Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Marc Diener, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Lauren Lipner, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Laura Bonomo, Ph.D.

Abstract

Of the various forms of therapist self-disclosure, immediate self-disclosure (ISD) refers to the therapist’s sharing of immediate thoughts, feelings, and reactions with the patient in real time. In previous research, ISD has been positively associated with the therapeutic alliance. The therapeutic alliance has been conceptualized as agreement on goals, agreement on assignment of tasks or a series of tasks to achieve those goals, and the quality of the emotional bond. Non-immediate self-disclosure (NISD) is defined as the therapist divulging personal or biographical information about themselves or their life outside treatment. NISD has been found to be risky and potentially harmful to the therapeutic alliance, as it shifts the focus away from the patient’s experience, potentially creating distance between therapist and patient agreement on goals and tasks, as well as deleteriously affecting the emotional bond. Although there is some research examining therapist self-disclosure and alliance from the patient’s perspective (i.e., as rated by the patient), there is scant research that both (a) differentiates between ISD and NISD, and (b) examines therapists’ perspective on the association with the aforementioned types of self-disclosure on alliance. This study was conducted through an anonymous online survey and investigated doctoral-level psychologists (N = 62). It was hypothesized that there would be a positive association between therapist-rated ISD and strength of the overall therapist-rated therapeutic alliance, the quality of the emotional bond between patient and therapist, and the agreement of tasks and agreement on goals. Specifically, it was predicted that greater use of ISD would be associated with stronger therapeutic alliance, whereas less use of ISD would be associated with weaker alliance. Additionally, it was hypothesized that there would be a negative association between therapist-rated NISD and therapist-rated therapeutic alliance, such that greater NISD would be associated with weaker therapeutic alliance, and aforementioned alliance subcomponents, whereas less NISD would be associated with stronger therapeutic alliance. Finally, the present study examined the relative unique contributions of ISD and NISD in their associations with therapeutic alliance. Contrary to expectations, the results did not reveal statistically significant associations between ISD and the therapeutic alliance or between NISD and the therapeutic alliance. However, a statistically significant positive association was found between ISD and NISD among participants, indicating that therapists who used more ISD also tended to use more NISD. Post hoc analyses revealed non-significant trends suggesting that ISD may be positively associated with greater identification with a psychodynamic/psychoanalytic orientation and negatively associated with identification with a cognitive-behavioral orientation. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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