Sounds of silence in psychotherapy: The categorization of clients’ pauses

Empirical studies examined silences in psychotherapy by measuring the duration of pauses and studying this variable as a homogeneous factor. This approach produced a body of inconclusive findings dealing with the relation between silences and therapeutic outcome or alliance. In the present study, interpersonal process recall interviews of 7 clients’ self-reported experiences of in-session pauses were analyzed. A qualitative analysis, based on grounded theory methodology, was used. In this inductive process, researchers are guided by the analysis of data to develop an understanding of phenomena grounded in empirical observation. A pausing inventory of 7 categories was generated, reflecting an understanding of silences as heterogeneous phenomena, and included disengaged pauses, emotional pauses, interactional pauses, reflexive pauses, expressive pauses, associational pauses, and mnemonic pauses. This categorization of pauses can facilitate attunement to client pausing experiences both in future research and in the performance of psychotherapy.