While going silent may be bad for a relationship, it's even worse for a person's health. Women Need Connection', founded by psychoanalyst Dr. Kerry O'Reilly, links women's self-silencing in relationships to mental and physical health issues including depression, high blood pressure and hyper-vigilance,
-- Going silent in a relationship is not the way to make it safe — it achieves the opposite, harming both the relationship and the couple’s physical health.
In spite of this, many women still believe going quiet will keep the peace and save their relationship. So holding back their needs, feelings, and voice becomes the dominant behavior.
New research shows this habit, called self-silencing, is more than a mood. Over time it shows up in the body as tight muscles, restless sleep, and constant hyper-vigilance. The reason is the nervous system: Dr. Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory explains how the body keeps checking for safety or danger, and chronic self-silencing keeps it on alert, wearing it down.
The stakes are real. In the Framingham Offspring Study, women who stayed silent during marital conflict were four times more likely to die than women who spoke up, even after accounting for standard risk factors. A 2022 University of Pittsburgh study linked self-silencing to more arterial plaque, a heart-attack risk, in midlife women.
So when do women learn to self-silence? The pattern usually begins in childhood. Psychologist Carol Gilligan’s research found that girls often begin losing their authentic voice around age 11. By then, they have already absorbed quiet messages about who they’re allowed to be — agreeable, undemanding, responsible for everyone’s comfort. They keep believing these cultural and familial messages well into adulthood, even after they’ve outgrown them.
That’s why Dr. O’Reilly insists the work can’t start with communication or relationship-skills training. Participants may learn the words and the tools, but they won’t stick long-term, if a woman still believes her needs don’t matter. The change must start at a deeper level — with the beliefs a woman absorbed as a child, which are still influencing her in adulthood.
Dr. O’Reilly’s work translates this into research-proven programs that take place in a live group setting, where women are supported by other women in a safe, confidential space. Two brief, research-grounded assessments on the website help a woman start: one drawn from the Silencing the Self Scale, the other mapping the nervous system’s stress response. In three minutes, they give women precise language for what they’ve long felt but couldn’t name — with no hidden costs or memberships.
From there, women can join a free three-part mini-course, “Going Quiet,” where they’ll learn, among other things, a tool to stop second-guessing themselves. The live masterclass “The Silent Signal,” https://womenneedconnection.com/silent-signal which starts August 25th, goes deeper still, and introduces the 12-week cohort program. The premise is not that these women are too much, too little, or unimportant, but that they’ve become fluent in survival strategies that have outlived their purpose — and Dr. O’Reilly believes once the outdated beliefs are replaced with more accurate beliefs about themselves a woman is on the path to being seen, heard and valued in her relationships.
Learn more at https://womenneedconnection.com
Contact Info:
Name: Dr. Kerry O’Reilly
Email: Send Email
Organization: Women Need Connection
Address: 3422 Highway 331, LaHave, Nova Scotia B0R 1C0, Cayman Islands
Website: https://womenneedconnection.com
Source: PressCable
Release ID: 89200286
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