Whereas, on the one hand, the narrative approach to medicine relies on an ethic of mastery through the act of speaking, on the other hand, the psychoanalyst practices an ethic of hospitality through the act of listening. If listening in this way implies a subject who is susceptible to respond singularly, then to recognize or to abolish the patient as a subject would be the responsibility of the analyst anytime he calls for and respond to the speech of the patient by the very act of listening to him.