Beyond Words: The function of silence in therapy

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You're sitting across from a client who hasn't spoken for many minutes.

You get that sinking feeling in your chest, and your internal advisor ramps up with self-criticism:

"Am I doing something wrong?"

"Why can't I connect with them?"

“I bet this never happens to… [insert experienced therapist you admire]”

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Research shows as much as 30% of a therapy session can be silent.

Learning about silence is often forgotten in therapy training, but understanding its function can be a game-changer.

Silence can serve different functions

I had the pleasure of chatting with Martin Broby, a licensed child and adolescent psychotherapist from Sweden. Martin and his colleagues recently published a paper on silence in therapy, measuring its effect on therapists.

You can listen to my chat with Martin using the link in the footer (17 min).

Martin begins discussing a meta-analytic review of Levitt and Morrill, where they categorised silences that emerge in therapy:

👀 Productive silence – When you and your client share a meaningful connection (like processing sadness together)

👀 Neutral silence – Pauses that don’t influence the therapeutic process

👀 Obstructive silence – The kind that can signal a rupture or halt in progress.

What do you do with obstructive silence? Can you see it and what happens next? That’s the kind of silence that is uncomfortable and leaves you questioning your skill.

Now, here’s the kicker: And, with adolescents, a whopping 70% of silences can be obstructive. Obstructive silences can challenge our identity if we don’t understand them.

Obstructive Silence Challenges Therapists

Martin and his colleagues investigated what happens to us, as therapists, when we’re faced with obstructive silence and grouped it into three categories:

Unconnectedness: We sense an unravelling, we feel distanced from our clients and worry about the progress of therapy.

Unwanted Negative Emotions: When faced with persistent silence, we can experience strong feelings, such as irritation, frustration, and even anger. These emotions can lead to a deep sense of shame.

Losing oneself as a Therapist: We begin to question our competence and effectiveness, leading to self-criticism and feelings of resignation.

You can read the paper on therapist effects here.

Five Steps to Working with Silence

Next time you find yourself in an uncomfortable silence:

Watch for Your Control Attempts: Practice awareness of your own control attempts. Consider if impatience, anxious talking or frustration leads you to controlling the sessions to avoid those awkward silences.

Cultivate willingness: Hone your capacity to be uncomfortable within yourself. Be willing to observe your reactions and inner experiences, with all the discomfort, and recognise them as yours, not your client's.
Practice acceptance: Sometimes acknowledging that a session can be quieter can open up acceptance. As Martin noted, "Accept that this is just going to be one of those sessions."

Balance your engagement: Relax, pause and take an extra breath. Lean in, but not so much that you overwhelm your client. For adolescents, remind yourself that they want a friendlier atmosphere, but pushing too hard can drive them away.
Observe your advisor’s predictions, then turn to function instead: Instead of letting your own cognitions run amok, commit to discovering the function of the silence for your client. For example:

Does it remove something they don’t want: e.g. give them distance in the session, or avoidance of their inner experience, or get them away from confusion
Does it give them something they do want: perhaps to control their experience, or to feel safer, or to stick with their existing views

By mapping the function of silence in your therapeutic relationships, you'll transform even the most challenging quiet moments into opportunities for deeper connection and growth.

Remind yourself, just as silence with a new friend feels uncomfortable but becomes natural as relationships get established, your ability to allow silence can build trust and allow your client to discover their own insights.

Beneath the narrative: A webinar to help you master Functional Conceptualisation, Formulation and Therapy Planning

Silence, like all our responses, serves a function and can be part of your therapeutic conceptualisation.

Come along to my upcoming webinar on case conceptualisation and therapy planning, and we'll go deeper into function and context.

I'll show you how to:

✅ Build a case conceptualisation that encompasses the whole person in the context of their lives (internal and external, past, present and future, self, social, cultural).

✅ Identify patterns in cognitions, feelings, actions etc

✅ Identify the function of behaviours, thoughts and feelings

✅ Collaborate with your client to create a therapy plan that fits them

Join me for my webinar on April 30th:

Beneath The Narrative: A Webinar To Help You Master Functional Case Formulation and Therapy Planning

Watch the full interview with Martin Broby on silence in therapy here.

Warmly,
Dr. Louise Hayes