ABSTRACT
The topic of self-disclosure in psychotherapy has raised much heated debate; there are also different historical and modality perspectives on this issue. Traditionally, psychoanalysis has been against any kind of disclosure on the part of the therapist, favouring the presentation of a blank screen on to which the client can project their relational dif®culties. While such a stance is potentially unrealistic and oppressive, we are also aware that the emphasis on therapist congruence in the humanistic traditions has sometimes led to a sense of the therapist's potential for psychic incontinence or promiscuous honesty which we would certainly not recommend either. Yalom (2001) usefully sets out three realms of therapist self disclosure concerned respectively with the mechanisms of therapy, here-and-now feelings, and issues to do with the therapist's personal life. He favours complete transparency about the mechanisms of therapy, so that the client can get a clear sense of the process and rationale of treatment, thus minimizing what he refers to as `secondary anxiety' arising from `an ambiguous social situation without guidelines for proper behaviour or participation' (p. 85). With regard to here-and-now feelings, Yalom advocates discretion so that transparency is not pursued for its own sake. Such a position is also supported by Maroda (2002) on the grounds that the therapeutic value of disclosure needs to be carefully assessed. We would suggest that if there is suf®cient uncertainty it is better to err in the direction of saying less without giving the client the sense that something important is being withheld. The therapist can own up to being uncertain and wanting to think about the issue or the question asked of them.
