The effect of therapist affective self-disclosure patterns on client perception of therapist competence, trustworthiness and attractiveness across sessions

The topic of therapist self-disclosure has elicited much theoretical debate within the psychotherapeutic community. Psychodynamic theories generally argue against therapist self-disclosure primarily on the grounds of interfering with the development of transference reactions. Existential and humanistic theories generally advocate therapist self-disclosure as a powerful way of enhancing the quality of the relationship between therapist and client. The current study chronicles the theoretical debate and reviews the available empirical literature.; The present study, a psychotherapy analogue utilizing 75 female college students, examined the relationship between three forms of therapist self-disclosure and the client's perception of therapist trustworthiness, competence/expertness, attractiveness and willingness to be seen across five therapy sessions.; A 3 x 3 factorial design with repeated measures on the time factor was employed. Audiotaped therapy vignettes were constructed to manipulate three therapist self-disclosure conditions (No disclosure, Present-tense/process oriented disclosure and Past-tense disclosure). Subjects rated the therapist after the first session, the third session and the fifth session.; Results indicated that both the Non-disclosing therapist and Present-disclosing therapist were rated as significantly more trustworthy and competent than the Past-disclosing therapist, overall, while not differing from each other. The Present-disclosing therapist was rated as the most attractive and the most willing to be seen, followed by the Non-disclosing therapist and the Past-disclosing therapist. The ratings of therapist competence, attractiveness and willingness to be seen changed differentially across sessions, with the Present ratings increasing generally, the Past ratings decreasing, and the No disclosure ratings remaining relatively stable over time.; The results suggest that self-disclosure is not a unitary concept, and that a Present-tense/process-oriented style of disclosing was viewed as equally trustworthy and competent as the Non-disclosing approach. However, a disclosing approach entails more unpredictability than a non-disclosing approach. In sum, it appears that self-disclosure is more suited to counseling settings, where the focus tends to be problem solving, consciousness-oriented and the therapy is short term. A non-disclosing approach is seen as more suited to psychotherapy settings where personality reorganization is the goal and the therapy tends to be long term.