ABSTRACT
Much of the debate surrounding extra-therapy disclosure is the perception that it poses a risk to professional boundaries, such that it can contaminate conventional constructions of the therapist role necessary for therapy to be effective. This has been particularly captured in early explorations of therapist disclosure’s influence on client perceptions of ‘therapist expertness.’ This chapter begins with an exploration of ‘therapist as expert’ and ways in which expertness is conceptualized within different theoretical positions vis-à-vis therapist disclosure. A review of the disclosure research suggests that expertness hinges greatly on the client’s perspective, and brings forth a distinction between possessing expertise and being perceived as expert. Given the perspectival nature of disclosure and expertness, as manifested through different cultural understandings, the author discusses expertness in the context of social constructivism to propose a ‘de-centering’ approach to therapist disclosure that aims to create space for deliberate discussion about disclosure with clients. The author concludes that decisions to disclose should not reside within the binary of whether or not a therapist will appear expert, but that expertness resides with the therapist’s ability to exercise critical intentionality, attunement to context, and reflexivity.
