The therapist's evolving public self in a digitally disrupted marketplace.

Abstract

In the digital age, the cultivation of a public self—both personal and professional—is increasingly common and even expected. This undermines a norm of psychotherapy, in which therapists traditionally maintain a degree of privacy that aims to protect the individualized needs of their therapeutic work. This study aimed to explore how therapists navigate the curation of public self(s) and the treatment implications that come with this shift. In-depth interviews with 28 therapists were conducted and coded according to tenets of grounded theory methodology. Findings showed that digital technology is operating as a marketplace disruptor to the field of psychotherapy, presenting unprecedented challenges to long-held norms and assumptions about therapists’ behavior. Increased pressures to network online are more transparent, and curate digital selves have resulted in significant challenges to maintaining separation between public and private selves. This has led to fundamental changes in core elements of therapy, including the process of generating referrals, the nature of self-disclosure, the therapeutic relationship, and the overall clinical process.