To Share Or Not To Share: Therapist Self-dislosure

“To disclose means to unveil, to make manifest, or to show. Self-disclosure is the act of making yourself manifest, showing yourself so others can perceive you. Sidney M. Jourard. (1971).”

The idea that the personal is political was at the heart of the Second Wave of feminism in the mid 1970’s and my belief in this tenet is no less true today than it was 30 years ago. As a result, I believe that whatever is taking place on a deeply personal, vulnerable level in a client, whether male or female, is political on a larger, societal level. Some of the cornerstones of the early grassroots feminist psychology movement evolved out of these discussions, for example a belief in the importance of relationship. Most of my early forays into counseling and therapy, beginning in the mid to late 1970’s, involved leaderless, hierarchy-free groups such as peer counseling groups and feminist consciousness-raising groups. These groups were a self-disclosing free-for-all. (I shudder now when I think about some of those sessions!)

In my first experience of formal therapy, I barely knew the therapist’s last name and she revealed nothing personal about herself. I avoided group therapy situations, preferring the challenge of individual therapy from which there was no escape! (Remember from my earlier blog, that I am reclusive in groups!) This therapeutic relationship was short-lived thanks to managed care. Following this, I wailed and howled my way through years of individual therapy with a wonderful psychotherapist, (Linda Schmidt, LICSW, now retired) in whose rooms I worked on family of origin issues, and the struggle to identify a strong and differentiated sense of self. My therapist’s style was reserved, but highly empathic and extremely involved. I learned slowly about very small pieces of her life over the years, sound bytes of information that were always well-placed and well thought out. Her self-disclosure never felt inappropriate and was a wonderful model for me of how to conduct a therapeutic relationship.

My particular therapeutic style has evolved thanks in part to the willingness of those therapists who did self-disclose in sessions with me, as it was in the coming together of therapist and client that my most healing work happened. Now, as a psychotherapist myself, my primary focus is to be present for my client. I have to think about what effect my self-disclosure will have on my client – who will benefit from the information I share? The client or me? My desire to connect with clients means doing everything in my power to be “with” them therapeutically in all that this suggests. Integrity and authenticity are central concepts for me as a clinician. My client’s willingness to share extremely personal, vulnerable details about his or her struggles deserves an honest response from me. Not a response that claims the therapeutic space as mine, but one that involves inviting the client to swell into the space our joint vulnerability creates in the room. Therapy should not be a mystery, and a mysterious therapist, silent, benign and enigmatic, is not a role model for a client. And, while there appear to be as many theories on therapist self-disclosure as there are therapists, so far, what feels true for me is to reveal whatever, in my estimation, is in the service of the client’s move towards growth. There have been times when showing the soft, white underbelly of a particular vulnerability I have worked through in my life has been useful for a client struggling with a relevant issue.

At all times, I am conscious that my client may be looking to me for guidance, so my answers should never hinder the process of emergence that my client is going through. I have direct personal experience, from the other side of the couch, of how powerful personal stories of transformation can be, and I hope that some of my clients will draw strength from knowing that I have been able to overcome obstacles in my life similar to their own struggles. At the point where my experiences touch on their present-day struggle, the possibility of a transformative connection exists. When a psychotherapist makes a decision to tell something personal about himself or herself to a client, it’s about making one decision that creates the possibility for a thousand others.