Self-Disclosure in Therapy: How Much is Too Much?

Lisa Marie Bobby:

 Therapists, our clients are coming to us for healing, but is it possible that some of your personal stories or shares  are getting in the way of their process? On today’s episode of love happiness and success for therapists  we’re diving into that fine line fine art of appropriate self disclosure and how to make sure that it enhances rather than derails your therapeutic or coaching relationship with your clients.

 So, to get this party started, let’s talk about some different case examples of situations where  therapists have been making themselves a little bit too present in their work,  starting with the Let’s talk about me scenario.

So consider, you know, maybe  a client is struggling with grief after losing a parent. 

They wisely get into therapy as a way to process this. But then during sessions, a therapist will bring up repeatedly stories of their own losses, losing their own parents, how they dealt with grief in their own life, their own personal strategies. And maybe at first, this can seem comforting to a client, right? You know, thinking, Oh, my therapist can relate to me. They understand what I’m going through. And that’s a positive thing. But that it also keeps happening. And over time as clients are noticing that every session seems to be more about the therapist’s own experiences than the client’s.

Like the client started to feel like their grief was being overshadowed, like they needed to talk about what the therapist wanted to talk about, which was different than how they were feeling or what they were needing or wanting. And of course, starting to feel really frustrated. Like now, okay, I’m paying you, you know, to listen to your story.

Um, and also clients starting to feel, I think rightly so, that they need to be there emotionally for clinicians. They, they are in the role of now having to take care of clinicians, provide empathy to the therapist. And so, of course, as you can imagine, it was just a matter of time before clients stop coming to sessions, right?

And so of course this can come out in situations where a therapist is like going through their own emotional stuff and like kind of needing to talk about things, but this can happen in other ways. I mean, take the case of the fitness enthusiast scenario,

so client wisely, again, comes into therapy and dealing with, say, a blend of anxiety and also some body image issues, some confidence stuff. And during one of their sessions, the therapist starts talking about their personal workout routine.

But what actually happened in this case is that the client started feeling judged and inadequate. Like, this therapist’s standards were being imposed on them. And perhaps this therapist was, you know, really fit and energized and the client starts comparing themselves to them, right, like shame starts happening, but it is related to the therapist, which becomes a barrier for the emotional intimacy and the kind of relationship that that client really needs to have with their therapist.

And so instead of feeling supported, this client now feels pressure to conform to these therapist fitness ideals, which are honestly making them feel even more anxious and insecure. And again, I think zero people would be surprised to know that here’s another situation where the client is like, this is not the right fit for me.

They decide to switch therapists feeling that, you know, this specific person’s personal experiences were becoming so prominent that it was actually clouding their ability to listen, to understand. Stand and be receptive to whatever fitness journey or, or health-promoting path that this client felt was genuinely best for them, not the therapist.

This may or may not shock you depending on your professional experiences but I have heard stories from clients or other colleagues, personal friends, about experiences with therapists who are actively using clients for their own personal validation.

For example, a client comes in dealing with low self esteem, wanting to feel more confident and starts noticing that their therapist would bring up stories from their own life frequently saying like, I went through something similar when I was your age, followed by personal anecdotes that seemed to go on for too long, lots of detail.

And then the therapist would ask something like, do you think that was the right choice? Or would you have done the same? Like after telling their personal story, asking the client for input. And of course the client in this situation starts to feel incredibly uncomfortable sensing that this therapist is looking for their approval or confirmation, which of course feels so inappropriate. Instead of focusing on the client’s challenges, these sessions seem to be about reassuring the therapist. And of course, the client starts feeling disconnected and stops attending therapy. This is a waste of my time. Therapists can overshare about so many different things, but I hear a lot of stories about therapists who talk way too much about their own family of origin experiences. A good example of this would be a story about a client going through, uh, relationship issues, like marriage problems, was so shocked when their therapist starts disclosing detailed stories about their own troubled marriage, or perhaps what their troubled marriage was like prior to their divorce. So again, you know, maybe initially the client appreciated that the therapist seemed to get it, you know, to have empathy for what they’re going through, but very quickly started to feel really uncomfortable with how much the therapist was sharing and just going on and on. The therapist would start talking about their spouse, even mentioned specific conflicts that they had at home. Rightly so it’s like, This isn’t therapy. This is like what I might do with a personal friend over coffee. If we were both having a hard time, this is not what I signed up for. And I think at worst, this can lead clients to feel like they get put into this role where now they have some responsibility for the therapist, right?

They’re trying to offer empathy or even, you know, have you ever considered this rather than being the one who receives it? And again, this client wound up letting this therapeutic relationship go, feeling that the therapist had blurred the lines too much because they had. And now, granted, these are some more extreme examples, but, you know, as you’re listening to this, just consider the fact that I think in our culture now, there is this whole new school of essentially amateur life coaches. who believe with all their hearts and souls that they have something to teach people by virtue of their own life experience and they are creating careers and even followings being the dispensers of advice based on what I have learned that is really focused on.

I’m going to share my personal stories with you and from these parables, if you will, you will learn and grow. Even though that is what some helping professionals believe is appropriate, we professional, trained therapists cannot and should not operate in this way. That is not what we do.

We do not teach in the same way. We are receptive. We help our clients tell us what the right answers are. Not that there isn’t a time and place for some, providing of information and to a very limited degree, short, small statements that convey empathy, that convey understanding, that normalize behaviors, but like, you know, eight words long, and then we stop and very sparingly.

I will even tell you that personally, I am aware of simple things like at the start of a therapy session or coaching session, if a client is like, Lisa, how are you doing? How have you been? I will. Yeah. very, very, very deliberately minimize the heck out of that. You know, good overall, it’s been a busy week.

Happy. The kids are back in school, but anyway, I’m just so happy to see you. And I can’t wait to hear what would be helpful for us to talk about today because I am hyped. are aware that this whole thing, I am there on somebody else’s dime. And every minute I am talking about myself or my life at any length at all, they are paying me for that.

And that is just so not appropriate. I would get annoyed if I was the client in that situation. And so while I certainly want to have a positive and warm relationship with my clients, I am Always aware that I am here to do a job and making sure that that framework is, is guiding my behaviors with how I respond to people about even just like, you know, simple greetings.

Very lastly, let me just tell you about one other horrible example. I actually had a family member who was in therapy with someone, uh, this family member was disclosing something that was very painful and difficult to them. They were bothered about it, and this provider actually responded with, Do you know, I lost my husband a couple of months ago.

And so I think that you need to suck this up. Can you believe that?

I don’t know, depending on the clinicians that you’ve met across the course of your lifetime, maybe you can, but I was so shocked to hear that. And again, an example of not just oversharing, but a clinician having their own personal issues spill over into that space. space of the therapeutic relationship in a very inappropriate and unhelpful way.

And so this is again, just to bring visibility into the fact that this definitely happens and that this can have such serious consequences, both for clients and for clinicians. So let’s just talk about that part for a second. And when we take a look at some of the potential pitfalls. First and foremost, I think one of the biggest issues that can come up, and this may actually give you a clue as to whether or not this might be an issue in your practice, is related to client retention. You may have noticed that in all of the different case examples I shared with you, the final outcome was that the client was like, yeah, I don’t know if this is really working for me and voted with their feet. So if you’re a clinician in private practice, you know, that’s, it’s a hard game and it is important for you to be paying attention to whether or not you feel that you have clients dropping out of this process prematurely and be asking yourself if it seems to be a pattern, why might that be? Because if you’re not doing this kind of self reflection and checking in about how am I showing up with my clients, is this working for people? Over time, you may actually develop a bad reputation. Considering the fact that word of mouth referrals are a big part of how this works for many therapists, particularly in private practice is really important.

And so if people aren’t having that great of experiences with you, and that isn’t happening over time, it’s going to impact who winds up showing up. But I will also just tell you like friend to friend here, it only takes one bad Google review, uh, or, you know, an online review elsewhere that prospective clients might easily find to create a lot of problems for you. And I think that we as therapists can have enough issues with things going sideways and, and really like through no fault of our own people interpreting things in odd ways and wanting to talk about it online.

Like that, that is part of the professional experience for better or for worse. Uh, however, if you know, there’s a few people that was like, I didn’t really get a whole lot out of it because they talked about themselves the whole time. And it seems like they’re more focused on telling me about their lives and thinking that that was going to be helpful for me than being who and what I really needed them to be.

And let’s also not forget that therapists can and have been grieved for boundary violations. Now, while it may be true, that, having a tendency to overshare in your therapy practices might not be something that is always going to lead to formal disciplinary action, because that would take a highly motivated client who is very upset and, you know, going through the trouble of reporting you to the board, which is probably unlikely. But not impossible, depending on how, long it’s gone on or if they have felt that they have been harmed and are potentially like seeking damages in some way. It could be that, they might take some action or they might talk to another therapist about their experience with you.

That other therapist could have become alarmed enough to say, you know what, somebody should do something. So I’m going to go ahead and report this. And that may or may not turn into a situation where you know your license is revoked, but you might get a warning or a licensing board might require you to seek out further training and ethical boundaries in order to ensure that your client centered care is being prioritized. And they have a basis to do this because our professional organizations, so APA, ACA, they have strict ethical guidelines around self disclosure that clearly state any self disclosure should be for the client’s benefit and is not about meeting your own needs, right?

And so all of the professional organizations have a lot of similar language about what we need to be doing to maintain clear professional boundaries.

So just for fun, I mean, if you’re kind of thinking, oh yeah, maybe that’s me, it might be worth looking up the code of ethics for your licensed user. Your profession and just reminding yourself of what those standards are. Now, one last thing I will bring up as a potential pitfall, and this is friend to friend, is that we therapists are absolutely human. We do have our own stuff. We are oftentimes isolated, traumatized, we spend a lot of time with clients and are vulnerable to burnout.

And if there is something going on where you are in some way getting some comfort or some needs met through these interactions with your clients in a way that isn’t appropriate, that is also likely that it is because you are not getting these needs met in more appropriate ways elsewhere in your life.

And that is a problem. As you know from family dynamics and triangling, this kind of dynamic will actually keep you stuck and be something that prevents your ability to heal and grow and be emotionally and mentally well. And you deserve to be that. So don’t allow this, pressure valve situation to be something that keeps you stuck.

stuck rather than helps you move forward personally.

So thanks for letting me big sister you there for just a second, but now though, of course, what everybody’s been waiting for, like, let’s talk about some of the best practices that we should all be thinking about and doing instead. So some of these best practices are really quite simple and hopefully parts of what you do anyway, but we can tweak these just a little bit to make sure that they are also providing us with some coverage and support and some feedback for this tendency to maybe blur some personal boundaries with our therapy clients.

Of course, one of the first and most important things is for us to be getting consultation and to have relationships in our lives with professionals who know us and care about us and understand what it is that we’re going through, mentors, former supervisors, perhaps trusted colleagues

and, you know, I think oversharing is typically one of these things that we don’t really realize that we are doing because of course if you did, you wouldn’t be doing it, but it’s like this genuine lack of self awareness. So how can we think about and then change things that we literally aren’t aware that we’re really doing? That’s why having trusted people that we’re talking to about the things that are our pain points in order to get honest feedback is so crucial. So, for example, if you have a tendency to overshare, and it is impacting your client retention, you might not currently be aware that it is your tendency to overshare that is related to this outcome.

But if you have a colleague or a support group, a consultation group, where it’s a really open and honest space. Base and you’re able to say, you know, I’m noticing that a lot of clients drop out after like four to six sessions. And it’s surprising to me because like I know we’re not done with the work and I think I’ve been chalking it up to people who are saying like, oh, I can’t afford it.

I got too busy and like listening to that, but it’s turning into such a pattern. I’m wondering if there might actually be something else going on and having. People who love you enough to be like, okay, well, tell us more about, you know, what, what is going on with you and what you think could be contributing to it so that you have the space to start thinking these things through additionally, staying super connected to your code of ethics, I think, is always just such an important part of best practices for everyone. And I know that, you know, we have to take tests and memorize codes of ethics when we’re in grad school. And also, let’s just be honest, that after that, as we move on, you know, there’s continuing education requirements, but that can often feel like box checking and it’s easy to get some distance between us and, you know, the rules and regulations that we really should be living by, breathing by because they’re there for a reason.

And so, you know, perhaps a challenge could be as well. Part of your maybe annual practice or maybe every two years when you are, uh, up for licensure renewal, have some kind of practice that includes continuing education, which hopefully you’re doing all of the time, but also what do I need to be reminding of myself and making it a little ritual that helps you stay in a good place on the straight and narrow.

The kind of therapist who can be of most genuine service to the clients that trust you. These are great practices.

Now I will say that there is one more super important professional practice that I have talked about on other episodes of Love, Happiness Success for Therapists, and this is related to structuring your work with clients in such a way where it is a collaborative process, where you are routinely and regularly seeking honest feedback from your clients about how this process is going. This type of thing is something that I am constantly harping on my clinical supervisees to be doing. It is something that is baked into the core of my coaching certification program for therapists. that is really founded on how do you stay in very close alignment with your clients to prevent any kind of ruptures, but particularly around what their experience is of you and of the process that you are engaging with them in to make absolutely sure that you know how they feel about it and whether or not you need to modify anything about how you’re showing up.

So, for more on this, I will refer you back to my podcast playlist, so check out Always Be Assessing, check out How to Know if you’re really being helpful to your therapy clients, I think that that’s another good one, also Why Therapy Clients Ghost is something where we dove into this topic. You can grab all of those on my website, growingself.

com forward slash therapists, um, you’ll find links to all of the articles and the episodes that I have there for you.

So I hope that this conversation about, how to get visibility into whether or not you are making one of these pretty common therapist mistakes of oversharing has been helpful for you. And, um, let me just leave you with a few free resources. We were just talking about where to find some additional articles, podcasts, videos that I’ve recorded on related topics.

You can come to growingself. com forward slash therapist. And then also because probably like you, I am of such strong belief that our community with each other is so essential to being able to, to do this, you know, for a long term, sustainable career, but, but also to be able to do this well and with integrity and with excellence, like we need each other.

And I would love to have more community with you. So, uh, an easy way to do that is by connecting with me on LinkedIn. That’s my little LinkedIn handle, drlisabobby, come look me up. Um, you can obviously see, you know, what’s going on with a podcast episodes or other resources that I’m sharing. But also I hope to just start a conversation with you.

I’d love to hear what’s on your mind. If there are situations that you’re dealing with professionally or in that like, you know, personal slash professional adjacent space. I’d love to know what’s going on so that I can support you in this through a podcast or developing resources.

Um, I am here for you. Thank you again so much for joining me today for this episode of Love, Happiness, and Success for Therapists. And last but not least, if you happen to be watching this on YouTube, don’t forget to like and subscribe. That helps my channel, and then of course, the things that I’m talking about on this channel, just get more visibility into the world and connect with more therapists who might be in need of support like me and you, um, but also please share this with our community.

If you have a professional network that you think would benefit from being reminded of some of the things that we’ve talked about today or in other episodes, thank you so much for sharing this with them. It is through our community and working together that is how we will grow. All right, take care.