Being Comfortable with Silence
A reflection on what can happen in the pause *
Many years ago, when I was still finding my feet as a therapist, I was walking along a beach in Cape Verde with an amazing therapist, mentor and very dear friend.

We were talking as we walked and then, after a while, she said something to me that I have never forgotten:

“Let’s be comfortable for a while with silence.”

Those were her exact words.

And at the time, that was quite a challenge for me.

I was someone who naturally wanted to fill the space. I wanted to keep the conversation moving, reassure, ask another question and make sure the other person was comfortable.

But that one sentence became something of a quiet revolution in the way I began to work as a therapist.

Because silence is not always something that needs filling.

In everyday conversation, many of us are uncomfortable with a pause. A few seconds pass and somebody usually steps in. We explain a little more, ask another question, reassure, change the subject or simply start talking because the quiet feels awkward.

In therapy, however, silence can be doing something very different.

A client may be:

⭐ finding the words for something they have never said aloud before
⭐ noticing what they are actually feeling rather than giving their usual automatic answer
⭐ making a connection they had not previously made
⭐ remembering something
⭐ deciding whether they feel safe enough to continue
⭐ simply allowing something to settle

And I think one of the more challenging skills for us as practitioners can be learning not to rush in.

Particularly when we care.

We want to help. We want the client to feel comfortable. We may worry that they are stuck, that we have asked the wrong question or that we should be doing something.

So sometimes we rescue the pause.

But sometimes the pause did not need rescuing.

Of course, not every silence has some deep therapeutic meaning. Sometimes a client genuinely does not know what to say. Sometimes they have lost the thread. Sometimes they may be overwhelmed, disconnected or simply need a little help from us.

That is where our clinical judgement, attunement and relationship with the person in front of us matter.

But there is also a question I think can be useful for us as practitioners:

Whose discomfort am I responding to here — theirs or mine?

There is an important difference between leaving somebody alone in a difficult moment and quietly staying alongside them while they find their own way through it.

That distinction has stayed with me throughout my work.

An integrative approach allows us to remain curious about what might be happening emotionally within the silence. Rather than responding simply to the absence of words, we can stay attentive to the person, their expression, their breathing, their posture and the relationship between us.

And from a solution-focused perspective, silence can be valuable too.

Some questions deserve room.

What would you notice if things were beginning to improve?

How did you manage that?

What tells you that you are coping better than you were?

What might the smallest next step look like?

These are not always questions that need an immediate answer.

Sometimes, in our enthusiasm to help, we can ask a thoughtful question and then become uncomfortable when the answer does not arrive quickly enough.

We rephrase it.

We add another question.

We offer a suggestion.

We explain what we meant.

And perhaps, occasionally, the most useful thing we could do is wait.

Because the client may not be stuck at all.

They may be thinking.

They may be noticing.

They may be deciding.

They may be discovering an answer that belongs to them rather than reaching for one that they think we expect to hear.

That walk along the beach in Cape Verde was many years ago now, but I can still remember those words clearly:

“Let’s be comfortable for a while with silence.”

They taught me something very simple, but enormously important.

Being present does not always mean speaking.

Sometimes we can ask.

We can wait.

We can notice.

And we can trust that something useful may be happening even when nothing is being said.

Not every silence is empty.
Sometimes it is where something new is beginning to find its words. ?

Lisa Williams Edgar
New Horizon Training Academy