Notes on Therapeutic Dialogue
Some thoughts about how we talk honestly in counselling
Talking and not talking
The value of honest talking lies in its uncertainty. A therapist and a client are hardly ever certain about what they’re going to say to each other. Dialogue is what happens uniquely between us each time we meet. There’s no script — at least, not one we have to stick to. Even if you are certain of what you want to say to me as your therapist, you can’t be certain about my response. What you can be certain of is that I will do my best to respond in a way that keeps us curious about what’s happening.
Not talking is not the same as having nothing to say. As a client you might have certain things you know you want to talk about and you’re not certain about what the dialogue will make of them. It could be clarifying or confusing, or neither. It could be exhilarating or excruciating, or both. So a certain boldness is required to enter into therapeutic dialogue. And you still have the option of not talking, of communicating something through honest silence.
Silence conveys as much certainty as it does uncertainty. Every silence has its differences. The quality of silence in therapy is often tremendous. Staying quiet truthfully is a vital form of speech — it might be how we recognise the unsayable.
Talking straight and crooked
Honesty is not straightforward. As we grew up, most of us learned something important about talking straight (speaking the truth) and talking crooked (hiding the truth). We found out that a lie can be better for us than the truth. And we discovered that lies hurt and truths hurt. That’s why most of us are a bit crooked. What a relief: we don’t know ourselves without deceiving ourselves! Because no-one’s character is entirely crooked or entirely straight, the conversation in therapy is full of directness and deviations.
To lie is to know a truth untold. We know that not telling a lie is not the same as telling a truth. But some truths are unspeakable. You might call them unbearably crooked. In therapy we can tell the truth about our lies, not to straighten ourselves out, but to know our crookedness better.
Talking good and bad
Counselling is partly 'good talking' about ‘bad talking’. Saying the bad stuff out loud is not essential but the invitation is always there. As your therapist I will always be interested in how ‘badly’ you talk about yourself. Almost everyone does this internally: we give ourselves bad ideas and send ourselves bad messages. Therapeutic dialogue takes us in the direction of talking well about all that bad self-talk.
A good therapist will know a lot about their own private self-talk, both good and bad. A good therapist will have spent a lot of time in their own therapy listening to their own bad talk and making it badder or better, or both, as the case may be.
We can talk well about bad things and talk badly about good things. We’re not always sure what the good and bad things are before we speak of them. We know too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. Honest dialogue takes a noticeable therapeutic turn when a bad thing becomes more like a good thing. Bad and good turn out to be roughly the same in the end.
All text © 2026 Jim Holloway
Woodcut (top of page) by Adrian Frutiger 1961