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.

1 - What Silence Is Not
2 - Silence Is Not Linear; Neither Is the Mind
3 - Silence: On Interconnectedness, Depth, and Beauty
4 - Silences and the Flow of Social Interactions
5 - Self-Interruption and Silencing as an Obstacle for Inner and Outer Dialogues
6 - Silencing Others: Power Dynamics and Human Connections
7 - Our Emotional World in a Nutshell
8 - Silence and Our Emotional World
9 - Where Silence Can Take Us: Silence and Attention
10 - Where Silence Can Take Us: Creativity, Imagination, and Appreciation
11 - Silence as a Boundary: Demarcating Transitions
12 - What Are Boundaries in the Context of Relationships?
13 - The Dark Night Hits Harder Up North: Walking "the Talk" of Silence
14 - Silence as Self-Exploration and World Exploration

Olga V. Lehmann is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Studies at the University of Stavanger, Norway. 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 A Poetic Language of Ageing and Writing Through Bereavement. Her popular media appearances include "Forsker Grand Prix," a Norwegian television broadcast contest for researchers, features in National Geographic, Nature Careers, and a TEDx talk with over thousands of views.