In a recent workshop I facilitated, I had shared with practitioners a transcript from a therapeutic conversation with a person who had come for consultation. It was in the middle of this shared reading that someone asked me how I position myself in moments of pause.
The question landed, and I noticed myself resisting the tendency to offer a clear-cut answer. Not because I had nothing to share, but because the momentum of the group conversation seemed to invite something slower – a pause that asked for attention rather than explanation. I remember the room in that moment. The slight shuffle of chairs settling. A pen being placed back on the table. Someone shifting their weight. Eyes turning toward me, expectant but not urgent. The air did not feel empty. It felt full. As though the question had taken up space between us and was asking to be noticed before being spoken to. I could feel the familiar pull of “therapeutic authority” to respond – to offer clarity, to guide, to fill the silence with structured or linear ways of making sense. And at the same time, another pull in the opposite direction. To pause. To stay with what had just arrived. The question did not feel like it wanted an expert-driven answer. It felt like it wanted something slower than a response shaped by dominant hierarchal forces. Something closer to noticing and deconstruction.
