Clients need care, not a clone.

Uncovering BS in Mental Health Care

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Identity can point to the door; the work centers you. Clients need care, not a clone.

The blank-slate era told us to keep our lives offstage. The algorithm era told us to lead with them. Somewhere between the two, therapists started headlining labels: “Neurodivergent therapist.” “I have ADHD.” “Trauma therapist in recovery.” Those tags do what they’re designed to do: they pull people in. But when identity becomes the brand, the room starts to tilt. Clients buy a story about you instead of a service for them. That’s not access—that’s confusion with good intentions.

“Identity isn’t a specialty.”

Lived experience can absolutely make care safer, faster, and kinder. It can inform how we pace, how we repair, and how we check consent. But it is not a specialty, and it doesn’t substitute for supervision, training, outcomes, or the hard parts of treatment. When our marketing shouts who we are louder than what we do, we invite mismatched expectations and parasocial sludge that therapy has to mop up later.

The identity hook (and the bend)

Labels work because they promise recognition. For people who’ve been misread a hundred times, “neurodivergent therapist” feels like a guarantee: you won’t punish their pacing, their stims, their zigzag thoughts. The bend happens when sameness masquerades as understanding. A client arrives thinking, “You’re me,” and bristles when therapy asks something their favorite Reel didn’t-track a habit, tolerate a feeling, or repair a boundary. The marketing promised twins; therapy needs partners.

When the brand edits the work

Public badges can start to direct the hour. We tidy our reactions to protect the tagline. We soften limits to look “affirming.” We sidestep supervision that might be “out of group.” That’s not clinical judgment; that’s content strategy in a lab coat. The room gets smaller. The client gets careful. And the therapy starts orbiting the identity we led with, instead of the problem they came to solve.

“Your label isn’t your license.”

Humanity, not headliner

Clients aren’t allergic to our humanity; they’re allergic to becoming our audience. “I’m neurodivergent” on an About page can be an honest context—especially if it explains the shape of the room: visual agendas, shorter reps, written summaries, permission to move. The trouble is when the sentence becomes the sales engine. Now the client is buying comfort language instead of clinical help.

The parasocial fallout no one names

Public labels collapse distance. Strangers DM case material. Clients feel entitled to access because your posts read like friendship. Boundaries look like betrayal. You didn’t intend a dual relationship; the feed built one without asking. Then the first session has to unspool assumptions before you can even find the work.

So what do we do instead?

Not silence. Not confession. Share on purpose. Identity can be a streetlight so people can find the door. Once they walk in, turn the spotlight toward their story—and keep it there. If a personal detail clarifies what the hour will feel like and lowers the shame tax of entering care, say it—and then get out of the way. Within the hour, any disclosure only earns its keep if it facilitates an intervention and hands the mic back: a moment of attunement, a clearer frame, and a next step the client can try now. Brief. Relevant. Testable. Then it’s their turn again.

“Self-disclosure is a tool, not a brand.”

The spine behind the sentence

If you insist on leading with identity, show the backbone beside it. “I’m neurodivergent” should sit next to the architecture that makes care usable—how you pace, how you check consent, how you measure change, how you repair misattunement. Otherwise, it’s SEO with feelings.

Because at the end of the day, clients deserve more than a mirror. They deserve a clinician who can hold their world without making it match ours. Use identity to help them find you. Use competence to help them change.