The one about self-disclosure
Freud’s House in Vienna
Have you ever worried that you’ve revealed something about yourself to a client that you shouldn’t have?
Twenty years ago as a trainee therapist, all dressed up in my jacket and tie, I went for my very first interview trying to find my first placement. I unexpectedly found myself confronted by two interviewers. I thought I’d done OK but then right at the end as I was getting up to leave came the killer question.
‘By the way Allan, what is your view on self-disclosure?’
I paused and answered ‘Only when it’s in the service of the client’.
I thought I’d nailed it with the perfect answer.
Well, it was not the perfect answer for them.
‘We never allow self-disclosure’ was their curt response. I was suitably humbled – I’d got it wrong. According to this placement the first rule of being a therapist was ‘Thou shalt never self-disclose’.
Suitably chastened at that interview 20 years ago I became a ‘good’ therapist and did not self- disclose for many years. But recently my approach has changed somewhat.
Why?
Together with 9,999 other people, earlier this year I watched senior master therapist Irvin Yalom promoting his latest book ‘A Matter of Death and Life’ on John Wilson’s Onlinevents.
OK, so let’s fast forward 20 years to Irving Yalom on Zoom. In his interview Irv said he always self-discloses. Not sometimes, always. If Irv had turned up at that interview 20 years ago he would have failed the killer question and they would have summarily shown him the door. ‘Thanks for your interest Mr Yalom, we’ll get back to you’.
So what to make of these diametrically opposite views on whether therapists should allow the client a peek into their world?
Times change, ideas change…
Research has confirmed more and more what we knew in our hearts if not always in our heads. Talking therapy is a relational cure. With some clients we are allowing them to experience a real relationship maybe for the very first time in their life. If by judiciously revealing something of ourselves and so meeting the client at a deeper relational level in this real relationship, that in my view is OK. If doing so makes the therapist a real person, that is OK.
After all, we self-disclose all the time by the clothes we wear, the way we comb our hair, the way we speak, where we live and the setting, both physical and virtual, in which we see our clients. So whether we think we’re self-disclosing or not, we always are.
The entrance to Freud’s house in Vienna had two doors, one marked Patients the other Family. So the great man self-disclosed. Dr Freud had a family. His consulting room was filled with personal mementoes and photos. Even now, many years later we get to know a lot about the great man just by visiting his home. I thoroughly recommend a visit to his later London home in Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead.
A word of caution though, self-disclosure is a skill which needs to be used sparingly and carefully and this skill comes through experience and discussion in supervision. Ask yourself:
Why am I disclosing this to this client now?
Is it to reassure her?
Am I doing it for me or for her?
What is my rationale for saying this?
Where will this self-disclosure take the client and me on our therapeutic journey together?
What would my supervisor have to say about this?
So, if like me twenty years ago, you think you’ve made an awful mistake by, for example, telling your client where you’ve gone on holiday, don’t be scared to take it to supervision. As your supervisor I’d be very interested to hear about it.
And this is not the same topic as whether it is OK to answer a client’s question directly. That’s the subject of another blog for another time.
And by the way I got the placement!
