In the Hyphen: Perceptions, Benefits, and Challenges of Social Workers’ Dual Identity as Clinician–Client

Abstract

This study is the first to directly inquire into the experience of clinical social workers who live “in the hyphen,” having received psychiatric diagnoses and/or been in therapy themselves. Rather than inhabiting these roles sequentially as previous studies suggest, many inhabit them simultaneously. Social workers who took part in this qualitative thematic analysis describe the benefits of living in the hyphen, such as greater understanding of client resistance and opportunity to serve as a model of realistic hope, as well as its challenges, including countertransference, retraumatization, and fear of being “outed.” Overall, the experience of “sitting in the other chair” was more important to participants than having a skillful therapist as a role model or sharing a specific diagnostic history with a client, which they cautioned did not offer a shortcut to authentic understanding or formation of a therapeutic alliance.