Silence The Psychology and the Craft for Emotional Wellbeing

In Silence: The Psychology and the Craft for Emotional Wellbeing, the author—a psychotherapist, university professor, educator, and researcher—takes the reader into a thought-provoking and heartfelt journey. She offers original perspectives and vulnerable stories from her clients, students, and personal life. Drawing on, among others, ethnographic and autoethnographic accounts, Lehmann serves the reader with psychological insights, offering a timely, critical, and thorough viewpoint to contrast with an overload of misinformation about what silence is and how people should feel when quiet. The reader will be challenged to aspire to balance when communicating or connecting with themselves, with others, with nature, or with art, or, for some, as part of a spiritual path. Whether in nature, at work meetings, on the road, in a classroom, in the therapy room, or at the dinner table, silences appear as coordinates, and this book is the missing map for surviving and thriving when navigating toward well-being.

Olga Vanessa Lehmann is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Studies at the University of Stavanger. She is a mental health advocate, researcher, psychotherapist, writer, coach, educator and community leader. She has published extensively about the topic of silence and edited several books, including Deep Experiencing and Writing Through Grief. Her popular media appearances include "Forsker Grand Prix," a Norwegian television broadcast contest for researchers and a forthcoming TEDx talk about crafting silence.

IntroductionForeword by Mark FreemanPART I - This is NOT SilenceChapter 1. What Silence Is NotChapter 2. Silence Is Not Linear; Neither Is the MindPART II - A Map for Your Journey into the QuietChapter 3. Silence: On Interconnectedness, Depth, and BeautyChapter 4. Silences and the Flow of Social InteractionsChapter 5. Self-Interruption and Silencing as an Obstacle for Inner and Outer DialoguesChapter 6. Silencing Others: Power Dynamics and Human ConnectionsPART III - On the Limits of LanguageChapter 7. Our Emotional World in a NutshellChapter 8. Silence and Our Emotional WorldPART IV - Where Silence can Take UsChapter 9. Where Silence Can Take Us: Silence and AttentionChapter 10. Where Silence Can Take Us: Creativity, Imagination, and AppreciationPART V - Silence as a ThresholdChapter 11. Silence as a Boundary: Demarcating TransitionsChapter 12. What Are Boundaries in the Context of Relationships?PART VI - Heading Inward, Onward, and HomewardChapter 13. The Dark Night Hits Harder Up North: Walking "the Talk" of SilenceChapter 14. Silence as Self-Exploration and World ExplorationEpilogue: On Writing About Others and Ourselves in Psychology: A Methodological Reflexivity