SELF DISCLOSURE

The degree of therapist self-disclosure is an area in which a wide range of opinions exists. For some, the therapist should not provide personal information to the client in almost any circumstance. Others firmly maintain that some personal information is not only acceptable at times, but advisable. I find myself agreeing with the latter. In order for a true therapeutic relationship to develop, in my opinion, therapist and client generally must achieve some level of intimacy. I don’t believe that such intimacy can exist without the therapist sharing some limited aspects of his or her own life from time to time. Carl Rogers urged therapists to be genuine. How can one be genuine when conscientiously hiding all personal aspects of oneself? When a client asks if I am angry with them and I say that I'm not (after all, therapists should never experience anger toward a client) when in fact I am angry, I am not only being disrespectful, I'm inflicting damage. When a client observes that I look like I've had a hard day, and I deny that I have, when the truth is that the day has been extremely difficult, I've become a liar to someone whose trust is extremely important. This doesn't mean that I should proceed to describe my day to the client, but that I merely acknowledge that the client's observation is a perceptive and accurate one.

Lenore E. A. Walker, in her piece, "A feminist Therapist Views The Case" from "Women as Therapists" ( Cantor, 1990), provides an overview of the guiding principles of feminist therapy, including:

1) Egalitarian relationships between clients and therapists serve as a model for women to take personal responsibility to develop egalitarian relationships with others instead of the more traditional passive, dependent female role. While it is excepted that the therapist knows more in terms of psychology, the client knows herself better. That knowledge is as critical as the therapist's skills in developing a successful therapeutic relationship.

2) The feminist therapist focuses on the enhancement of women's strengths rather than remediation of their weaknesses.

3) The feminist model is nonpathology-oriented and non-victim blaming.

4) Feminist therapists accept and validate their clients’ feelings. They are also more self-disclosing than other therapists thus removing the we-they barrier between therapists and their clients. This limited reciprocity is a feminist goal that is believed to enhance the relationship.

Milton Erikson spoke often of the importance of joining with our clients. It's difficult from my perspective to accomplish this if we're placed somewhere above our clients and often out of their reach. To truly understand another, we must be willing to get close enough to really see; we can miss so much when keeping back too great a distance. Perhaps, in part, the distance is recommended, because it's not possible to observe imperfections and vulnerabilities close up without risking our own being exposed from time to time. Therapists need not be perfect in order to be effective; in fact, they don't even need to be smarter.

Janet O'Hare and Katy Taylor in the book, Women Changing Therapy (1985), edited by Joan Hammerman Robbins and Rachel Josefowitz Siegel, provide a number of insights and recommendations for working with victims of sexual abuse including:

(1) A controlling therapist is too much like the abuser to be helpful;

When we encounter an individual who has been abused, our assuming control of the therapeutic process is bound to be threatening to most. Such individuals have been told what to do very often for much of their lives, and voluntarily surrendering now to the mandates of yet another feels uncomfortably familiar. Victims and survivors need to be empowered to act in their own best interests, to make their own decisions, and communicate their needs effectively. Attempting to acquire these abilities in the presence of a controlling "expert" is hardly conducive to producing these results.

(2) The client must be encouraged to recognize her own strengths.

Often victims and survivors of abuse are acutely aware of their inadequacies and have little faith in their strengths. It is important that when working with these individuals that the therapist focus on and strive to develop strengths vs. honing in on and seeking to remediate inadequacies. In fact, many of the tendencies that survivors (and some therapists) perceive as weaknesses are, in fact, just the opposite -- assets to be recognized and appreciated.

(3) The therapist must honor the client's own healing process and allow the healing to proceed at the client's own pace.

Not being controlling need not mean being non-directive. In operating from a brief treatment perspective, it's absolutely necessary that the therapist remain active and quite often provide direction. This from my perspective, indicates that we must serve as guides and facilitators. It may be important to remember that when one engages the services of a guide when embarking on a journey, it's ultimately the role of the one to be guided to determine the destination, the limits of the distance to be traveled, the stops along the way, and the overall pace. It's the guide’s responsibility to meet the objectives of the guided.

next: Old Assumptions Versus New Assumptions