Working on relationships in oral exchange permits the retreat into silence to be more efective and meaningful. "In 1969 across the world, changes began to take place in Trappist monasteries. The severe discipline of the past, including near total silence, was modified. Replacing the mandatory silence was a new rule: "Brief, oral communication without asking permission is given everyone." Thus the monks passed from an era of enforced solitude and silence to one of limited interpersonal communication with their brothers. In 1970 we began to study this unique phenomenon through interviews, observations, and questionnaires conducted in seven abbeys. From our observations and the monks' responses can be gained much concerning the value of silence and its relation to communication.Silence has been discussed, analyzed, and in some cases, advocated by a wide spectrum of people from many areas of thought. Writers like Thoreau (14) and Steiner (13) and religious thinkers such as Picard (12) and Merton (9) along with many scholars (3, 4, 5 ) have talked about silence. Even psychologists (1) and marriage counselors (11) have written of its value. Yet both silence, the absence of speech, and solitude, the absence of human contact, remain frightening to many people.Silence is dynamically related to interpersonal communication. Interactive speech fills the need for acceptance and permits reflective definition of the self.These conditions occur when the individual human being acts as an information processor, accepting input from external sources and emitting speech behaviors toward those others. Silence allows the individual to engage in internal integration and self definition. The individual seeks identity, a wholeness which occurs from self talk.