The Healing Power of Silence

Growth. Self-awareness. Self-compassion. These are essential feel-good goals in the therapy room. As human beings, we naturally favor the positive over the negative. As psychotherapists, we want our clients to feel good about themselves and their work with us.  

But what if leaning into moments of discomfort, a painful remembering, a frustration, a misunderstanding, a long stretch of awkward silence, is actually the key to transformation, healing, insight, and change? 

Case Example 

June came into therapy to address long-standing anxiety and a specific phobia that had significantly impacted her daily life. I worked with her to understand the core themes beneath her symptoms.  

We discovered that her early experiences of neglect and isolation had left her with profound feelings of aloneness. Her adaptation—her way of managing the unbearable—was to try to control everyone and everything in her environment.  

As we processed foundational memories related to this issue and connected them with her present-day triggers, she found meaningful relief from her symptoms and her confidence grew. The longer we worked together, the more June shifted. 

Until she didn’t. 

For about a month, I found myself noticing that “nothing is happening.” The sessions felt stagnant, and the familiar pull to “do something” grew stronger. I noticed myself filling in the quiet spaces with my own words.  

In consultation, I realized that my own past-present connection, my adaptation, was quietly shaping the room. I was over-functioning – asking good questions, but not the right ones. My curiosity was focused on what was happening for June, not what was happening between us. 

I soon realized that I had left myself out of the case conceptualization. When I stopped trying to fix the phenomenon of “nothing happening” and instead stayed silent with curiosity, I began to understand what was really unfolding.  

June was no longer collaborating with me to help her heal her system; she was asking me to hold her pain for her. She had extended an unconscious bid for me to take care of her in a way she was never cared for as a child, and my unconscious had met hers in trying to give her what a part of her had always yearned for...a warm and comforting parent. When I recognized the pull in me to fill that need, it became clear that, while this is what she wanted, it wasn’t what she needed.  

When I brought this forward in our next session, I invited June to be curious with me about her own hesitation to fully engage in the process. Together, we explored her fear of getting better, of what it would mean to fully own her healing journey and face her deep and unmet longing from childhood.  


Then I sat back and took a breath. I began to allow for more silence in the room. In that space, which was sometimes deeply uncomfortable, June began to find the capacity to hold her own pain, rather than handing it over. And in holding her own pain, I could join her in grieving the loss of a childhood that was much deserved but would never materialize. 

And I, too, found a deeper capacity to stay present and be with her in her grief, instead of her being alone in it. That means we both have to be brave, but  

Sometimes When Nothing is Happening, Something is Happening  

These moments in sessions, especially when working with clients who have CPTSD and the therapeutic relationship is more central to the work, are important to be curious about. Because it’s not always about what is happening with the client; it can also be about what is happening between us. 

As therapists, we may feel the urge to speak, guide, or redirect. But those pauses, the pregnant spaces of “nothingness” are rich with information. It isn’t a void. It’s a mirror for us to lean in or lean out to better understand what’s unfolding. When we resist the impulse to over-function or avoid, we allow space for the deeper work to unfold for the client and for ourselves. 

Over-Functioning and Other Adaptations 

Through consultation, I was able to slow down and practice tolerate the uncertainty of what wasn’t happening be being curious about it. My work with June showed me that the discomfort of sitting in the silence triggered my own adaptation of over-functioning to ensure that something was happening.  

As is the case for us as therapists, our desire to help runs deep. The altruism we possess as healers is both our superpower as well as our vulnerability, as it can also activate our own unresolved wounds from childhood. For me, I became too attached to whether June was “getting it,” changing, and growing. In doing so, I was not as present to her as I needed to be. 

Over-functioning often reflects our own discomfort about uncertainty. And when we try to resolve it too quickly, for our clients or for ourselves, we may unintentionally bypass the very edges that truly make it possible for our clients to “go there.” 

Curiosity Is Relational 

The therapeutic process doesn’t demand certainty, it demands presence and curiosity, and curiosity is relational. In Relational EMDR Therapy, we don’t ask, “What am I doing wrong?” Instead, we ask, “What is happening?” 

Being curious about what’s happening allows us to attend to the larger context of what is unfolding in the room, rather than being concerned about our competency. And while we may have a part in it, there is often more to understand, just like it was for me with June. 

We are not only holding space for insight and transformation, but we are also holding space for discomfort, uncertainty, and resistance. These experiences are not separate from the healing process; they are part of the journey itself. It is where long-standing adaptations begin to loosen and the nervous system begins to reorganize. 

For our clients, embracing uncertainty and curiosity is a necessary ingredient. When we can sit with uncertainty, we model it for our clients, and they get to discover that uncertainty can be safe instead of dangerous. By embracing discomfort or silence, rather than rushing past it, we allow our clients to explore their own discomfort with courage and a greater capacity to go more fully into their felt experience. 

Staying Curious Means Staying Connected 

Curiosity doesn’t live in isolation. The very capacity to stay open, reflective, and grounded in the unknown grows when we are with others. We need each other to think with, to consult with, to help us see what we can’t yet see.  

Whether it’s through trusted colleagues, consultation groups, our own therapy journey or a combination thereof, our capacity to hold space for pain and the unknown can only be cultivated through connection. It’s in relationship that we grow, for ourselves as well as for our clients. 

So, as we continue to sit with what feels uncertain, I invite you to reach out and get connected with us. This is what Relational EMDR Therapy®️ and The Center for Excellence in EMDR Therapy is all about. 

Our community is all about being in it together, to collaborate, to share our triumphs as well as our impasses, and co-creating space for each of us to bring our best selves to this work.

 
Because staying curious isn’t a solo endeavor, it’s a collective one.