Psychotherapy is often described as an art as much as it is a science. The professional relationship between a therapist and their client can be a tricky one. Especially when it comes to bad habits of either the therapist or the client.
One of these bad habits is especially frustrating to clients — a therapist’s constant yawns during session. People often read into a yawn far more than what is usually meant — or not meant — by the behavior.
Part of the problem is yawning itself — we don’t really know why people yawn in the first place. So a person often will assume the worst — “I’m boring him with what I’m talking about.”
But that’s often not the case.
The only thing we know for certain about why humans yawn is that there are a lot of theories. The most popular theory is that we yawn when we’re bored or tired. This theory suggests that when we’re bored or tired, we tend not to breathe as deeply as we do when we’re thinking or engaged with an activity or conversation. Therefore our brains are becoming oxygen-deprived. The theory is that the act of yawning increases oxygen in the blood, which in turn increases oxygen to the brain.
Another set of theories focuses on the impact of yawning behavior on our lungs. One idea is that yawning helps keeps our lungs lubricated with an oil-like substance called surfactant. Another lung-focused theory is that yawning stretches our lungs, which is like flexing a muscle. You don’t do it very often, but it feels good when you do.
One of the more popular theories is that there is some important social component to yawning. Guggisberg and colleagues (2011) noted, “The only specific effect of yawning that could be demonstrated so far is its contagiousness in humans, some non-human primates, and possibly dogs, whereas all studies investigating physiological consequences of yawns were unable to observe specific yawn-induced effects in the individual of any species.” In other words, none of the physiological reasons for yawning really pan out when looked at by researchers.
Yet other researchers suggest there is an evolutionary reason for yawning — one that is no longer serving its evolutionary purpose. Whatever that purpose may have been.
Yawns are, however, socially contagious, and we still don’t quite understand why that is.
If you come away from this entry scratching your head about the purpose and meaning of yawns, you’re not alone. As you can tell by this cursory look at the research, we are basically still in the dark about why they occur in the first place, what purpose they serve, and why they can be socially contagious.
Psychotherapy and Yawning
This suggests two things about yawning in psychotherapy. The first is that we shouldn’t be too hard on a therapist who has a yawning fit while in session. There’s no hard evidence yawning is directly related to boredom or our mind’s focus. We all have certainly observed a correlation there, but our self-observation is often unreliable.
Second, although we don’t know why people yawn or what purpose yawning serves, a therapist should always be at their professional best when seeing clients. That means coping well with stress, dealing with counter-transference and practice issues as they arise, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This latter point means eating right, getting some regular exercise and getting a regular 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night.
If a therapist is doing all of these things, and still gets an attack of “the yawns” while in session, give them a break the first few times it happens. But if it seems to happen every time you’re in session, consider changing appointment times. There are certain times throughout the day that a person can become more tired than usual, such as first thing in the morning, late afternoon (often after 4:00 pm), and right after lunch (early afternoon).
If that doesn’t seem to impact the amount they yawn, consider talking to the therapist directly about this behavior. While it may seem petty to some, or not really relevant to the reason a person is in therapy, it can negatively impact the therapeutic relationship in subtle (and not so subtle) ways. It’s best to bring it out into the open and talk about it.
Yawning is rarely something most of us have much control over. Keep that in mind before you read into your therapist’s yawns, and understand that he or she likely doesn’t find you boring — they just can’t help themselves sometimes.
Reference
Guggisberg AG, Mathis J, Schnider A, Hess CW. (2011). Why do we yawn? The importance of evidence for specific yawn-induced effects. Neurosci Biobehav Rev., 35, 1302-4.
34 comments
Wow, I’m a therapist and I think you are WAY too forgiving of such appalling therapist behavior. Clients invest a lot of emotional energy and money when they hire a therapist. If the therapist is visibly yawning, it is totally rude and unprofessional. There are many ways to suppress a yawn, including swallowing them or taking a sip of water. I encourage clients to fire therapists who yawn on anything but a very rare basis…I would certainly do so if I were the client.
I always get yawning fits when I’m with a particular person in my family. This person is quite dissociated from their emotions and quite passive as well as sort of content. Life with all its troubles as well as excitements just comes to a standstill in this person’s presence and I feel kind of dead but not in an unpleasant way, if that makes any sense, as I also feel quite safe with them. I am thinking that when we go to bed, we go through a similar internal ritual of winding down, shutting off excitements and troubles and getting ourselves to feel safe. So, perhaps yawning in therapy could indicate not necessarily boredom or tiredness but some kind of stillness or ‘good death’ in the process (not stuckness, though, because that brings with it unpleasant emotions), almost a good kind of familiarity. Just an idea!
As a psychologist, I yawn whenever specific clients dissociate. Since the dissociation is not otherwise apparent, being able to discuss this (and how the client hides their experience, and why) has been very helpful in moving the therapies forward. Not everything in therapy is so amenable to quick judgments: people are complicated. Nor, by the way, am I superhuman. Sometimes clients are quite comforted by a therapist’s imperfections: it clears the way for the client to be imperfect, too. Therapy can be most effective when it deals in the coin of repairs of empathic ruptures, rather than in the (imaginary) realm of being perfectly ideal.
Boy, you said it! That is the absolute truth. Many clients prefer to be with a therapist who shows human qualities. It is their proof that you as a therapist relate to, or understand their situation.
The only correlation I can see in what you are saying is you are having a conditioned response unconsciously set in motion by your own psyche. In other words you are telling yourself at a subconscious level that you have an issue with a certain family member, and that your response is that of yawning. They are not boring you – your subconscious is. There is still no proof that yawning is a sign of boredom other then what Hollywood would want us to think.
I’m a clinical psychologust and I’ve felt the need to yawn a lot. It’s never boredom because as a consequence of our training everything a patient says or does is interesting (that includes what they don’t say or do).
Whenever I feel like yawning it’s because I’m tired. It has little to do with the patient and I think I would yawn whether I was with him or watching a movie.
If your therapist yawns then he’s probably tired. However, if he yawns more than once during a single session then you can bring it up and how it makes you feel.
Female therapists: How to stop a yawn in its tracks
– pull a small section of your own hair firmly while the yawning goes away.
Super weird but it works for me
Why females? I’m male and get he “yawns” regularly. I’m going to try it! My yawns are mostly due to lack of sleep, however one client bores the heck out of me.
good gravy, me70, i hope you’re working at getting that boredom looked at by the client, whether directly or through the back door! dollars to donuts it’s related to what’s not going right for him or her.
Thank you for normalizing some of this
When I find myself suppressing a yawn, I try to remember Dr. Andrew Newberg’s essay on the subject: http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/1109/expert.html
I yawned all the way through this article. In fifteen years of therapy I have never seen my therapist look bored nor has she yawned once. When I questioned it she mentioned she does what Nancy McWilliams does, and that is she has perfected the nose yawn. Only a slight flaring of the nostrils gives the yawn away. I too have perfected that yawn as well (with three teens it was not hard). So who knows maybe we have been yawning each other stiff for fifteen years.
When I am paying someone $190 per hour to listen to me I expect them to either be fully engaged and excited about my life – or to have perfected the nose yawn. At least be seen to be enthusiastic when I tell you yet another story you have heard a million times before. I am paying you to listen, not yawn.
Clients should have the right to be frustrated when their therapist yawns. They are explaining really traumatic things in their life, and that should be taken seriously. Psychologists should be giving their full attention to their clients all the time.
I’m a therapist, and the only time I yawn is at around 3pm if I didn’t get enough sleep the night before. The solution to that one is easy and good for multiple reasons.
One thing I’ve noticed is that my most hypervigilant clients can tell if I suppress a yawn, no matter how subtle I try to be about it. It’s generally better to just acknowledge it, but it is my job to be rested enough so it doesn’t happen. Sometimes it can’t be helped – neighbors dog barking all night, for example. If that’s the case, I just say so.
I find that I yawn when I am using techniques such as EFT, EmoTrance and Chinosis and clients are shifting a lot of emotions. It does sound odd but it is pretty consistent and I know other people who have a similar reaction.
If the client is not really experiencing a change I don’t yawn. I’m definitely engaged with my clients when I’m working with them so it’s not boredom and it can happen at any time of day so it’s not tiredness.
If the technique isn’t working for them or they’re not engaged with it I can usually tell before they tell me because I don’t yawn.
Sometimes my clients yawn as well when they are using those techniques – even if they haven’t seen me yawning because they’ve had their eyes closed. So, to me yawning is something that is good because it means that things are happening.
My psychiatrist/therapist of five years has never yawned during my sessions, however, I’d certainly forgive him a few if it wasn’t a regular thing. Has to be better than a previous psychiatrist I had who actually fell asleep and snored while I was talking!
I quit my therapist for falling asleep the third time in six visits. He denied he fell asleep. I asked him what I had just said. He did not know. So, either I am “cured”, or I am wasting good money on this clinical psychologist. (Maybe my problems were not that big to begin with…except that I let things build up before doing anything. What’s that saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?)
Hi Vancouver,
As a therapist myself, I can not believe that your therapist fell asleep during the session-and then denied it! To anyone in therapy who experiences this, please be aware that this is not okay. It is my belief that most clients come with an underlying feeling of wanting to be heard and acknowledge, I’m pretty sure that yawning or falling asleep doesn’t meet that need!
My son, twelve years old at the time, used to have a therapy session around 5:00 pm weekly and the therapist not only yawned but FELL ASLEEP several times! My son and I would just look at each other and clear our throats until we woke him up. Needless to say, we did not last long with this guy. Incidentally my son was there for depression and social anxiety problems and this only reinforced his low opinions of himself.
$190.00 an hour, are you kidding? That should jolt anyone out of their chair. You can get find an competent and awake therapist for much less than that. If your therapist is not fully present, find another. Visit; http://www.abecsw.org
While doing play therapy with a 7 year old, I yawned. He told me I needed a nap. I had a client that stated that a previous therapist yawned once and it was quite upsetting. I make a point to “swallow” my yawns but the client usually knows anyway. Great topic! Thought I was the only one!
My theory is that yawning indicates the person who is yawning feels inadequate in some way – to counsel this person? to deal with this particular problem? something else? I wish they’d do research on this idea.
This very problem occurred in a few sessions with my therapist. He never excused himself or acknowledged his yawning. One day I came right out and said, “Am I boring you?” He turned it around and said rather angrily, “Why do you personalize my yawning?”
Actually – his bad manners as well as his response pissed me off. Perception plays a big role in situations – and in this one- I perceived him as being bored/disinterested. Had he said, “Excuse me, I get tired at the end of the day.” – I would have been fine with it.
Katherine
I’m also a therapist and talk to patients about when I look for yawns from them, and from myself usually when I teach relaxation. The times that I’m more likely to yawn are when I’m starting to talk more in the session, giving information or teaching specific techniques. I always yawn when I sing in church after I’ve been sitting a while. I’m not tired, it’s a shift in physical demand for oxygen. I have a colleague who routinely gets complaints about him falling asleep. That’s what crosses the line for me. Please address your concerns with the therapist, it’s good for you, it’s good for them and there may be an explanation that’s helpful.
I’m surprised at the therapists disparaging a yawning therapist. I am a minister. There are certain times of day when, if I am visiting a shut-in or doing counseling or sitting in (or running) a meeting, I yawn a lot. I try to be ‘quiet’ about it, i.e., not open my mouth wide in someone’s face, stifle the yawn, or yawn when they look away, but I cannot prevent it or stop it no matter what I do – and I am not necessarily bored or even sleepy…. It is for me quite uncomfortable, but it happens.
Thank-you John for bringing the subject up. There’s something missing in this discussion that I’d like to share.
HypnoSharon above is right. When the emotions of the client is shifting it changes the energy in the room between the client and the therapist. That causes the therapist to start discharging the energy.
And it’s incorrect to automatically assume that yawning is always about the therapist being tired. Just check in with a client and they will assure you “yeah, I didn’t sleep well last night. How did you know?”
In fact, there’s every reason to believe it’s a very good sign. Your therapist may in fact be very healthy and her nervous system is helping your nervous system to regulate better.
Now, I’m not saying, there’s a possibility of a therapist being sleep deprived and tired. I’m not referring to this. I agree that these therapists ought to take better care of themselves.
But therapists who are honest and observant of their own behaviour like some above have stated, certain clients bring on the yawns. It doesn’t necessarily mean the therapist is bored.
As a body psychotherapist who’s been with hundreds of clients, I’ve seen this in action all the time. In fact, I can often tell a client is tired or sleep deprived w/o even seeing their face or if there is no visible sign of tiredness.
We yawn to discharge the energy in our body as we settle more inside. Yawning cools off the brain. It’s a good thing!
It’s more likely that if a therapist is yawning yet still engaged, good work is being done.
My clients laughingly call my work “yawning therapy”. They know that whether it’s just me yawning – or both of us – they are going to leave the session feeling more relaxed and settled inside.
In fact, the more yawning that’s occurring the faster their rate of change.
And here’s a tip for recognizing change in therapy. If you can have a full yawn in front of your therapist, it means your nervous system is feeling safe. And chances are, you’re now less anxious inside.
Dr. Suzanne LaCombe Ed.D. R.Psych
This is a very interesting subject. I find it interesting that with some clients I tend to yawn more than others. I think it is not about being bored or being tired but some clients just tend to make me yawn. I am aware that when a client yawns I yawn. It seems to be contagious. Thanks for this post. I enjoyed the comments as well.
I’m a clinical psychologist with a very, very busy private practice. Doing this work is similar to being a dedicated athlete: train, eat well, sleep, perform. If your therapist is yawning it is because s/he is tired. When exigencies interfere with a balanced life the therapist should learn to take strategic naps or work less. `Work less’ is the ethical thing to do. And an ethical clinician should know this and do this.
I’ve had a new therapist since about January. Five times now, in session, she has closed her eyes while I am talking about something, and appeared to be ready to fall asleep. Once, I state, “you look exhausted” and she seemed to snap out of it and adjust the way she was sitting.
Last week I mentioned that she seemed quite tired. She replied, “yes, it’s been a rather long week.”
I haven’t come right out to tell her of this because I have fibromyalgia and have had to cancel two appointments without notice. But what do I do? Just keep letting her do this?
I’ve been in therapy for 2 1/2 years. In the first 2 years, my therapist yawned once. Over the past two months, my therapist has yawned (and tried to cover it up) in every session. I have issues with maternal abandonment and rejection, so this is only making things worse for me. I can’t help but think she’s bored with me.
My therapist kept yawning and looking really tired, and I thought she was bored or tired but I didn’t say anything, though it made me feel kind of bad when she yawned. Later I learned she had cancer, and had to leave her practice, and passed away.
I think it could still have been addressed and the issue out in the open. Without addressing it everyone feels bad. Not very good therapy.
The client should try to find another time in the day where the therapist doesn’t yawn so much? I think not! Once the behavior starts to interfere with the therapy tell the therapist it is distracting. Then find another therapist who is more professional.
I saw a therapist for seven months and just about every session she would yawn several times. She’d yawn 3 or 4 times in a row, pause, then yawn another 3 or 4 times.
I tried seeing her at different times between 1-4PM; she did not have morning appointments. Time of appointment made no difference.
I tried to be understanding because she just looked really sleepy. But then I realized I was curtailing what I said (not discussing serious themes, omitting details, shortening stories) because I didn’t know if she was alert enough to follow me, plus I didn’t want a big yawn to occur when I disclosed something important to me.
I feel that it was her responsibility to take care of herself and get enough sleep. Perhaps she had a new baby at home. Or a sick parent. But 7 months is a long time. I’m sympathetic, but work-life balance is ultimately her issue, not mine, and it’s an important responsibility for therapists.
I told her how I felt but moved on soon after. I don’t care what anyone says, a yawn here or there is human, but 8 yawns a session is just rude.
PS-I’ve never had this problem with another therapist or psychiatrist.
My therapist doesn’t yawn but often pops his knuckles or noisily shifts in his seat during a session. It’s annoying to me when I’m working hard to discuss sensitive topics. I’m enough irritated that I’m leaving, not only for that issue but others in the treatment as well.
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