Why Is My Therapist Silent? (Help! It’s Weirding Me Out)

In everyday conversation, you take turns. You talk about something that happened to you, then your friend gives you their reaction. You share your thoughts about a topic, and your co-worker responds with theirs. You say, “I love you,” and your partner says “I love you” back.

This fast back-and-forth rhythm is so typical that it’s second nature. Researchers have found that across multiple cultures and languages, the span of time between one person’s statement and another’s is only milliseconds long.

In fact, you’re likely to interpret that silence as meaning there’s something the other person doesn’t want to say. Maybe they don’t agree with what you said, but they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Maybe they don’t like you. Maybe you did or said something wrong and they’re upset. Or maybe something’s wrong with them.

These assumptions about another person’s silence aren’t always right, but they’re not always wrong, either. Most people find looking at each other in silence awkward and will do just about anything to avoid it—including saying something that’s barely less awkward than the silence.

So, when things get quiet in therapy, your instincts and anxieties might kick in. You might feel desperate to do anything to bring the uncomfortable silence to an end.

You might get really frustrated or even start to resent your therapist for their silence—”Isn’t that a nice gig,” you might think, “to get paid so much money per hour just to sit and look at me.”

Or, you might say to yourself, “This is stupid! I’m going to leave and tell everyone I know what a waste of time therapy is.”

But please don’t quit just yet. Your therapist is quiet for a reason, and maybe learning why can help you appreciate what makes therapy unique—and uniquely valuable.

Another question you might have about therapy is why it’s different from talking to a friend or loved one. If you have people you trust enough to tell the intimate details of your life, do you really need a therapist?

Well, you don’t always need a therapist, but having other people you’re close to is never the reason you don’t need one. The relationship you have with your therapist is different from the relationship you have with anyone else.

And one of the ways it’s different is how—and how often—your therapist uses silence.

A therapist uses silence intentionally as a tool. Their wise use of silence in therapy increases your chances of having profound insights and powerful emotional experiences. By quietly and attentively listening to you, a good therapist helps you go deeper than you do in everyday conversation.

Friends and family may be willing to talk about intimate subjects, but they usually shy away when the feelings those topics bring up get too difficult or stressful.

A therapist can go with you the whole way—follow what you’re feeling or thinking to as deep a place as you’re willing and able to go with them.

Therapists use silence to help you connect with yourself. When you sit in silence, you can observe exactly what you’re thinking and get some distance from it. You can catch weird, irrational thoughts more easily than you can when you’re multi-tasking, chatting, or distracting yourself.

One of the great things about therapy is that you’re not alone in the silence. Your therapist’s presence can help you find comfort and even inspiration as you deepen into quiet moments together.

This process of learning to value and appreciate silence can help you learn how to enjoy and use it outside of therapy, too. It can help you learn how to stay calm and find your center when things get confusing or difficult. It can help you improve your intuition and make wiser decisions.

Sitting in silence allows a lot of things to rise up inside you—thoughts, feelings, and memories you might not normally experience. And that is what your therapist is hoping you’ll talk about.

That’s why one of the ways they might break the silence is by asking, “What are you feeling?” You may not know the answer right away, but the only way to find that answer is through sinking more deeply into yourself in silence.

Another way your therapist uses silence is to nudge you into taking the lead. You may be used to giving way to others in your daily life or letting them dominate the conversation. Therapists want to make sure that doesn’t happen to you in the therapy room.

Therapists don’t want to inadvertently shut you down. This is so important to them that they learn how to sit in the awkwardness of silence in school and in supervision. They learn how to tolerate long pauses themselves so they can use their capacity for silence to help their clients.

Trust us, your therapist knows it’s awkward for you, and it’s often awkward for them, too. They don’t like watching you squirm, and they probably wish they could say more. But they’re willing to hold back to make sure your therapy session is productive and helpful—and stays focused on you.

Therapists are imperfect, and they make mistakes. Some of these mistakes are a big deal. Some of them might even be major enough for you to file a complaint.

However, other mistakes therapists make aren’t as big of a deal. They don’t cause harm so much as they make therapy more confusing or a little less helpful than it could be.

This kind of minor mistake tends to come from a therapist who just needs a little more experience, but it can come from an experienced therapist, too—someone who’s been at the therapy game so long they’ve forgotten that there’s one small thing they could do to help you.

One of the small mistakes many therapists make is not taking the time to explain how therapy works. They may feel like their time-tested therapy techniques are so obvious they don’t need any explanation, forgetting how off-putting they can be for people who are unfamiliar with them.

Therapists are trained not to answer certain questions directly. They learn in school that it’s unethical for them to give advice or to push their own agenda in therapy. They are taught that it’s normal and professional for them to respond with silence in many circumstances.

Ideally, they’d explain all of this to you. They don’t always do that, though, which is why it’s perfectly okay—and even good—to remind them. Give them a nudge by asking, “Hey, why did you just do that?” or “Why didn’t you answer my question?” or “Why are you so quiet?”

A good therapist will always welcome questions about how therapy works and be willing and able to answer questions about their particular approach.

In addition to simply asking your therapist why they’re not saying anything, there are things you can do when your therapist gets quiet that will help you get more out of your sessions with them.

One option? Enjoy it. How often can you and another person just sit and awkwardly look at each other for a few minutes without there being any social fallout? And when you learn to enjoy the experience, it stops being awkward anyway!

Learning to enjoy the silence in therapy helps you learn how to enjoy it outside of therapy as well. It helps you build inner strength and develop a greater tolerance for uncertainty. It helps you learn how to sit with uncomfortable feelings without reaching for something unhealthy to take the edge off.

Letting yourself just sit there with your therapist instead of saying something right away helps you practice not rushing in to try to put others at ease. It helps you learn that you don’t always have to be the one who keeps the conversation going. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for the comfort of others by oversharing and saying things you later wish you hadn’t said.

Another useful thing you can do when you’re not sure what to say is to check in with your therapist about how therapy is going. If you feel frustrated, or stuck, it’s okay to say that. In fact, it’s more than okay. Exploring why you feel stuck can lead to breakthroughs in therapy.

It’s also great if you can find the courage to tell your therapist how you’re feeling about them. Maybe you’re frustrated or angry that they’re just sitting there looking at you. Maybe you’re worried they don’t like you or are judging you.

But don’t worry—not only will your therapist not mind you telling them you’re pissed (or scared, sad, excited, or hopeful), they’ll appreciate it. Because it’s through exploring how you feel about your therapist that you can have some of your biggest insights in therapy.

One of the weirdest and most difficult things to get used to in therapy is how often the room gets quiet.

You may enjoy comfortable silences with loved ones while you’re engaged in shared activities with them, but it’s rare to just sit in silence when there’s nothing to do but talk—unless you’re in therapy.

Why in the world would you waste so much time in silence in talk therapy? Surprisingly, there are good reasons for it. Therapists use silence intentionally as a tool to help you get more out of your sessions.

So, when your therapist is silent, try sitting with them in the silence for a moment. See what comes up. If you feel stuck, or like this isn’t accomplishing anything for you, tell them that.

Or you can ask them a question. You can ask anything you want. You can ask why they’re being quiet, whether you should revisit something from last session, or what they think about a dream you just had.

But you don’t even have to do that. You can just enjoy it. Therapy may well be one of the only places in your life where you’re not under pressure to entertain someone else or make them feel better.

Learning to enjoy the silence in therapy can help you learn how to enjoy it outside of therapy, too. It can help you learn how to endure uncomfortable feelings or awkward situations without sticking your foot in your mouth just because you couldn’t bear the silence.

Ideally, your therapist would take a moment to explain their use of silence and other unfamiliar aspects of therapy to you. But we know that not all therapists remember to do that, which is why we’re taking the time to answer some common questions about therapy.

We hope this article has helped make therapy feel a little less weird, and we really hope you’ll stick with it. Therapy is amazing. It can become a true sanctuary, a place where you can fully be yourself, where you can talk as much as you want about the things that matter most to you—and enjoy some moments of profound, reflective silence, too.