Biblical Counseling and “Counselor Self-Disclosure”: Should Counselors Share Their Own Stories?

A Word from Bob 

I often do multi-part blog mini-series. However, I don’t think I’ve ever done one where my second post was a decade after my first post in the series! Until now. Back almost ten years ago, I penned a post called:

• Should Counselors Talk About Themselves? 

I was motivated to craft that post after I read these three posts:

• Phil Monroe posted about Should Counselors Talk About Themselves? Surprising Information.

• Then in a follow-up post, Phil wrote about Counselors Talking About Themselves, Additional Thoughts.

In those two posts, Phil—and the research—were overall positive about counselor self-disclosure. Phil also, wisely, shared some boundaries, concerns, and caveats.

• Ed Welch blogged about Counselor Self-Disclosure: How Much Should I Talk About Me? Like Phil Monroe, Ed was overall positive about counselor self-disclosure, while also sharing some wise boundaries.

Counselor Self-Disclosure: A Biblical Counseling Relational Competency 

While I agree with Ed and Phil’s cautions, overall, I’m probably more positive about the value of counselor self-disclosure. Again, you can check out my first post for some of my initial thinking on that. Should Counselors Talk About Themselves?

If you want to learn much more about counseling skills, or what I like to call counselor relational competencies, you may want to check out resources from Gospel Conversations: How to Care About Christ. In this equipping manual, I provide scores of hands-on training exercises for 22 biblical counseling relational competencies, including issues related to counselor self-disclosure.

First, some working definitions of counselor self-disclosure. Every counseling ethical manual will define this term. I’m defining counselor self-disclosure based upon biblical principles and practices of relational soul care.

• Counselor self-disclosure involves the counselor’s careful, wise, brief, purposeful sharing of how Christ’s gospel story relates to the counselor’s situational story and soul story as a way of connecting deeply with the counselee, and even more importantly, as a way of encouraging the counselee to richly and relevantly connect their situational story and soul story to Christ’s gospel story.

• More briefly: Counselor self-disclosure involves sharing together how Christ’s eternal gospel story impacts our daily life story.

• Or: Counselor self-disclosure involves sharing together how Christ’s heavenly story impacts our earthly story.

Biblical Foundations for Counselor Self-Disclosure 

Whether we call it “soul care,” “shepherding,” “discipleship,” “pastoral counseling,” “spiritual direction,” or “biblical counseling,” we build our approach to counselor self-disclosure upon several foundation biblical principles and practices.

• Trinitarian Relationship as Our Deepest Foundation: Biblical passages such as John 1, John 17, and a host of other passages about the eternal relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in intimate communion, provide the deepest foundation for the nature of all relationships, including the biblical counseling relationship.

• Christ’s Personal Model as Our Relational Foundation: Biblical passages such as John 1:14; John 4; John 11; Matthew 26:36-46; Hebrews 2:14-18; Hebrews 4:14-16; and the entire relational ministry of Christ, provide a rich basis for the soul care giver vulnerably and intimately sharing their own soul with those to whom they minister.

• Paul’s Soul-to-Soul Discipleship as Our Ministry Foundation: Biblical passages such as 2 Corinthians 1:7-9; 2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 2 Corinthians 6:12-13; 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8; 11-12; Acts 20:32-21:2; Galatians 4:19; Colossians 1:27-3:3; and a host of other passages, provide our practical ministry foundation. For example, in 2 Corinthians 1:7-9; Paul specifically shares that he does not want the Corinthians ignorant about his situational suffering and his soul sorrow—and he used that as a way in to encourage them to cling to Christ’s resurrection hope. In 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8, Paul emphasizes that he does not share Scripture alone, but he shares with them his very own soul because they were precious to him. In 2 Corinthians 6:12-13; Paul exhorts his disciples to open up their hearts to him, as a fair exchange for his having opened his heart to them.

The Biblical, Relational Practice of Counselor Self-Disclosure: What It Is Not 

Like Phil Monroe and Ed Welch, I do have some cautions—about the wrong definition, description, and use of supposed “counselor self-disclosure.” So, let’s start with what biblical counseling self-disclosure is not.

• Counselor self-disclosure is not a chance to switch chairs, become the counselee, and get someone to finally listen to you.

Now, if you are engage in co-equal one-another ministry and spiritual friendship, then by all means, keep switching back and forth between who shares and who is “cared for” and counseled. However, we are talking in this post about counseling roles where one person is identified as the “helper/counselor” and one as the “helpee/counselee.” In this scenario, we don’t share in order to get counseled. When we need counseling (and we all do), then we get that care outside the context of when we are the “designated care giver.”

• Counselor self-disclosure is not sharing your story before you have patiently, carefully, discerningly listened well and wisely to the counselee’s story.

Any and every biblical counseling relational competency can be misused and misapplied—especially when we rush in and use something as a “technique” instead of as soul-to-soul connecting. We can provide premature, inaccurate empathy if we don’t listen well. We can provide premature, inaccurate exploration of passages—that don’t fit the person’s situation and soul—if we don’t listen patiently. And, we can offer ill-fitted counselor self-disclosure if we don’t listen well and wisely.

The Biblical, Relational Practice of Counselor Self-Disclosure: What It Involves 

Remember our definition:

• Counselor self-disclosure involves the counselor’s careful, wise, brief, purposeful sharing of how Christ’s gospel story relates to the counselor’s situational story and soul story as a way of connecting deeply with the counselee, and even more importantly, as a way of encouraging the counselee to richly and relevantly connect their situational story and soul story to Christ’s gospel story.

So, what are some practical principles for sharing together how Christ’s gospel story impacts our daily life story?

• Counselor self-disclosure is patient.

We are not sitting there thinking, “When do I get to talk about me!?” That’s not our focus. We are sitting there patiently listening to our counselees situational story and soul story. We patiently ask caring, probing questions to draw out what they are going through (external situational story) and how they are experiencing and responding to it (internal soul story). This provides the necessary discernment to know when, how, and what to share from our own lives.

• Counselor self-disclosure is purposeful and “pointed.”

Remember our dual purposes: to connect deeply with the counselee and to encourage our counselee to richly and relevantly connect their earthly life story to Christ’s eternal story. Like Paul with the Corinthians, we want our counselees to know that we share together in our common humanness, our frailty, our struggles, our battles—we’re all in the same boat, but each individually experiencing it differently. And we are all in desperate need of Christ and learning to cling to him second-by-second. So we are purposeful and pointed in our sharing—that means brief, focused, and oriented to encouraging our counselee to ponder how they might then relate their story to Christ’s story.

• Counselor self-disclosure is personal.

Having listened well and discerned the nature of our counselee’s situational and soul story, we seek to briefly share a personal vignette/story/narrative that illustrates our shared human desperate need for Christ. Counselor self-disclosure are not stories that shout, “Look at how great a Christian I am!” They are stories that whisper loudly, “Look how greatly we all desperately need Christ!” We share our personal need for Christ’s personal, powerful intervention. That’s what Paul did in 2 Corinthians 1:7-9—he did not want the Corinthians ignorant about his situational story (his deep suffering) nor did he want them ignorant about his soul story (his deep struggles). Most importantly, he did not want the Corinthians ignorant about his and their desperate need for “the God who raises the dead.”

• Counselor self-disclosure is preparatory: check-in—connect and redirect.

Of course, a vital question becomes, “Once we’ve shared some about our story, how do we re-direct back to the counselee so the focus is on how they connect their story to Christ’s story?” We do this with a connect and redirect check-in. There are many basic ways to do this and say this. Here are a few “off the top of my head” examples.

• • “We’re all different, and I’ve just shared one piece of how Christ worked in my suffering… Are there any ways that what I just shared relate to you and your situation?” Or, “Is there something in my story that resonates with you?” Or, “Is there anything in what I shared that is different for you, your situation, and how you are responding?”

• • “What I shared is just one person’s example. It’s something of my struggle to cling to Christ in a situation like this. How have you been able to cling to Christ in what you’re going through…? Are there things that have made it difficult for you to cling to Christ—like it was difficult for me?”

• • Since this is preparatory, we can move from our story, to a relevant biblical story, and then to the counselee’s story. Our story–>Biblical story–>Counselee’s story. We might share about a difficulty and then go to 2 Corinthians 1:7-8 where Paul is vulnerably honest about how overwhelming life was for him. Then we might share, “That’s me. That’s the Apostle Paul. And what about you? As you’ve gone through _____, how are you finding your soul responding compared to how I responded? Compared to how Paul responded?” This not only humanizes the counselor/counselee relationship, it also shows how real and raw, honest and candid Scripture is. We can do this with suffering/lament: share briefly a connecting story from your life, then explore together a lament psalm story, and then do a redirect/connect to check back in with your counselee. “Are there ways that my lament or David’s lament in this psalm are similar to your experience? Different from what you’re experiencing?”

Again, there are scores of ways to word this—to re-direct back to the counselee’s life story. Just keep in mind the purpose: to share our story of Christ’s story invading, enveloping, and impacting our life as a way in to help our counselee open up and share about how Christ’s story impacts their story, their soul. It is preparatory: we connect with them dependent-human-to-dependent-human in order to help them to connect with Christ’s gospel story.

One reminder… You as the counselor commit to confidentiality with what your counselee shares with you. However, there is no guarantee that what you share with your counselee will remain confidential. You could candidly request that. But there is no guarantee. What you share in counselor self-disclosure may get shared outside the session. So, while I do encourage a deep degree of counselor self-disclosure, I do not encourage a naïve degree of counselor self-disclosure. Each of us must discern for ourselves what and when to share—what is most relevantly helpful for our counselee, and what is wisest for us to share… 

Join the Conversation 

How would you define “counselor self-disclosure”?

What biblical principles, passages, and practices would you use to develop your thinking about counselor self-disclosure?

Do you practice counselor self-disclosure? If so, how is it different from the model I propose in this post? How is it similar to the model in this post?