It’s minute 32, and I have yet to receive one piece of information as to why this intake was scheduled.
Work seems fine.
Family seems supportive.
Relationship is steady.
Body image is positive.
I look down at my notes, and the section “symptoms and why therapy now” is completely blank. I’m stumped. We sit there together in silence. It’s minute 34 now, and I finally have an idea.
The Power of Self-Disclosure
“Recently, I restarted therapy. I took some time off because I was ready to try navigating on my own, but I decided I needed some help again,” I said.
My client looked at me with confusion in their eyes. I think to myself, “Oh no, maybe they think this is odd of me to share,” but I remind myself to trust the process.
I continue by saying, “Although I’m a therapist myself, and I have been to therapy many times before, I found myself really not wanting to share anything with my new therapist.”
My client looked at me with interest now, and I knew I was onto something.
“At my first session, I sat down and said, ‘I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be open, and I hope you’re bad at your job so I don’t have to come back.’ I hated the idea of telling a complete stranger what I was going through. Not to mention, I was nervous about judgment and annoyed that I had to retell my whole life story to catch them up. I was a little embarrassed,” I said.
“You go to therapy?”
“I do, yes. Your doctor has a doctor. Your therapist has a therapist.”
“And you said to their face that you didn’t want to talk to them at first?” they asked as their eyes got wider and their arms became uncrossed.
“Yes, I did, and proudly. They were a stranger I found on the internet. Just like I am a stranger you found on the internet. You have no real reason to trust me other than the piece of paper on my wall that says LSW.”
They looked at me with amusement, then nodded.
“You met me 39 minutes ago. That’s not a very long time. You have no real reason to trust that you can open up about what’s going on in your life without judgment. I’m alright if we don’t get into why you are here today if you aren’t ready. I have games, I have coloring sheets, we can listen to music, we can dance, we can do whatever you want until the end of the session. Heck, you could leave the session now if you wanted to! You have autonomy over how the session looks and what you want to share.”
My client let out a small laugh. They looked down at the ground and quietly said, “My therapist has a therapist,” with a grin on their face.
How Self-Disclosure Helped Our Session
In those last 15 minutes, I got a lot of helpful information about my client’s reasoning for coming to therapy.
I didn’t disclose information about myself, hoping that I would get insight into their symptoms that session. This wasn’t a trick to try and get them to open up. But I remember the first time I walked into therapy and how scary it was to sit with a licensed professional. I thought that humanizing myself by showing them that I also have struggles I want help with and difficulty trusting someone new might help them feel less scared to open up to themselves.
Self-disclosure is one of the tools in therapy that takes practice learning when it’s needed. Not every client responds well to it. You, as the therapist, might think it crosses a boundary. But when used with caution and with care, it can be one of the most helpful ways to form trust with new clients.
