When The Analyst Is Ill: Dimensions Of Self-Disclosure

This article examines questions related to the “inescapable,” the “inadvertent,” and the “deliberate” personal disclosures by an analyst. Technical and personal considerations that influence the analyst's decision to disclose, as well as the inherent responsibilities and potential clinical consequences involved in self- disclosure, are explored, with particular attention to transference- countertransference dynamics, therapeutic goals, and the negotiation of resistance. The author describes her clinical work during a period of prolonged illness, with case vignettes that illustrate how self-disclosure may be regarded as both an occasional authentic requirement and a regular intrinsic component of clinical technique.

In a paper entitled “Self-Disclosure: Is It Psychoanalytic?” (1995), Greenberg describes a case in which he elects to meet a patient's repeated question with repeated analytic silence. He cites this vivid instance as an illustration of how and why, in his view, his particular technical choice, with this particular person, in this particular moment bore analytic fruit. Jacobs (1995), in discussing this paper, applauds Greenberg's sensitive treatment, yet goes on to suggest that there are times, some times, when self-disclosure serves him and his patients well. Along with an increasing number of analysts writing about self-disclosure as potentially useful in furthering the interactive process,1 Jacobs is careful to say that