Silence in psychiatric interviews

Abstract

The literature on silence in psychotherapy is somewhat diverse, and is confined almost entirely to its theoretical aspects. The following study presents a review of the subject, and considers some problems of management of silence in interview situations, with some suggestions for further investigations. For the purpose of this paper, silence has been defined in the following terms: ‘A period of time during a formal consultation between a therapist and a patient (or patients) when verbal communication ceases.’ Implicit in this definition is the fact that both parties participate in the silence. It is convenient to consider their roles separately.

Intimate and non‐intimate relations in therapy

“…Other bodily communications-gait, tone of voice, posture in the chair-are only less expressive than the face-and in general my impression is that non-verbal communications (including silence; see Jarrett, 1966) are of far greater importance, relative to verbal ones, in intimate than in non-intimate relations. (This would be in line with the presumed infantile origin, or first expression, of the intimate, primary-process relationship.)…”