I'm not homophobic; but like those who are, I have been subject to
the cultural stereotypes and lexicon (see endnote 22).

Chapter 10
1. See D. A. Norman, The Psychology of Everyday Things (New York: HarperCollins,
1988); D. A. Norman, "Categorization of Action Slips;' Psychological Review 88 (1981):
1-15. See also D. Norman, "Post-Freudian Slips;' Psychology Today, April 1980.
2. Journal Sentinel, July 28,1998.
3. I wish to thank Keith Edwards, the reporter of the story, for a copy of the police report.
4. Julius Caesar and his army in 49 B.C. crossed the Rubicon river in north-central Italy, a
crossing that began a civil war.
5. On the nature of this process-and its controversial aspects, see N. F. Dixon, Sublimi-
nal Perception: The Nature of a Controversy (London: McGraw-Hill, 1971); N. F. Dixon, Pre-
conscious Processing (New York: Wiley & Sons, 1981).
6. H. Brean, "Hidden Sell Technique Is Almost Here: New Subliminal Gimmicks Now
Offer Blood, Skulls, and Popcorn to Movie Fans;' Life, March 31, 1958, p. 102.
7. L. H. Silverman and J. Weinberger, "Mommy and I Are One," American Psychologist 40
(1985): 1296-1308; R. E. Haskell, "Logical Structure and the Cognitive Psychology of
Dreaming;' in R. E. Haskell, ed., Cognition and Dream Research (New York: Institute of
Mind and Behavior, 1986),215-248); S. Sohlberg, A. Billinghurst, and S. Nyleen, "Modera-
tion of Mood Change After Subliminal Symbiotic Stimulation: Four Experiments Con-
tributing to the Further Demystification of Silverman's 'Mommy And I Are One' Findings;'
Journal of Research in Personality 32 (1998):33-54.
8. See, for example, J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, and L. Burrows, ''Automaticity of Social Behav-
ior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action;' Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology 71 (1996): 230-244.
9. A. G. Hodges, A Mother Gone Bad (Birmingham, Ala.: Village House Publishers,
1998).
10. Ibid., 120.
11. Ibid., 7.
12. Ibid., 8-9.
13. Ibid., 14; italics added.
14. Ibid., 22.
15. Ibid., 28.
16. Ibid., 65.
17. Ibid., 29.
18. Ibid., 81; italics added.
19. Ibid., 143.
20. Ibid., 77.
21. Ibid.; italics added.
 NOTES 215

22. Ibid., 77.

23. Ibid.; italics added.
24. Ibid., 67.
25. F. C. Welsing, The Isis Papers (Chicago: Third World Press, 1991).
26. Ibid., xii.
27. Ibid., 111.
28. Ibid., 67.
29. Ibid., 137.
30. Ibid., 134.
31. Ibid., 136.
32. Ibid., 66.
33. Ibid., 148.
34. Ibid., 175-176.
 Index

AAAS. See American Association for Blitzer, Wolf, xxii, 27-31

the Advancement of Science Boredom, 76-77
Abdul-Jabar, Kareem, xxiii-xxiv, Bragging, 77-78
171-172,173-174,175 Brand names, 85-86
Abel (Biblical character), 47, 60, 69 Bronze Age (3500 B. C.), 94-95
Acrostics, 95 Bruner, Jerome, 71
Action slips, xxiv, 181-184 Buck fever, 169
Advertisements, 38-42 Buffalo Springfield, 181
Mrican Americans, 120, 158, 161. See Burden of Proof, xxii, 29-31
also Racism
Alcoholics Anonymous, xx Cain (Biblical character), 47, 60, 69
Allen, Woody, 112-113 California, 121-122
American Association for the Caropreso, Edward, 103
Advancement of Science (AAAS), Carroll, Lewis, 139
119 Carson, Johnny, 147-148
Analogical thinking, 91-92 Censoring, 22
Archetypes, xxii, 47-50, 120. See also Champollion, Jean Francois, 97
God archetypes Children,xvi, 9-11
Aristotle, 92 Christian Bible, 47-48, 60-61, 115,
Army cryptography, 94 194-195
Associations, 22 Christianity, 48,195-196
Associative selection, 129 CIA,44,49
Authority figures, xxii, 48-49, 93-94. Clinton, Bill, xxii, 27-31
See also God archetypes CNN news, xxii, 27-31
Coded speech, xv, 7, 93-99,174
Baars, Bernard, 36-37 Cognitive operations, 91-92,127,129
Bales, Robert Freed, 99-100, 111 Comedians, 115
Bellevue Hospital, 169-170 Communicative psychotherapy,
Bernstein, Carl, 28-29 108-109
Between the Lines (Haskell), xiii, xiv, Compliments, 79-83
xviii, 115-116, 169-170 Conflicts, 22
Bible, 47-48, 60-61,115,194-195 Context, 115-116
Bion, Alfred, 154 Conversations

217
218 INDEX

conditions of, 21-22 professor's compliment matrix map,

free-flowing, xvi 81
meaning of, 114-116 women under the influence matrix
phatic communion, 2 map, 143
subliteral,xvii-xix, 19-20, 116-121 written word of god session
volume of, 8-11 template, 55-56
workplace, xix, 6-7 Deep Throat, 29
Cosell, Howard, 171 Defoe, Daniel, 100
Cosmological meaning of numbers, de Gaulle, Charles, 99
127-128 Derivatives, 108
Cossack, Roger, xxii, 29-31 Disney, Walt, 96
Creative writing, 112-113, 115, 172 DNA, xiv
Crusoe, Robinson, 100 Double entendres, xiv, 11
Cryptography, 94 Dreams, 121-124
Dr. Frankenstein, 141-142
Dantzig, Tobias, 125 Dr. J. See Erving, Julius
Darwin, Charles, 92,103,139-140 Dr. Strangelove, 84
Deconstructing Harry, 112-113 Duncan, Birt, 176
Deep action. See Action slips Dupuytren's contracture, 32-33
Deep listening
ethics of, 111-114 Egyptian hieroglyphics, 97
future of, 108-110 Einstein, Albert, 112
principles of, 20-23 Ellenberger, Henri, 102
usefulness of, xix-xxi Ellis, Albert, 54-55
validating, 116-121 Emotions, 22
Deep listening examples Epistemology, 98
CNN unpresidented matrix map, Erving, Julius ("Dr. J."), xxiv, 171-172,
31 175
composite "buck" matrix map, 173 Esau (Biblical character), 47, 60, 69
composite numbers stories matrix Ethics, xxiii, 48, 111-114
map, 133 Ethnicity. See Racism
and Freud, 91-108. See also Freud, Euphemisms, 158-159
Sigmund Experimental Slips and Human Error
Grateful Dead live in concert matrix (Baars), 36-37
map, 6
In Defense of Whores matrix map, Facial muscle activity, 177-178
119 Failed accomplishments, 107
lost child of the tribe session FBI, 44, 49
template, 60 Fehlleistungen, 107
many called but few chosen session Fiddler on the Roof, 33-36
template, 67--68 "Figures" of speech, xxiii, 125. See also
mysterious mind of god session Numbers
template, 53 Foreman, George, xxiii, 162-165
 INDEX 219

Fossey, Diane, 198-199 Hand, Learned, 188

Free flowing conversation, xvi Haskell, Claudette, 40
Free will, 17-19 Haskell, Melyssa, 40, 74-75
Freud, Sigmund, 25,101-108,181,201 Heidegger, Martin, 13 7
dreams, 121-124, 129 Hieroglyphics, 97
slips of the tongue, xiv, xx, 25-26, Hiroshima, 112
104,106 Hispanics, 158, 170
terminology, 19 Hitler, Adolf, 112
unconscious communication, xxiii Hodges, Andrew G., 188-189,200
Homosexuality. See Sexual orientation
Gallup Poll, 158 Hypnosis, 186-187, 196
Garrett, Alvin, 171
Gay men. See Sexual orientation lAT. See Implicit Association Test
Gender, xxiii, 182. See also Women Ideograms, 97
A General Introduction to Implicit Association Test (IAT),
Psychoanalysis (Freud), 123 178-179
Genesis (Bible), 115 Incompetent leaders, 86-89
Genetics, 182 Ink-blot tests, 177
God archetypes, xxii, 47-50 The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud),
lost child of the tribe, 57-60 101,122,129
many called but few chosen, The Isis Papers (Wesling), 189,
60-69 197-200
mystery, 50-54 Ito, Lance, 121
written word, 54-57 Ivory towers, 87
Goodall, Jane, 198-199
Graham, Billy, 51, 52 Jacob (Biblical character), 47, 60, 69
Graham, Virginia, 76 Jews, 33-35
Grateful Dead, xxii, 1-6, 19, 83 Johnson, Andrew, 30
Greek tragedies, 72 Johnson, Magic, 174
Greenwald, Anthony, 178-179 Jokes and Their Relation to the
Gresson, Aaron David, 157, 161, Unconscious (Freud), 101
168 Journal Sentinel, 184-185
Griffin, Merv, 76 Judeo-Christian ethics, 48. See also
Groups, 13-17 Christianity
dynamics, 99-10 1 Jung, Carl, 47
psychotherapy, xix-xx Kaplan, Bernard, 110
research in, xviii Kubrick, Stanley, 84
support,xx Ku Klux Klan, 158
videotaping of, 44-45 Kula Ring, 92-93
See also T-groups
A Guide to Rational Living (Ellis), Lacan, Jacques, 104
54-55 Langs, Robert, 108-109
Gutheil, Emil, 129 Larry King Live, 30
220 INDEX

Leadership in T-groups, 21, 49-50, Myers, Piers, 108

86-89,93-94 Mystical meaning of numbers,
Leakey, Louis, 92 127-128
Leakey, Mary, 92 Mythical meaning of numbers,
Leibnitz, Gottfried, 73 128
Lewinski, Monica, xxii, 27-31
Lexical accessing and selection,S, 23, NAACP, 166
167 Nagasaki,112
Lexicons,S Names. See Proper names
Linear B, 97 Napoleon, 97
Literary templates, 72 Nation ofIslam, 158
Losses (personal), 56-57 National Security Agency (NSA), 94
Nazi racism, 200
Mailer, Norman, xxiii, 162-165 Need to know, 11-l3
Male dominance, 140-142 New Age numerology, 125
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 92 New York Times, 165
Manhattan Project, 111-112 Nixon, Richard, 28-29
Mann, Thomas, 102 Norman, Donald, 181
Man's Most Dangerous Myth NSA. See National Security Agency
(Montague), 161 Numbers, xxiii, 96-97, 125-l38,
Mapping, 23 195-196
Maslow, Abraham, 12
Material reality, 201 Olduvai Gorge, 92
Matrix maps. See Deep listening Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 112
examples "Oreos;' 161
Meaning of conversations, 114-116 Oxford English Dictionary, 79
Melanin envy, 199
Menomonie (Wise.), 185 Parapraxes, 104, 106. See also Slips of
Mental schemas, 23 the tongue
Metaphors, xiv, xvi, 91-92 Parton, Dolly, 147-148
and communication, 3 Pathological meaning of numbers,
and psychotherapy, xix-xx 128-129
and subliteral mind, 19 People magazine, 171-172
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 184-185 Personal losses, 56-57
Mind reading, 23, 112 Personal names. See Proper names
Model building, 91-92 Phatic communion, 2
Modern Dictionary for the Legal Phonograms, 97
Profession, 38 Physical events, 42-46
Monads, 73 Pinker, Steven, 165-167
Montague, Ashley, 161 Pirsig, Robert, 91
A Mother Gone Bad (Hodges), 188-189 Plato, xv, 92
Muhammad Ali, xxiii, 162-163 Plimpton, George, xxiii, 162-165
Muscle activity, 177-178 Preconscious minds, 104-106
 INDEX 221

Prejudice, 160-162, 175-179. See also Seduction, 144-147

Racism; Sexual orientation; Seed, Richard, 188
Women Semmelweis, Ignaz, 100
Priming effects, 178, 187 Sexual dominance, 140-142
Privacy templates, 69 Sexual orientation, 151-156
Professor and the Madman, 79 Sexual seduction, 144-147
Proper names, 7, 83-86, 178-179 Sexual tension, xxiii
Psalms (Bible), 194-195 Shakespeare, William, 72, 102
Psychical reality, 201 Silences, 22
Psychoanalytic meaning of numbers, Simpson, O. J., xxiii, 121-122, 158
128-129 Single parenting, 142-144
Psycholinguistics, 3 Sins of the fathers, 35-37
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life Slips of the mind, 27-38, 45-46
(Freud), 101, 181 Slips of the pen, 123-124, 190
Psychotherapy, xix-xx, 9-11, 108-109, Slips of the tongue, xiv, xx, 11,25-26,
114 45-46,104,106
Ptolemy, Claudius, 98 Small-group dynamics, 99-101
Puns, xiv, 40-42, 148-149 Smith Brothers, 85
Pythagoras, 101, 127-128 Smith, David Livingstone, 9-11, 34,
105,107,108
Racism, xxiii-xxiv, 157-179, 197-200. Social censoring, 22
See also African Americans Social dominance, 140-142
Ramsey, John, 192, 193-194 Socrates, 92
Ramsey, JonBenet, xxiv, 188-195 Sodomy, 152
Ramsey, Patsy, 188-195,200 Speech, xv, 93-99
Random talk, xvi Spock, Benjamin, 87
Ransom notes, 189-195 Spooner, William Archibald,
Reber, Arthur, 1 25-26
Relationships, 71-89 Starr, Kenneth, 28
Reynolds Company, 148-149 Star Trek, 10-11
Rivalry templates, 69 Star Wars, 15
Robin Hood, 10-11 Stereotypes. See Racism; Women
Rorschach tests, 177 Subliminal activation research, 187
Rosetta Stone, 97 Subliminal perception, 178
Rudolf, Deborah, 172 Subliteral conversations, xvii-xix,
Rudolf, Eric, 172 19-20,116-121
Rush, Benjamin, 199-200 Subliteral numbers. See Numbers
Rutherford, Ernest, 91-92 Subordinates, 72
Support groups, xx
Samuel (Book of the Bible), 47 Symbol Formation (Werner and
Schemas,23 Kaplan), 110
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 102-103 Symbolism in television advertising,
Secret codes, 93-99 148-151
222 INDEX

T.A. T. See Thematic Apperception Test Unconscious communication, 104-107

Television Upjohn Company, 85
advertisements, 38-42 U.S. Army, 94
Burden of Proof, xxii, 29-31
CNN news, xxii, 27-31 Validating deep listening, 116-121
commercials, 147-151 van Susteren, Greta, 30-31
Johnny Carson, 147-148
Ventris, Michael George, 97
Larry King Live, 30
Vestigial remains of racial
Merv Griffin, 76
conditioning, 176
Pete Williams, 172
Star Trek, 10-11 Videotaping groups, 44
Today show, 57, 59 Vikings, 32-36
War on AIDS, 174 Volume of speech, 8-11
and women, 147-151
Thematic Apperception Test (T.A.T.), Wallace, Alfred Russell, 107
177 War on Aids, 174
Therapy, xix-xx, 108-109, 114 Washington Monument, 197
T-groups. See Training groups Welsing, Frances Crest, 196-197
Time magazine, 172-174 Werner, Heinz, 110
Today show, 57, 59 The White Negro (Mailer), 165
Topic selections, 22, 52-53
White, Stephen, 103
Training groups (T-groups), xvi, 3,
Williams, Anthony, xxiii, 165-166
23-24
Williams, Pete, 172
and God templates, 49-69
leadership style, 21, 49-50, 86-89, A Woman Under the Influence, 141-142
93-94 Women, 120,139-156
videotaping, 44 Woodward, Bob, 28-29
Transitional topics, 53 Workplace conversations, xix, 6-7
Triadic themes, 130-137 World War II, 112
Trobriand Islands, 92 Writing, 112-113, 115, 172
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