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Flexibility of roles customarily defined by gender has moved from the academic setting to the media. Newspapers, magazines, TV and movies are portraying men as househusbands and single parents, and women as pursuing careers outside the expected home-centered activities. Hearing discussions at social gatherings of the dynamic implication of self-actualization for both men and women, inside and outside the home environment, is by now a common experience.
This slow change in expected sex-linked role behavior is allowing individuals to explore and express aspects of their personality not developed previously because of the limitations inherent in the stereotyping of behavior. Once this change is in motion, though, the different behavior that emerges needs to be integrated within the more intricate personal mosaic of interpersonal relations.
The study of the role of the therapist within the therapeutic relationship has been crucial to the development of psychoanalytic theory and practice. “Mirror image” (Freud, 1912), “participant observer” , “corrective experience” (Alexander, 1956), “holding environment” (Winnicott, 1963) are some of the by-now-familiar expressions that address differences in therapists' approaches to patients and define variations in the therapeutic interventions geared to facilitate personal growth. In this paper, I want to elaborate on the role of personal disclosure—a conscious verbal presentation to the patient by the therapist of his/her dynamic formulation and resolution of a given personal area of conflict—as a therapeutic tool to be used to enhance the therapeutic process. The slow but evident sociocultural modification of sex-stereotyped behavior has affected therapists and