5 How much of yourself should you reveal?

Sharing personal information can often help to enhance communication and relationships. For example, in The Smiling Gallery story (Activity 2) coach Jones deliberately finds out more about Pritch’s brother and sisters. Sharing aspects of ourselves encourages authenticity and honesty in communication (Rogers, 1980).

Other people have explained common-sense ideas of relationships developing over time through a process of self-disclosure (Bylund et al., 2012). This process is commonly described using an onion metaphor, to suggest the levels, or layers, of self-disclosure (see Figure 2). Often, only the outer surface layer is seen by others, as that is the identity we are comfortable presenting.

Figure 2 Levels of self-disclosure (Bylund et al., 2012).

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This is a diagram with three circles. In the innermost circle is the following text: ‘Core: private; disclosed with caution to select individuals, e.g. deep emotions, core values and beliefs.’ In the next circle out is the following text: ‘Inner: infrequently shared but not hidden, e.g. political views, social attitudes’. In the next circle out is the following text: ‘Outer: shared when introduced to others in social situations, e.g. likes and dislikes in clothes and music.’ On the outside of the circle is the following text: ‘Surface: seen by others e.g. height, weight, from which others may make inferences.’

Figure 2 Levels of self-disclosure (Bylund et al., 2012).

Coaching, teaching, fitness training and management/leadership organisations each have their own professional standards, which attempt to clarify what is appropriate in terms of disclosure and professional relationships although these statements are often written in very general language. See Box 1 for an example.