silence is golden? (Dionisius Ferdi Weros)

I think almost everyone knows about the meaning of "silence is golden" quote, but it is very difficult to do it in our daily life. We simply just love talking, we want other people to understand what are we thinking currently. We want to convey our feelings to them. We want to show other people that we're smart and intelligent by telling them information that we have currently. This all can be done through talking. Sometimes, people felt that they're a dumb person when they decided not to talk. There's a lot of negative attribution to silence, including in interview process.

In interviewing, especially in clinical setting, silence is considered a threat to the whole process. One of my greatest fears is that one day, as a psychologist, I have to meet clients that decided not to talk at all because they feel so embarrassed about their problems. If I couldn't make the client start talking, then I feel that the whole interviewing process has failed. I couldn't get any information from them to be discuss. Also, it's impossible to discuss anything with the client because he or she doesn't want to talk! How am I supposed to do? Let them to keep their silence?

Last Monday, I learned a valuable lesson from Madam Henny during the Interviewing Technique class. She told us that psychologist can show their empathy to the client's problem through silence. A warm glance to the client's eyes, a caring smile, and a genuine feeling to help the client is very important in interviewing process. In my opinion, the client could feel if the psychologist's feelings are genuine or not. Almost every human being, except probably psychopaths, have some sort of antenna that can pick up other people's feelings. And we need to remember that we could only share our deepest and most embarrassing secrets to the people we trust. If through the silence process the client feels that the psychologist is untrustworthy, then they will decide to keep silence.

The client will start talking when they feel much safer. They feel much safer when they know that the psychologist is there to help them. But sure, it would take a lot of time because sharing a dark secret is not an easy thing to do. So, it is very important to show through your face that you really care about their distress. I think it is important for us to practice how to smile and glance, especially as psychologist, you have to show a caring smile and warm glance even in the worst condition.

So the conclusion is quite simple silence is golden, even in interviewing process. We need to remember that empathy still could be felt and shown even in silence.

12 Maret 2013