Analyzing Silence in Psychoanalytically Oriented Psychotherapy Sessions with Conversation Analysis

Accepting that silence is an integral part of every conversation has opened up a field to study about the timing and meaning of those silences in psychotherapy process. Although silence was initially treated as a homogenous concept in psychotherapy literature, it has been defined as an indicator of different processes by different theoretical approaches, as well. In this study, how silence was used by the patient in therapy, what its function was, how it emerged in the therapist-patient dialogue, whether there were any patterns and effects of it on psychotherapy process were discussed. Within this scope, the researcher, who was also the psychotherapist of the analyzed sessions, transcribed two psychotherapy sessions of Miss S. and analyzed them with conversation analysis methodology. Results indicated that Miss S. used silence when she did not approve the therapist's interpretation, when she contradicted with herself, when she changed the topic to which she had a resistance, when she wanted to create space for thinking, when she tried to be like someone as expected from her or someone she wants to be and when some issues aroused that she had difficulty to accept. The usage of silence in those various ways were discussed in the light of relevant literature