We explore transference issues of silence and non-verbal communication in the psychotherapy of an 11-year-old child. When the silence of the analyst encounters that of the patient, the analytic process aimed at creating a secret recipient may pass through non-verbal motricity, so that facial expressions, physical posture, the whole undefinable gamut of the patient’s expressions, will step in to shore up verbal motricity that is lacking.

Adolescence, 2025, 43, 1, 23-33.