The self-care culture is saturated with suggestions based on consumer efforts to buy your way to emotional restoration. As many of us have sadly faced with the by-product of this movement, there is no amount of bath bombs, oat milk lattes or doom scrolling that actually leaves us feeling restored.

While the therapeutic relationship hinges on human connection and empathy, there's an unspoken expectation that therapists somehow exist outside the boundaries of the human experience.

As the field of mental health evolves, more practitioners are questioning whether appropriate self-disclosure might actually deepen therapeutic work rather than compromise it.