Apprends à écouter pour ton bien-être

The reference treatise. Where Dumas de la Roque gives the synthesis in a hundred and fifty pages, Pierre Sollier builds, across six books and more than three hundred pages, a complete route: from the anatomy of the ear to spirituality, by way of learning, the listening test and the ear as psychologist. The book you keep, and reread.

« Écouter, c’est communiquer, établir un contact avec notre environnement aussi bien qu’avec l’univers interne de nos pensées et de nos sentiments. » (“Listening is communicating — making contact with our environment as much as with the inner universe of our thoughts and feelings.”)

— Pierre Sollier

About the book

The work grew out of a personal story. A Frenchman settled in California in the early 1980s, Pierre Sollier could not make himself understood in English; his accent was such that he preferred to keep quiet. In 1984, a friend suggested he consult a certain Dr Tomatis, in Paris, who would “tune his ears to the frequencies of American English”. What was meant to be a piece of language remediation became a decisive encounter: Sollier turned his whole career towards the clinical practice of the method and founded, in California, the Mozart Center, which he would run for three decades.

Published in the United States in 2005 under the title Listening for Wellness, the book received that same year the Best Psychology Book award given by the American association of independent publishers. The French translation appeared in 2017, under the sponsorship of Besson of Switzerland®.

Contents

Six books, which can be read in order or on their own: the ear and its anatomy; listening and how it is taught; learning; the listening test and how to read it; the ear as psychologist; listening and the inner life.

Who it is for

Practitioners, students, therapists, teachers — and the reader who wants to sit down and learn, rather than understand quickly. This is the method’s foundational book; the two titles complete each other more than they compete.

Preface by Léna Tomatis, foreword by Christophe Besson. French translation: Sandra Huguenin, Marie Blons and Francis Besson. Edition sponsored by Besson of Switzerland® with the support of the F.I.A.P.E.