Truth to Power: Self-Disclosure in Therapy

In traditional therapy training, therapists are often told to be a “blank slate”—calm, neutral, and emotionally reserved. The idea is to keep the focus on the client and avoid interfering with the therapeutic process. The concept is rooted in the work of Freud; he argued that the therapist is a blank slate onto which the patient can project, displace or transfer their own feelings. While this model has its merits, the truth is more nuanced. In practice, many therapists choose to bring their full humanity into the room—sometimes through self-disclosure—and when done thoughtfully, it can be a powerful force for healing.

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What Is Self-Disclosure?

Self-disclosure in therapy refers to moments when the therapist shares something personal—maybe a brief story, an emotion, or even a value or belief. This can range from something light (“I also have a dog that acts like he owns the house”) to something more meaningful (“When I went through grief, I remember feeling horrific pain and anger”). These moments are glimpses of truth, in which the therapist becomes more than a clinician - in these moments, their humanity is almost reborn through sharing. There is tremendous power in self-disclosure as a tool in therapy, but the potency and the beauty of it go far beyond the limited meaning of words like "tool" or "intervention."

While the function of the disclosure matters, particularly insofar as the therapist must have a conscious awareness of the intent and potential effect of the disclosure, the act itself is often wherein real therapeutic potency lives. In a meta sense, the act of being deeply honest, and the vulnerability that comes along with it, is the root of the therapeutic power of self-disclosure. The bearing of the raw, soft underbelly of our humanity to another human being forms the fertile grounds in which real powerful therapeutic change can grow.

Robot Freud in action

Ethics and the Importance of Intent

The ethical codes around self-disclosure tend to err on the side of caution. And that makes sense: therapy is not about the therapist. But ethics aren’t black and white. They’re about professional judgment, boundaries, and above all—client benefit.

If a therapist shares something personal with the clear intention of helping the client feel more understood, normalizing their experience, or deepening trust, it’s rarely unethical. On the contrary, it can be deeply ethical—because it meets the moment with authenticity and attunement.

The overlap between therapists and people who have deeply suffered with mental health issues, drugs, alcohol, and addiction is astounding. Indeed, most of the truly good therapists that I know have their own serious, devastating histories with mental health and these issues. Yet, so many therapists are deeply reluctant, afraid even, to self-disclose. Graduate programs in mental health broadly teach students simply not to do it; the risk is perceived as too high. Therapy, however, isn't really about plugging in coping skills and identifying triggers. At it's heart, therapy is driven by human connection, and self-disclosure can be one of the most effective means of founding, growing and tightening this bond. Ultimately, the therapist must possess a relatively high degree of self-awareness, discipline and also trust in self to appropriately, in the moment, decide upon the act of self-disclosure. These are skill sets that are honed carefully over time, and cannot simply be taught in the lecture halls of academia.

The Power of Self-Disclosure

When a therapist briefly shares that they’ve also struggled with anxiety, lost a loved one, or wrestled with self-doubt, it reminds the client they’re not alone, creating a solidarity that can reduce shame and foster deeper self-acceptance. The therapist as human is central to the core driver behind truly effective therapy: the therapeutic relationship itself. Far beyond modality, or simple intervention, the nature and quality of this relationship is in fact the healing mechanism. Understood through this lens, self-disclosure can be seen as a force through which the shared humanity in therapeutic spaces is emphasized; it is a vulnerable display, front-facing and without shame. This is, at it's core, what therapeutic modeling of emotional openness looks like. Therapists who share carefully and honestly can model healthy emotional expression. It’s not about giving advice or making the session about themselves—it’s about demonstrating that it’s safe to be real. This realness, in all its raw human glory, reflects shared trust. Trust is the currency of therapy. Self-disclosure can make the therapist feel more real—more like a warm, engaged human being than an abstract professional. That sense of connection is often what creates the safety needed for patients to explore vulnerable material, and it is grounded in a simple reality: the therapist is a real human. Finally, self-disclosure can help to rebalance power and shift power structures in the therapy space. Therapy involves an inherent power differential. A well-placed self-disclosure—especially one that shows vulnerability—can help level the playing field, reminding the patient that growth and healing are part of everyone’s journey.

A Modern, Human Approach

We live in a time when people are craving authenticity. Patients don’t need therapists to be perfect—they need them to be present, attuned, and human. That might mean laughing at a shared frustration, admitting uncertainty, or offering a personal truth when it serves the patients healing.

In this more relaxed, relational model of therapy, self-disclosure isn’t taboo—it’s a tool. Not one to be used casually, but one that, when wielded with care, can offer something profoundly healing: the experience of being met by another person who knows the terrain, not from a textbook, but from lived experience.

Therapist self-disclosure isn’t about breaking the rules—it’s about knowing the rules well enough to flex them with integrity. When guided by empathy and clinical wisdom, disclosure can dissolve shame, build trust, and remind patients that healing is a shared human journey. Part of my "new patient speech" goes something like this: Of the many things we have learned about how and why therapy works, one stands out to me: that, at the end of the day, modality doesn't matter; school of thought or academic framework don't matter; even, to some extent, whether medication is used doesn't seem to really matter. Not the most. The thing that makes the biggest difference in how well therapy goes is: the relationship. In my view, it is a two-way street relationship, built on mutual honesty and trust. It takes time. It is real, and human. At it's heart is a shared compassion that we are all - all of us in the world - flawed, fallible human beings with out junk; sometimes that junk leaks out, and it is the job of the therapist to be attuned and mindful of their own internal state, to use their experiences to bridge the clinical gap and bring real humanity to the practice of psychotherapy.

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