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Therapist transparency exists on a broad spectrum depending upon the practitioner and theoretical orientation.

Too much transparency can diminish the healing power of therapy.

There is some middle ground between therapeutic transparency and abstinence.

This is Part 8 of a series.

In Part 7 of this series on clinical wisdom, I discussed the so-called therapeutic alliance and its scientifically proven powerful role in psychotherapy. Here, we continue that conversation.

Therapist Transparency: To Share or Not to Share?

Psychotherapy, in actuality, is traditionally a unique kind of interpersonal and intimate relationship in which the therapist gets to know the client or patient (or, at least, as much as they are willing to reveal about themselves) while the patient typically knows almost nothing about the personal life of the therapist (beyond what can be gleaned indirectly in conversation and observation). Such relative anonymity on the part of the therapist, much like an enigmatic Rorschach inkblot, invites and promotes projection of the patient's unconscious conflicts, feelings, and concerns. It is an extraordinarily one-sided relationship in this regard, but this is fitting because psychotherapy is all about the patient and their lives, concerns, and problems, not the therapist's. Indeed, this lack of mutuality as regards self-revelation is what differentiates and distinguishes therapy from friendship and other types of human relationships. It could be argued that without the intentional practice of anonymity by the clinician, therapy is diluted and reduced to something akin to a formalized friendship. But friendship is not therapy and therapy is not friendship, though there may be elements of each in both.

Of course, this imbalanced stance can be uncomfortable for patients, in part because the last thing they want to do is to make themselves emotionally vulnerable in the presence of some stranger, expert, or........

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