My sessions were very much dialogues, and my therapists knew how to help me get unstuck (which happened often). I would have detested a therapist who just sat there while I wallowed in silence; that would have been torturous for me. They had ways of helping me access my voice. The thoughts were always there, but they were sometimes strangled inside me from fear and dissociation. My therapists were perceptive enough to realize that if I was silent too long, I was inwardly in great pain. They were able to help me put words to that pain -- kind of like a relief valve on a pressure cooker.