ABSTRACT
In essence, therapists self-disclose when it is in the service of the dialogue and do not usually self-disclose when it will move the prime relational focus away from the client. Dialogically minded therapists discriminate and modulate their own self-disclosure in terms of what they believe will further (or truncate) the contact. To expand upon the answer to when to self-disclose, it all depends on the field conditions some of which are: the developmental phase of the relationship, the client and therapist’s styles of relating, whether contra-indications to self-disclosure are present such as the client having suffered an acute trauma. Self-disclosure can be used positively as: validation of the client, a dialogic experiment, a challenge, flattening the hierarchy, to communicate understanding of the client’s experience. Zahm takes the view that, ‘self-disclosure is appropriate only when it enhances and furthers the therapeutic process and the relationship’.
