Instead of trying to fill gaps in confidence by projecting the image of a perfect professional, we are better served working to be empathetic human beings who are comfortable with uncertainty. People aren’t put at ease by overly professional behavior or jargon. While we need to have specific knowledge about how change can be conceptualized and enacted, as much as is possible, be a person first.

People can tell when you're fake and it pisses them off, so don't. Plus it's exhausting.

Below, I discuss therapist authenticity for counsellors new to practice. Elsewhere I discussed self-disclosure, a closely related concept.

What is Therapist Authenticity

Burks (2012) did a phenomenological study on therapist authenticity, wherein they defined it as "matching of one’s inner thoughts, beliefs, and feelings with one’s outer presentation and behaviors...[it] involves sensory and emotional qualities rather than purely cognitive or verbal qualities." 

Authenticity is an active process, something we do purposely in each situation, rather than being a binary, static identity trait. Therapists weave their thoughts and emotions together with their professional care and knowledge, in a way that lets us genuinely resonate with clients (Morrill, 2018). It’s something we practice, that we can move in and out of fluidly.

We have to be able to set our needs (but not our identities) aside long enough to be deeply present with clients. Therapists “create a space for authenticity by being humble; allowing their feelings to come to the foreground, accompanied by reason; demonstrating to the client that they are there for them; and not trying to be authentic but allowing authenticity to emerge naturally” (Burks, 2012).

A therapist’s responses are molded over time by sitting with people through suffering, healing, moments of grief, insight, and so on. Witnessing this much of humanity is extraordinary. It also leaves a mark, which becomes part of our authenticity. The effect is unique for each of us, but generally, practicing empathy so frequently can shift our perspective, clarify our priorities, and tends to move us toward humility, patience, and compassion. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about”—except as therapists we do know about it. We hear about these battles every day. 

“Showing up as yourself” is a common idea in authenticity, which Brene Brown discussed here. She captures what I mean about being someone who seems safe and able to listen to you while still having a personality. Further, Brene suggested that authenticity involves being “comfortable sharing your flaws and failures as much as your triumphs and successes.” We all have things about ourselves that are a bit “ugly”, and that’s okay. The more aware of it we are, the more we can accept it and manage it in session. Authenticity is impacted by the work we do on our own healing, and understanding how our history informs our work with clients allows us to be more present and empathetic.

Impacts of Therapist Authenticity

Research suggests authenticity matters to client outcome (via therapist effects), and it seems intuitively desirable for clients. Two studies (Baldwin & Imel, 2013; Johns et al., 2019) found that counsellors themselves account for about 5% of the variance in client outcomes. If that doesn’t seem significant, consider that the variance in outcome made by what counselling theory you choose accounts for a mere 1%. 

Every client has had their share of difficult interpersonal experiences: being lied to, mistreated, even abused. It’s reasonable to assume they’re seeking a safe, reliable therapeutic relationship that will aid in their healing (CCPA, 2014). Carl Rogers often discussed congruence (i.e., being yourself in session, without a professional facade) saying that this is most useful to a client.

One aspect of authenticity is transparency, which can be essential to the therapeutic process at times (e.g., if a client has experienced a lot of deceit in close relationships). Similarly, people who have experienced abuse and/or trauma can be hypervigilant, watching for signs that a therapist is unsafe to be vulnerable with. Admittedly, everyone wants to be able to feel comfortable and safe with their therapist, not just people who’ve had a particularly troubling experience. Also, clients can benefit when therapists allow themselves to be imperfect and show it when appropriate, which is convenient for the non-perfect among us. 

Therapists benefit from authentic practice. Masking our identities, thoughts, and feelings is exhausting, and its negative effects over time range from irritability to severe burnout. Masking diverts cognitive resources that we could otherwise use to improve our therapy. Further, masking implies that we’ve judged our ‘real’ identity as not good enough, and it takes courage to set that down and be authentic. Doing so can mean confronting the shame, judgement, anxiety, grief—or whatever wound got you to create the mask in the first place.

So far I’ve mainly focused on the context of moments or sessions. At a broader level, I think authenticity can also mean working in the right context for you, working with a particular population that you feel strongly about, or where it’s more typical to speak out on a specific social justice concern etc. 

How do I be an Authentic Therapist?

Each of us has to determine what balance looks like. “In a professional context, the therapist’s values, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings should be tactfully expressed with alternations of transparency and opaqueness, especially when working with clients of dissimilar beliefs,” (Burks, 2012). That sounds great but it’s hard to enact well consistently; authenticity in practice means taking responsibility for the mistakes we make. So how authentic should you be? The only honest answer is, “good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement”

Being authentic does not mean a therapist should be completely transparent with clients at all times. Selective transparency (only sharing certain aspects of ourselves, or a limited amount of various parts) can be of use. Yalom is a master of sharing his thoughts and feelings with clients and using the resultant depth in the therapeutic relationship for process work. Some parts of our identity probably don’t need to come to work with us, and other aspects we only show some fraction of. For example, if I’m very extroverted, love to tell stories, and employ my sense of humor constantly in my non-work life, those behaviours would show up in session pretty differently (though they may show up in a way that would serve the client, depending on the context). Regardless, client wellbeing is our priority when trying to decide. 

You don't have to agree with someone to listen to them and empathize. 

When clients mention a value of theirs that conflicts with your worldview, remind yourself of the purpose of counselling. If you have a strong alliance, perhaps you might bring up the concern later at a calm time, but is that your role? The client is not paying you to confront their unrelated beliefs that you don't like. Navigating dissimilar beliefs requires care and precision of language; consider that “even when literally repeating another person’s words, we always add something to it” (Morrill, 2018).

Honest disagreement with clients can be useful. Friedman (2020) provided a relevant anecdote: Jenny (a client) described behavior by their partner that Jenny perceived as problematic, but when the therapist refused to say the partner was “absolutely wrong”, Jenny was angry and felt unsupported. The therapist reminded the client that their relationship was “grounded in an authentic exchange of thoughts and feelings”, which paved the way to repairing that rupture. Confrontation can be necessary when done with the client’s interest in mind, and it’s even better when done authentically within a strong therapeutic alliance.

Burks also discussed the possibility of viewing ‘client resistance’ as our own inauthenticity, that in those moments we could instead reflect on ‘therapist resistance’ and how our poor application of the therapist role, strange motivations, poor boundaries, emotional reactivity etc is getting in the way. When we start blaming clients for not getting on board with our agenda for their lives, we need to reflect on countertransference, boundaries, and burnout.

When a client shares about troublesome behaviour or shame, we can listen and empathize more easily when we recognize that similar things exist in our own histories. Acknowledging personal flaws can lead to less judgement and more compassion. “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Conclusions

A pessimist said “being paid to care has a false ring to it.” I disagree; generally, we only get in to this field, only go through the extensive education and licensing, only stick with it if it matters deeply to us. I hope you know what matters to you, and I hope you have the courage to pursue it longterm. 

Therapy has a contrived, almost artificial quality; we never see clients for any reason other than to intensely discuss their most vulnerable concerns for 50 minutes once a week. Despite how normal it can come to feel for us, it’s a strange encounter. So make it better by being a human; be someone clients feel comfortable being uncomfortable with.

Engagement:

• If you’ve done your own therapy as a client, reflect on authentic/inauthentic seeming behaviours from your therapist. What impact did it have?

• Consider times you felt authentic in session—what were the circumstances and how were you able to do this? Conversely, what about times you felt inauthentic?

• What’s it like to consider that some parts of your identity might not be ‘welcome’ in the therapy room? 

• How will you move through your next ‘authenticity hangover’? (times when you practice being authentic but worry that you have gone too far in your vulnerability or sharing)

• What’s the next step you need to take so you can be more authentic in session?

Sources:

Baldwin, Scott & Imel, Zac. (2013). Therapist Effects: Findings and Methods. (In book: Bergin and Garfield’s Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change (pp.258-297)Edition: 5th)

Burks, D. J., & Robbins, R. (2012). Psychologists’ Authenticity: Implications for Work in Professional and Therapeutic Settings. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 52(1), 75–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167810381472

Cashman, A. 2014. https://www.ccpa-accp.ca/being-authentic-as-a-counsellor/

Friedman, S. 2020. https://societyforpsychotherapy.org/reflections-on-authenticity-in-psychotherapy/

Heslop, A. https://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0606-heslop.html

Johns, R. G., Barkham, M., Kellett, S., & Saxon, D. (2019). A systematic review of therapist effects: A critical narrative update and refinement to review. Clinical psychology review, 67, 78–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2018.08.004

Morrill, Z. 2018. https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/01/importance-openness-authenticity-psychotherapy/

Schnellbacher, Jutta & Leijssen, Mia. (2009). The Significance of Therapist Genuineness From the Client's Perspective. Journal of Humanistic Psychology - J HUM PSYCHOL. 49. 207-228. 10.1177/0022167808323601. 

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