After tracing the historical development of the concept of silence in psychoanalytic treatment, Barande presents a methodological framework for the explication of its metapsychology, He stresses the importance of early fantasies regarding whole- and part-object relations and their vicissitudes, as well as their phase-specific role in personality development. Through the use of clinical material he attempts to establish specific connections between silences and their determinants in fantasies regarding the phallic mother, and the phallic-narcissistic investment of language. Implications for technique regarding the silences of both analyst and analysand are drawn.