Psyfield

    简 繁

    Topics

    All terms About

    Therapeutic silence

    沉默技术

    Technique
    Also called
    silence in psychotherapy, pausing, therapist silence

    What is therapeutic silence?

    Therapeutic silence is a pause in counseling, with neither person speaking, that the therapist deliberately leaves unbroken so the client has room to think, feel and go on.[1][3] Research usually counts pauses of 3 seconds or more.[3]

    Pauses in one session

    1. Client I’ve been wondering whether to change jobs…
    3. Client I think what I’d really miss is the people I work with now.
    4. Therapist Mm.
    6. Client When did I last change jobs, again…
    8. Client …never mind, let’s drop it.

    Categories and evidence

    Schematic; the conversation is made up, and gap lengths are illustrative.

    Select a pause or a box for details.
    Schematic. At the top, a made-up stretch of a session, marking a moment when the therapist deliberately says no more, and three kinds of pause: productive, neutral and obstructive. Below, the threshold for counting a pause, Levitt’s categories, a review’s conclusions and when silence is used. Select a part for details. Select a part for details
    Schematic. At the top, a made-up stretch of a session, marking a moment when the therapist deliberately says no more, and three kinds of pause: productive, neutral and obstructive. Below, the threshold for counting a pause, Levitt’s categories, a review’s conclusions and when silence is used. Select a part for details. Save as image (PNG)

    This figure image is licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse it with credit and a link back to this page. How to reuse

    Embed this figure

    Copy the HTML below; the image and the credit both link back to this page.

    Key points

    • In a survey of 81 therapists, silence was used mainly to encourage reflection, encourage responsibility, help clients express feelings, avoid interrupting the flow, and convey empathy.[1]
    • Levitt interviewed 7 clients and sorted their in-session pauses into 7 kinds, such as emotional, reflexive, mnemonic and disengaged,[2] grouped as productive, neutral or obstructive.[3]
    • A review of 33 studies (309 clients) links silences to both good and poor outcomes, with better outcomes when therapists respond to what a particular silence is doing.[4]
    • The surveyed therapists would use silence with clients actively working on a problem but not with very disturbed clients, and learned it mostly through clinical experience.[1]

    An example

    Ms. Wang is weighing a job change when she stops mid-sentence and stares at her cup. Jay doesn’t fill the gap or offer advice; he just looks at her and waits. After ten seconds or so, she says, “I think what I’d really miss is the people I work with now.”

    Misreadings and limits

    Silence is not doing nothing, and it is not always helpful. A quiet client may be feeling something, or may be avoiding or withdrawing;[2][3] what a silence means depends on how both people talk around it.[3] Telling these apart and responding well is the hard part, and therapists may find it challenging.[4]

    Sources

    1. 1 Hill, C. E., Thompson, B. J., & Ladany, N. (2003). Therapist use of silence in therapy: A survey. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 59(4), 513–524. doi:10.1002/jclp.10155
    2. 2 Levitt, H. M. (2001). Sounds of silence in psychotherapy: The categorization of clients’ pauses. Psychotherapy Research, 11(3), 295–309. doi:10.1080/713663985
    3. 3 Knol, A. S. L., Koole, T., Desmet, M., Vanheule, S., & Huiskes, M. (2020). How speakers orient to the notable absence of talk: A conversation analytic perspective on silence in psychodynamic therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 584927. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.584927
    4. 4 Levitt, H. M., & Morrill, Z. (2023). Silences in psychotherapy: An integrative meta-analytic research review. Psychotherapy, 60(3), 320–341. doi:10.1037/pst0000480

    Last checked against sources: October 28, 2026