| Abstract [eng] |
Griciūnaitė, E. (2025). Silent pauses in psychotherapy: psychotherapy clients' perspective. Master ‘s thesis. Vilnius: Vilnius University, p. 53. All psychotherapy clients have experienced silent pauses during psychotherapy sessions, despite that every experience is unique and authentic in a way. Experiencing silence during psychotherapy can have various meanings and effects shaping therapeutic alliance and therapeutic process. It is imperative to deepen our understanding about this phenomenon to create positive and effective experiences for psychotherapy clients. In addition, this type of research about silent pauses is the second one to be conducted in Lithuania. The aim of this study is to reveal, describe and analyse subjective experiences of silent pauses during the process of psychotherapy. 6 (5 female, 1 male) long term psychodynamic psychotherapy clients, aged 25 to 32 years old, participated in this study. The data collection was conducted using semi structured interview method. To analyse the data thematic analysis was utilised (Braun & Clarke, 2022). After data analysis 3 main themes emerged: 1) silent pauses - therapeutic change indicator; 2) the meaning of silence - subjective perspective; 3) the significance of silence during psychotherapy. The findings of this study enhance our current understanding about how clients' experience silence, also providing more theoretical knowledge about silence phenomena. |
