What do you do when your goal is to elicit as much information as possible from a patient while neither supporting nor condemning their thoughts/actions? The answer is the ambiguous psychiatrist sound.
It's somewhat hard to describe if you have never heard it firsthand, but I'll do my best.
It somewhere between "Mmmm" and "Hmmm" but it isn't just the combining of the two sounds "Mmmmhmmm" because if you aren't careful "Mmmhmm" can come off as sounding condescending or disbelieving.
Instead it is almost an impossible fusion between the two sounds. As if you could be saying both Mmm and Hmm in the very same instant. It's best used with a gutteral, breathy not to disguise any possible inferences that a patient could possibly derive from the sound. Additionally, the best psychiatrists can include an almost imperceptible rise in pitch at the end of the sound to further confuse the patient as to whether it was questioning or affirming.
It's like saying "I respectfully want to inform you that I'm listening but I want you to clarify, if you are able" but with the simplicity of one syllable. In short, it is the perfect sound in the hands of a skilled practitioner and it can work wonders on the psych ward.
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