Claire was working on her licensure, and she asked that I supervise her throughout the process. I’ve been lucky to have strong clinical mentors across my career, and so it felt like an honor to be asked for help. I was surprised to receive a text message from her first thing on Monday morning, “Can we touch base soon? I think I really messed up.”
My stomach tightened. I wondered how badly things could have really gone. Claire was a new therapist, but she had strong clinical skills. I hadn’t expected the urgency of this request. Soon after, she came into my office holding back tears. “I’m too close to one of my clients,” she spoke in low volume. “I don’t know how it happened. It’s not romantic, but I’ve told him about my family and my own problems. Now when we talk… it feels like a friendship. He’s been giving me advice. I screwed up and I don’t know what to do.”
I took a breath, “You made the right choice.”
“I know,” she said. She mistook my response for sarcasm. “I don’t know how I let this happen.”
“No. That’s not what I meant. You had a choice between embarrassment or secrecy. To share this with me or keep it to yourself. It’s a hard choice, but you made the right one.”
We explored the reasons why the relationship with her client had changed and what to do next. Her willingness to feel embarrassed, and to admit her mistake, was the first step towards repair. It was the first of many such conversations I’ve had since, both with new therapists and advanced ones, too. It’s also a conversation I’ve had with myself.
Leaving Our Post: Why Unskillful Self Disclosure Occurs
Unskillful self-disclosure is common; probably more common than we think when considering how many clinicians choose the path of secrecy over embarrassment. Choosing embarrassment by admitting our mistakes means walking against the wind, and so many therapists choose to have the wind at their back.
But how does this happen? Despite our good intentions, why do we leave our therapeutic post? There are probably many reasons, but the first is that the rules of healthy relationships are broken in good therapy. These are the rules of give-and-take, or reciprocity. When reciprocity is absent in our personal relationships, we tend to conclude these relationships aren’t desirable. Whether giving without receiving, or receiving without giving, these are usually signs that something has gone terribly wrong. If someone talks about themselves but never asks a question in return, we notice it. Somewhere in the back of our mind there’s an accountant who keeps tabs. And if this accountant doesn’t count every penny, they help us determine if our relationships are in general balance.
In therapy, our job is to fire the accountant. While reciprocity is beneficial in personal relationships, in therapy it undermines our ability to maintain focus on a client’s problem. So, we learn new conversational habits. We temporarily adopt a non-reciprocal style of relating to help our clients. It’s strange to acknowledge, but dysfunctional behavior outside of therapy is useful behavior within it.
Of course, some therapeutic approaches do emphasize mutuality and appropriate therapist disclosure. But even within these frameworks, disclosure serves therapeutic goals, not the therapist’s emotional needs. This distinction matters. If good therapy requires temporarily implementing this imbalanced dynamic, it shouldn’t be surprising that we struggle to make this adjustment. We’re asked to do something that, at its core, just feels wrong. Our inner accountant balks.
A second reason unskillful self-disclosure occurs is connected to the first, and it can relate to the problem of therapist loneliness. We are not like other professionals and therapy is not like other jobs. While our individual temperaments vary, most of us become therapists because we’re drawn to people for one reason or another. This draw towards others might seem like a good fit for a career in therapy, and sometimes it is, but other times, therapy can be a lonely place. Back-to-back appointments in empty office buildings or remote work from available bedrooms can bring with it a great silence.
And this silence isn’t only environmental. In our conversations with clients, we’re required to strategically deprioritize many of our reactions. This doesn’t mean these relationships are insincere, but that large parts of ourselves don’t participate in our discussions. When personal reactions aren’t in service to a client’s goals, we do our best to restrain them. We ask them to hide.
While we all have a strong interest in human connection, we’re met with more environmental and relational silence than expected. Loneliness is what happens when longing meets absence, and in therapy, there can be a great amount of both.
Returning to Our Post: The Art of Repairing Unskillful Self Disclosure
Understanding how unskillful self-disclosure happens is only half the task. The harder part is knowing how to return to the therapeutic framework without damaging the relationship. Once we’ve come to the realization that a clinical relationship has lost its professional shape, what can be done? This problem is difficult because while solving it, we simultaneously introduce three new risks into the therapy.
The first is that many clients enjoy having insider knowledge about their therapist. They may feel this is the basis of their rapport. To have insider knowledge is to feel special, and to lose access means losing this feeling of specialness. With open doors now closed, the sound of turning locks can create feelings of rejection. Feeling pushed away can damage the therapy, even while we’re trying to repair it.
Another risk is introduced when clients are more comfortable with the reciprocal dynamic. They may prefer to share the spotlight rather than feel its bright circle pointed at them alone. Reducing self-disclosure will increase the number of empty spaces in the conversation. There will be more silence, and with more silence, more discomfort. When we start walking back to our clinical post, new intensity emerges.
The last risk is that a client might decide that they’re to blame. They might conclude there’s something uniquely wrong with them if their therapist behaves differently with them than with other clients. Sensing that they lie at the center of their therapist’s dilemma, they might experience shame. It’s a shame that tells them that somehow, they’ve hurt their helper.
Whatever steps allow us to walk back to our clinical post, it’s important to think about managing the risks of rejection, new intensity, and shame. There’s no perfect script for this conversation, each therapeutic relationship requires its own approach, but one framework I’ve found useful centers around four steps:
Step 1: “I haven’t done a great job protecting your therapy…”
Expressing this step demonstrates that our aim is to protect their therapy, and to implicate ourselves at the heart of the problem. To name that we’ve failed to guard their therapy lessens the chances the client will blame themselves.
Step 2: “and so I’m going to pull back on how much I talk about myself…”
This signals the incoming adjustment. This statement is directive in nature as we’re not asking the client for permission with this new course of action. We’re telling them it’s happening. This is the first act of stepping away from the reciprocal dynamic, and instead, returning to the clinically imbalanced one.
Step 3: “but I want to let you know how to interpret this change.”
This step is particularly important because it helps reduce, though not eliminate, the new intensity that can emerge in the therapy. The client is being prepared to understand what new interactions mean, but also what they don’t.
Step 4: “The truth is that my enjoyment of our work hasn’t decreased, but my investment needs to increase.”
This final phrase reiterates that our adjustment reflects a stronger commitment to the client, not a weakened one. We’re disengaging in the wrong areas and reengaging in the right ones. We’re subtracting non-clinical interactions to deepen the clinical purpose. By expressing that our enjoyment hasn’t lessened, we maintain the appropriate degree of specialness that exists in every meaningful relationship.
Conclusion: The Ongoing Practice of Returning
Addressing unskillful self-disclosure isn’t a single moment but an ongoing practice. After we’ve initiated the repair, it’s important to continue monitoring our own pulls toward reciprocity. The loneliness that may have contributed to the initial drift doesn’t disappear simply because we’ve named the problem.
This is where consultation, supervision, and our own personal relationships become essential. We need spaces where we can acknowledge our humanity: our loneliness, our need for connection, our own vulnerability to unskillful self-disclosure. When Claire came into my office, she made the right choice because bringing it forward made the repair possible.
I’ve learned that therapeutic work isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being honest enough to recognize when we’ve drifted and courageous enough to find our way back. Every time we effectively manage our need for reciprocity and our loneliness, we strengthen our capacity to help our clients. Even when we don’t prevent unskillful self-disclosure, if we practice repair, we remind ourselves that while we may fail at our post, we’re still worthy of returning to it.
