The subject of therapist self-disclosure is a complex and controversial one that has been addressed in many ways within the professional literature. For our purposes, we will be looking at how therapist self-disclosure can further the safety and progress of treatment.
The previous post defined therapist self-disclosure as a powerful tool that can be utilized to normalize messiness. It is a way of sharing with our clients how we struggle with painful human feelings as they do, thereby hopefully increasing the couple’s sense of safety with the treatment. It should not be an avenue for “showing off” our therapeutic acumen or demonstrating how well we have handled some aspect of our own relationships, thereby probably decreasing the atmosphere of safety. The message that we are sending is, “I, too, struggle with parts of being human, and this is normal. I am offering the opportunity to embrace the messiness of life together.”
Many folks have childhood histories in which struggling was denied or denigrated. Sharing our own struggles with difficult emotions in a context of vulnerability and empathy can often become a major turning point in a treatment.
I was treating a woman who had severe struggles with anxiety which had led her to be forced into a medical leave of absence from her place of employment. With her permission, I had been communicating with a human resources consultant under contract with her employer regarding her treatment and a plan of action to get her back to work. The consultant eventually requested that I attend a meeting with her employer and her psychiatrist to discuss her treatment plans, without informing me that my client would not be present.
Upon discovering that I had been talking about her “behind her back,” I was met with the client’s full expression of rage. In the context of attempting to validate her rage, I said that I was feeling completely ashamed of myself for participating in this “secret” meeting about her employment future. Sharing with her the magnitude of my shame proved to be a major turning point in her treatment. She was astounded to discover that I had ever felt shame, and particularly on her behalf. We were finally “equals” in the journey to understanding what it had been like to be her.
I am aware of another case in which a young female clinician was doing family therapy with a young adult patient in a psychiatric facility. She was experiencing resistance to her interventions from the patient’s parents and frankly feeling intimidated by them. When she was able to disclose to the patient’s parents that she was as anxious about his recovery as they were, they began to see her differently and gradually became a team with common emotional struggles on the patient’s behalf. They could then discover how to help him together.
Another form of therapist self-disclosure has been termed “therapist outbursts.” In the next post, we will look at distinguishing between helpful and destructive outbursts.
Next post: Therapist outbursts