There is a moment in many conversations when we stop listening without even realising it.

The other person is still speaking, but we have already begun to form our reply.

We look for advice to give, a similar experience to share, an explanation or perhaps even a solution.

Not necessarily because we do not care about what the other person is saying.

In fact, often the opposite is true: we want to help.

Yet precisely when we try to be helpful, we risk doing something very subtle: taking up the other person's space.

This is where Carl Rogers continues to pose a remarkably relevant question.

Silence is not enough

We readily associate listening with silence.

I am not speaking, so I must be listening.

But we can remain completely silent while judging, interpreting, preparing a reply or simply waiting for our turn to talk about ourselves.

The kind of listening Rogers describes asks more of us.

In his person-centred approach, empathy is not a technique on its own. It goes hand in hand with congruence – being genuine in the relationship – and unconditional positive regard for the other person.

In Rogers's original formulation, these conditions concerned the therapeutic relationship. Over time, however, his work broadened this perspective to human relationships more generally.

When the other person becomes a problem to solve

Someone tells us about a difficulty.

Almost automatically, we think:

If I were you, I would…

Or:

The same thing happened to me…

Or even:

I think the real problem is…

These are perfectly ordinary phrases.

Sometimes they can even help.

But notice what has happened.

In a matter of seconds, the conversation has shifted from the other person's experience to our interpretation of it.

They were telling their story.

We have taken that story into our own world and handed it back, already explained.

This is a very common way of showing closeness.

But it is not always listening.

Rogers shifts the centre of the relationship: the person before us is not merely someone to whom we must provide the best answer.

They are someone capable of exploring and understanding their own experience and finding their own direction, especially within a relationship where they feel sufficiently accepted and understood.

That profoundly changes our role.

The difficult part of empathy

Empathy is often described as the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes.

It is a helpful image, but it can mislead us.

Because I might imagine what I would feel in your situation and still, in effect, be talking about myself.

Rogers's perspective calls for something subtler: approaching another person's world and trying to understand it from their point of view, while remembering that the experience remains theirs.

And perhaps this is where listening becomes a relationship.

I draw closer.

But I do not intrude.

I try to understand.

But I do not presume to know exactly what you feel.

I remain present.

But I do not replace your story with my own.

Sometimes ‘I understand’ is too much

Think how often we say:

We almost always mean it kindly.

And yet perhaps a more respectful way of listening would be to say:

The difference may seem small.

It is not.

In the first case, I may already have closed off the meaning of the other person's experience.

In the second, I leave a space open.

It is this space that allows the other person to add:

‘No, wait. That's not quite it.’

And we can respond:

‘Then help me understand better.’

At that moment, we have not lost the conversation.

We have begun to listen.

And then came digital communication

This difficulty certainly did not begin with WhatsApp, social media or smartphones.

But digital technology can amplify it.

A message arrives and we can reply before we have even had time to absorb what we have read.

A voice note arrives and, while listening to it, we are already thinking about our own reply.

Someone shares something on social media and, seconds later, another person interprets, judges, advises or corrects.

We have extraordinary tools for communication.

But speed does not guarantee the quality of a relationship.

Perhaps this is one of the paradoxes of our time: we have more and more ways to speak, yet we must relearn how to make space for listening.

The question changes

At this point, the question is no longer simply:

It becomes something more personal:

And this is precisely where a podcast episode or an article is no longer enough.

Because understanding the meaning of listening is relatively straightforward.

Observing how we actually behave in relationships is something else.

It takes time, practice, questions and sometimes the opportunity to revisit the same experience from another perspective.

Perhaps this is the most interesting possibility Rogers leaves open.

Listening is not just something we do with our ears.

It is a way of being with another person.

And inevitably, it reveals something about us too.