Influence of the Extent of a Therapist's Self-Disclosure of Previous Mental Illness on Client Perception

• Main Author: McCormic, Rebecca Warner
• Language: EN
• Published: Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville 2017
• Subjects: Ethics|Psychology|Clinical psychology
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10275655

<p> Therapist self-disclosure is an issue that has been long discussed in psychology and for current therapists knowing when, what, and how much to disclose is a challenge. The goal of this study was to investigate how various extents of information, related to a therapist&rsquo;s previous struggles with mental health issues, impacted the client&rsquo;s overall perception of that therapist. This study predicted a curvilinear relationship between extent of disclosure and client perception of the therapist. The hypothesis was that a mild extent of disclosure would be seen more favorably than no disclosure, a moderate extent would be even more favorable, and an extreme extent would be seen around the same level of favorable as a mild extent. Vignettes, manipulation check questions, a client perception questionnaire, and demographic questions were given to undergraduates in a Psychology class in order to emulate clients in therapy. A between-subjects, one-way ANOVA was conducted on the four conditions (no disclosure, mildly extensive, moderately extensive, and extremely extensive) and overall client perception. Findings indicated that there was a significant difference between the no disclosure and the moderately extensive disclosure conditions. There is a curvilinear trend, but it was not significant. This means that participants saw therapists who disclose information about a similar diagnosis and symptoms they struggled with in a more positive light than therapists who disclose nothing.</p>