Much can be said in a therapy room without being spoken.
There are some sessions where the client simply sits, their gaze averted, and there’s a profound silence in the room. The client doesn’t speak. Perhaps they can’t. But that silence sometimes tells us more than words can convey.
We witness such moments frequently in psychology. I’ve personally experienced this myself. The healing power of silence is studied within numerous theoretical frameworks. From a psychoanalytic perspective, silence holds great significance and expresses many things; it’s also considered a pathway into the client’s inner world. But theory aside, the reality of that moment is always different. The mental burden of an individual sitting in the client’s chair and their anxiety about what to begin with are things that anyone present can fully sense.
This is what I noticed in the waiting room of the clinic where I first interned: People could seek help without speaking. No matter how strong they try to appear on the outside, it was inevitable that they had life stories struggling to find themselves within. On this journey I embarked on with the goal of becoming a clinical psychologist, I realized that true clinical experience doesn’t just lie behind books, but lies in experiencing and observing firsthand.
For me, and even for many of my colleagues, therapy is a kind of translation process. Understanding the language of the body, the eyes, silences, and sometimes anger… And while doing so, never forgetting to listen to your own inner voice.
I’d also like to share one of the methods I first encountered during one of my internships during my student years and that deeply impacted me: the empty chair technique. Before I tried this technique, it had always been a vague, difficult-to-understand point in my mind. Asking the client to seat someone of their dreams—a parent, partner, or childhood figure—in an empty chair in front of them, and then asking that person to tell them what they can’t express is actually a way of opening that space. This method can sometimes be described as the beginning of an invisible confrontation. Confronting the inexpressible means confronting yourself. This technique showed me how even a chair can create a healing environment.
Especially during times of emotional trauma, confronting unexpressed stories is inevitable. Trauma can often manifest as an unspoken, sometimes unspeakable, situation that is thought to have been overcome with the passage of time. This silence is a defense, sometimes a denial, sometimes an expectation, and sometimes an escape route. Traumatic experiences create a space where it becomes difficult for a person to express themselves verbally. Therefore, silence can feel not only like a void but also as a burden.
Furthermore, I wanted to share a moment I encountered during my internship at Balıklı Greek Hospital. A female client entered the psychiatric clinic, crying out in tears. It was clear that she had taken refuge in the clinic during an acute moment, and I saw the difficult situation she was experiencing reflected not only in her mind but also in her body. As she waited her turn on the bench, her trembling legs clearly expressed her anxiety, fear, and helplessness to me, and she had stepped into a place where she felt safe. For me, it was like an acute cry for help. When we made eye contact, it seemed as if she might even ask me for help…
That’s when I realized that some people simply want to be seen. They don’t want to talk, they want to be understood. The therapeutic bond can sometimes be hidden not in what’s being said, but in silence.
As therapists, we are sometimes not just the ones speaking, but also the ones witnessing.
Today, as I prepare for my clinical psychology training, I can say that what I gained most wasn’t techniques, but human relationships. Approaching people with patience, without prejudice, and with care; sometimes doing nothing, simply standing by. If I were to give an example of this, I’d add the term “holding.” According to Donald Winnicott, it refers to the feeling of being emotionally “held” and accepted.
In conclusion, we can say that an empty chair is not just an object; it’s also the seat of long-concealed feelings. The individual sitting in that chair isn’t alone. They carry with them their anxieties, losses, childhood, a parent who sometimes remains silent, or a past that can never be spoken.
And our job as psychologists is to touch upon the unseen behind-the-scenes experiences of the individual sitting in that chair.