As the years go on, I’ve realized that I have become a good deal more ‘myself’ as a therapist – meaning I present more of who I am, though only when appropriate to benefit the particular individual I’m working with. So I might talk about something that happened in my own past if it relates to what the client is discussing; I will generally answer questions about my own life; and generally I much more prize and focus on the actual relationship between me and my client. This has gone along with my own growth, as a person and as a therapist, in which I’ve realized clearly that what matters in the therapy is what works with the given person I’m with, and what is far less important is my trying to follow a given theoretical paradigm that I was taught years ago .