Silence is a ubiquitous phenomenon in all psychotherapy. There are varied reasons for silence and a particular silent episode has many facets. Hence if we allow ourselves to become preoccupied with the idea of silence only as resistance, we forfeit the opportunity to examine important nuances of a silent period. In the analyses of two adults and in the psychotherapy of an adolescent and a child, periods of silence, the patients' associations prior to the silence, and the analyst's reaction to the silence, were useful in identifying fantasies and other repressed material.