Project
Becomings
engage · learn · reimagine · grow
Reimagining recovery narratives following adversity
Disclosure And Reciprocity
Exploring how disclosure can create connection and reciprocity — while bringing boundaries and responsibilities of its own.
Why Disclose?
Research involving lived experience can ask participants to share deeply personal parts of themselves while the researcher remains comparatively unknown.
As a researcher-survivor, this created a tension for me. I was inviting co-researchers to bring experiences of trauma and recovery into the research while holding experiences of my own. Remaining entirely silent about that position did not necessarily feel neutral.
At particular moments, I therefore chose to disclose aspects of my own lived experience. This was not intended to suggest that my experiences were the same as those of co-researchers, or that shared experience meant shared understanding.
Instead, disclosure could change something about the research encounter. It could make my own position more visible, communicate why particular questions mattered to me, and introduce a degree of vulnerability into a relationship in which others were being asked to make themselves known.
This raised questions of reciprocity. If participatory research seeks to challenge extractive relationships, then it was important to consider what it meant for personal knowledge and vulnerability to travel predominantly in one direction — from co-researcher to researcher.
Yet disclosure was not automatically reciprocal simply because something personal had been shared. It could create connection, but it could also shift attention towards me, influence what another person felt able to say, or alter the dynamics of an encounter in unintended ways.
The question therefore became less “Should a researcher disclose?” and more:
“What might this disclosure do here, within this particular relationship and moment?”
Disclosure As A Relational Practice
Researcher self-disclosure can easily be framed as an individual decision: what should I share, and how much should I say?
My experience within Project Becomings suggested that disclosure was more complicated than this. The significance of sharing something personal did not lie only in the information being disclosed. It also depended upon who was present, what had already happened between us, why I was sharing, how it was received and what happened afterwards.
The same disclosure could therefore do something very different in different encounters.
At times, sharing lived experience could reduce some of the distance associated with the researcher role. It could create recognition, invite further conversation or communicate that vulnerability was not expected to travel only from co-researcher to researcher.
At other times, disclosure might be unnecessary, poorly timed or risk changing the focus of an encounter. Something intended as connection could unintentionally invite comparison, create an expectation of similarity or place another person in the position of responding to my experience.
Disclosure therefore became less about following a rule for how much a researcher should reveal and more about relational judgement: attending to the particular person, relationship, context and moment in which disclosure was being considered.
This also meant remaining attentive to what happened after something had been shared. Disclosure entered the relationship and could affect what subsequently became possible to say, feel or know.
Rather than understanding researcher disclosure as inherently empowering or problematic, I came to understand it as a relational practice whose effects could not be completely known in advance.
Reciprocity isn’t About Giving The Same Back
eciprocity was important within Project Becomings, but it did not mean that everyone needed to share the same amount or the same kinds of personal information.
If a co-researcher shared something deeply personal, I did not need to respond by sharing an equally personal experience of my own. Doing so could shift attention towards me or create an expectation that personal disclosure should always be returned.
Sharing my own experiences also did not remove the differences between our roles. I was still the researcher, with particular responsibilities for the research, its ethical conduct and how people's contributions were eventually represented.
For me, reciprocity was therefore less about “you share, so I share” and more about questioning a research relationship in which participants are expected to give their experiences, knowledge and vulnerability while the researcher gives very little of themselves in return.
Sometimes sharing something about myself could help create a more open and human relationship. At other times, listening, making space or choosing not to disclose could be the more appropriate response.
Reciprocity therefore meant paying attention to the relationship: what was being asked of each of us, what we were giving and receiving, and what responsibilities came with that.
When Not To Share
Choosing to share something about myself was only one part of researcher self-disclosure. Choosing when not to share was equally important.
Before disclosing something personal, I needed to consider why I wanted to share it and what it might bring to that particular moment. Was it likely to support connection or understanding? Was it relevant to what the co-researcher was saying? Or was I responding to my own discomfort, emotions or desire to show that I understood?
Good intentions were not enough. A disclosure intended to create connection could still interrupt somebody's story, shift attention towards me or make them feel that our experiences were more similar than they actually were.
There were also things that belonged to me and did not need to become part of the research. Being open about my position as a survivor did not mean making my whole personal history available to co-researchers or to the research itself.
Sometimes, therefore, the more responsible choice was simply to listen, remain present and allow somebody else's experience to occupy the space without adding my own.
This meant approaching disclosure as a choice that needed to be made with care rather than as a requirement of participatory research. What mattered was not how much I disclosed, but whether sharing — or remaining silent — supported the relationship and the purpose of the encounter.