I think a therapist who is in-the-moment will consider whether any self disclosure would be helpful at that specific time. Rightly or wrongly-- and I always think it's easy to Monday morning quarterback any human interaction-- he did not at the previous time but did this time. To me it makes sense that he might have held off the first time and mentioned it this other time, because it is so true about the Facebook Lives that people live, and that pictures often tell a different story. Consider the news this past week of a man in Colorado who admitted killing his wife and probably killed his two little kids. Her Facebook feed was full of laudatory statements and happy happy pictures, and look how it turned out.

To me it seems like a better self disclosure in the context of the picture. He didn't *need* to tell you then but he did. I consider anyone's self disclosure pretty precious, especially when they are attempting to empathize with me. I didn't purposefully set out to have a therapist who engages in a lot of self disclosure, but it does make me feel more understood when he relates it as a version of what I am going through. A self disclosure feels like a small gift from the heart-- not just from him but for all the people in my life. That people are willing to be intimate and say what's true for them, I love that in real life and I appreciate it in therapy.

I think there's a stereotype on this board that a T's self disclosure is "making it all about them" but I have never experienced that. It is a kind of intimacy that, when it happens in my therapy, is not only helpful for me but also encourages me to disclosure more to the people I trust outside of therapy. What makes a relationship satisfying to me is that both people feel comfortable telling their stories. Disclosures by T in therapy have opened me up to others to do the same.