Empathic listening is a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account. It's deeply therapeutic and healing because it gives a person "psychological air." If all the air were suddenly sucked out of the room your's in right now, what would happen to your interest in [whatever]? Your wouldn't care about anything except getting air. Survival would be your only motivation. But now that you have air, it doesn't motivate you. This is one of the greatest insights in the field of human motivation: Satisfied needs do not motivate.