Honest disclosure is central to the work of all psychotherapy. But, clients are not always honest with their therapists. They keep secrets, avoid or minimize discussion of personally salient topics, and sometimes tell outright lies. This book examines the nature of lies and concealment in everyday life and in therapy, with a focus on the process by which patients keep secrets and lie to their therapists. Using the results of two comprehensive studies involving over 1,000 clients, the authors discuss common lies told by therapy clients about a wide range of issues including sex, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, trauma, feelings about the therapist and the progress of therapy. The lies therapists tell to their patients (e.g. regarding feelings of frustration with clients) are also examined. Throughout, the authors emphasize ways therapists can prevent or at least minimize client concealment, and show readers how to honestly and respectfully wrestle with the natural reluctance we all share toward disclosing the truth about our experiences.
Using the results of two comprehensive studies involving over 1,000 clients, this book examines the nature of lies and concealment in therapy, and shows therapists how to prevent or minimize client concealment.
Drawing on their own and others' studies, the authors examine the nature and importance of clients' secrets and lies in the context of psychotherapy. They discuss how clients are typically deceptive in therapy, the difficulties therapists have in detecting secrets and lies, and why patient deception matters; efforts from social science and philosophical traditions to define and categorize the lies, secrets, and deceptions used by humans; the clinical and empirical literature on reasons why clients lie, how client deception can be categorized, and the topics that tend to be concealed, minimized, or lied about; and the factors that impact clients' tendency to disclose vs. keep secrets or lie in therapy, the process by which they decide to disclose or deceive, the relationship between disclosure and forms of deception, and the consequences of keeping secrets or telling lies in therapy. They also describe therapist secrets and lies and the findings of their studies of about 1,300 client secrets and lies, including the most common lies told, personal and clinical factors affecting their occurrence, and the perceived reasons for and consequences of these lies, as well as clinical examples of specific types of lies, such as suicidal thoughts, self-harm, emotional distress, sexual issues, substance abuse, trauma, and clinical progress and feelings about the therapist, and the training, research, and clinical implications of client lies and secrets. Annotation ©2019 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
