For those with psych history

[smoup]

What is your "rule" about sharing you history with patients? Never? If not never, how do you decide?

The therapists I have found to be the most helpful are ones that have confided in me things about their past, whether made up or not, that made me trust them and feel like they understood because they'd "been there, done that" sort of thing.

[RNcashy89]

The rule is "never." Once you start sharing personal hx, the conversation tends to become about you instead of about the client, which is countertherapeutic.

Keep in mind that psychotherapists have a great deal more formal education in that specific area than generalist psychiatric nurses do, and there is a significant difference between being a psychiatric nurse and being a psychotherapist.

As a long-time psychiatric nurse (generalist) and long-time psych CNS (psychotherapist), I have to say I'm suspicious of the therapists you say were so helpful because they "confided" personal hx to you. Even for psychotherapists, that is frowned upon and considered poor practice.

Agree with above poster. Within my facility, sharing your own psychiatric history with a patient would likely result in a formal warning. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

[TerpGal02, ASN]

I have bipolar 2 and am a psych nurse. I AM with the others in the "never" camp. I do share with all my patients the perspective that I take with my OWN treatment though. I always tell my patients two things at admission that are realizations I have come to through the years 1) It always takes an immense amount of courage to ask for/receive the help they need and 2) you will only get out of your treatment what YOU put into it. And when I tell my adolescent patients who are bullying victims, "that totally sucks", I mean it, and I KNOW firsthand even though I never tell them that I do.