ABSTRACT
The next chapter brings Salman Akhtar’s classification of the types of silence in the psychoanalytic setting enriched with two clinical vignettes. Akhtar distinguishes between the following: structural silence, unmentalised silence, defensive silence, enactive silence, symbolic silence, contemplative silence, regenerative silence, and blank silence. We hope that this will both help practitioners and inspire parallels with classifications based on empirical psychotherapy research.
