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Historically, therapists have shared relatively little about their personal lives with their patients.

Therapist abstinence can create rich opportunities for growth and working through.

Whether or not to reveal personal information ought to depend on whose needs are being centered.

The first time I ventured through the door of a psychotherapist’s office, I was 22. My therapist was a middle-aged woman with glasses and fine, straight hair. She wore bulky sweaters and sensible shoes. I knew she was married because she wore a wedding ring, but that was all I knew. She said very little, revealing almost nothing about her thoughts as I prattled on, but I experienced her as a steady presence companioning me while I navigated the confusion of young adult angst.

Freud taught that the therapist should be a “blank screen” upon which the patient could project whatever she needed. Throughout the profession’s history, most therapists have avoided displaying family photos in their office, refrained from casually sharing personal information, and declined to answer questions straightforwardly about where they were going on vacation. The matter of therapist self-disclosure in therapy is not a simple one, and much ink has been spilled theorizing about when, whether, and why it might make sense to share. However, in general, therapists have been trained to be thoughtful, sparing, and intentional when revealing personal information.

In recent years—with the advent of social media—new norms have taken hold in the business of therapy. On Instagram and other social media sites, therapists now routinely reveal........

© Psychology Today