What Informs Your Secrets Policy in Couples Therapy?

Many couples therapists, especially newer ones, adopt a no secrets policy. 

This makes a lot of sense.  For one, it's counterintuitive to keep an affair secret when working with a couple to build connection and safety. 

There is also the practical reality that holding a secret. It adds another layer to manage when couples therapy is already complex. You are tracking two people, their interactional pattern, their individual experiences, the alliance with each partner, the goals of therapy, and whatever model or interventions you are trying to use. Add a significant secret into the mix, and suddenly there is another layer to manage.

But what if the secret isn't an affair? And what if disclosing it — whether by the client or the therapist — could cause harm?

What exactly do we mean by a secret?

Not all secrets are the same, nor are they limited to affairs. 

Imagine that during an individual session, a client tells you:

I'm gay, but I'm not ready to tell my spouse.

Or:

I watch pornography. My partner would be devastated if they knew because it goes against their values.

Or:

I'm not attracted to my partner anymore. I love them and don't want to hurt them, so I don't want them to know.

Or perhaps:

My partner has been physically abusive. If they find out I told you, I am afraid the violence will become worse.

These are all pieces of information that one partner may not want disclosed.

And clinically, they are very different situations.

A blanket statement such as “I don't keep secrets in couples therapy” can sound straightforward until the therapist is sitting across from a real person asking them to hold information that involves identity, safety, sexuality, attachment, fear, shame, or uncertainty.

That is when policy meets clinical judgment.

What is the purpose of your policy?

There isn't necessarily one secrets policy that every couples therapist should adopt.

Some clinicians work from a strict no-secrets policy. Others use a limited-secrets policy. Some distinguish between information they can temporarily hold while helping a client determine how to discuss it and information that makes ongoing conjoint treatment clinically difficult. Others may pause couples therapy when certain disclosures occur.

Different theoretical orientations may also influence how therapists conceptualize individual information within a relational treatment.

What matters is understanding why we chose the policy we use.

For example, what clinical purpose does your policy serve?

Is it intended to protect the therapeutic alliance with both partners?

Is it intended to prevent the therapist from aligning with one partner or becoming triangulated?

Is it based on a systemic understanding that certain information fundamentally changes the relational system?

These are clinical questions rather than simply questions about whether keeping a secret is “right” or “wrong.”

Safety changes the conversation

There are also circumstances in which the central question may not be transparency between partners at all.

If a client discloses abuse and believes disclosure could increase their risk of harm, the therapist is dealing with a safety issue.

That requires a different kind of clinical thinking.

Is conjoint therapy appropriate right now?

What might happen if this information is disclosed?

What safety assessment is needed?

Does the treatment structure need to change?

A secrets policy should never replace clinical assessment.

Your policy also has to fit your professional obligations

There is another important consideration: therapists do not create confidentiality rules entirely on their own.

Your consent process, confidentiality practices, documentation, professional standards, and legal obligations depend on your profession and jurisdiction.

A policy you establish for your couples practice does not automatically override a client's confidentiality rights or your regulatory responsibilities.

Therapists should understand the standards that apply to their own profession and jurisdiction and clearly explain their approach to clients before conducting individual sessions within ongoing couples therapy.

Waiting until a client has disclosed something significant is a very difficult time to discover that the therapist and client had very different understandings of confidentiality.

And then there is the therapist in the room

There is another layer that I think deserves just as much attention.

Where did your secrets policy come from?

Clinical training and theoretical orientation certainly influence our policies.

But therapists are also people with histories, relationships, experiences, values, and beliefs about what healthy relationships look like.

A therapist who has experienced betrayal may understand secrecy differently.

A therapist who grew up in a family where important things were never discussed may have a different relationship with disclosure.

Someone who strongly values complete openness between partners may naturally gravitate toward a different policy than someone who places significant value on individual privacy within relationships.

A therapist may also feel that holding information from one partner puts them in a position of betraying the other. That, too, is worth examining. What have we implicitly or explicitly promised each person when they entered couples therapy? And how does our understanding of that responsibility shape the policy we create?

Again, none of those positions automatically tells us what the clinical policy should be.

They simply remind us that therapist use of self is present even when we are writing policies.

Some questions worth asking yourself.

If you currently have a secrets policy — or you are developing one — consider sitting with these questions:

• What is my current secrets policy? Could I explain the clinical reasoning behind it? 

  
  

• What kinds of information does my policy consider a “secret”? 

  
  

• Do I treat all undisclosed information the same way, or are there important distinctions? 

  
  

• What happens if a client tells me something and then asks me not to share it with their partner? 

  
  

• Could there be situations in which I would temporarily hold information while helping a client decide how to address it? 

  
  

• At what point might undisclosed information make conjoint therapy inappropriate or clinically unworkable? 

  
  

• What are my professional and regulatory obligations regarding confidentiality?

  
  

• Have my own experiences with honesty, privacy, secrecy, betrayal, or relationships influenced how I think about this issue? 

  
  

• What do I personally believe partners “should” tell each other, and how is that different from what is clinically necessary for this particular couple?

  
  

There may not be an easy answer to every one of these questions.

There may not be an easy answer to every one of these questions. That is partly the point.

A secrets policy isn't just a statement you add to your consent form. It reflects how you think about confidentiality, safety, autonomy, relationships, and your role as the couples therapist.

This is one of the clinical grey areas we explore in the Couples Therapist Toolbox — not by giving you a policy to adopt, but by helping you develop one you can think through, explain, and use intentionally in your work.