11 Should I Say or Should I No?
Overview
- Self-disclosure is an issue all helping professionals face
- Disclosures can be intentional or unintentional
- Although there is flexibility about how and when to disclose, there are also important guidelines to follow
- Self-disclosure can be used tactfully to benefit clients and protect the helping professional
Self-disclosure seems to be one of the more difficult ethical concepts to master. Newer helpers especially struggle with the use of self-disclosure, which can take several forms: intentional, unintentional, and client-initiated.[1] When we intentionally self-disclose, we are choosing to share information about ourselves with a client. We might choose to express our feelings in the moment, or we might let a client know we have experienced a similar kind of loss. One piece of information often disclosed in substance use disorder treatment is the counselor’s recovery status.
Certain environments lend themselves to greater use of self-disclosure, while in other settings it tends not to come up. A therapist’s office, for example, might lend itself to higher degrees of personal exchange, whereas a busy hospital or public health facility where many people are moving around tends to discourage sharing of information.
Although we should never feel obligated to self-disclose, there might be times when it serves as an effective tool. Remember, self-disclosure is always about the client and should be for their benefit, not for ours. At the same time, clients are able to discern information about us and might form their own opinions about our race, gender identity, sexuality, recovery status, and socioeconomic status. It’s also possible they will go so far as to find information about us online. This could come from basic web searches or social media profiles.
Knowing this, it’s important to be mindful of what we are disclosing, both intentionally and inadvertently.
As helpers, we are not blank slates. In the early days of psychoanalysis, the therapist was cold and removed. The goal was to remain virtually anonymous to allow the client to project their own psyche onto the professional, which would then be reflected back to the client. Over time, the role of the professional has greatly evolved, and we should be grateful for that evolution. Being a professional helper does not mean being a robot or hiding all of our natural responses. As Jacquelyn Small has eloquently discussed in her book Becoming Naturally Therapeutic, most of us have an innate ability to connect to others on a meaningful level without the use of specific counseling theories.
Influenced by humanistic psychologists such as Carl Rogers and Rollo May, along with a societal movement toward equality, therapy has become more egalitarian. Video recordings of Rogers in action show a counselor reacting and sharing with his clients in surprisingly open ways. Rogers did not hesitate to express his own feelings in session, and modern practice more clos