Factory Settings - E15. Self-Disclosure

Factory Settings is a podcast exploring politics, culture, relationships, mental health, addiction, and media, through the lens of how our built-in biases affect the way we consume information and form opinions.

Bridget Phetasy and her co-host/husband Jeren Montgomery, an associate marriage & family therapist, dissect self-disclosure in both private and public spaces in this week’s episode. They cover self-disclosure in our culture, the rise of therapy, how if you self-disclose publicly you’re opening yourself up to other people’s opinions and interpretations of you personal experiences, when self-disclosures can be putting you at risk, and whether you might be self-disclosing for the wrong reasons, such as the search for validation. Bridget talks about how self-disclosures in her writing help her connect to people, Jeren weighs the delicate balance of self-disclosures as a therapist, and having to judge the benefits and potential costs of being so open about his life on a podcast. They discuss vulnerability as a strength vs. weaponized vulnerability and empathy, sharing parts of your story that contain other people, and their encounters with the old school ideas that good therapists don’t self-disclose and good writers don’t either.

Questions of the week:

• Where are you vulnerable in your life and where do you wish you could be more or less vulnerable?

• What are your perceptions about self-disclosure?

• What current event or current media fad do you want Bridget & Jeren to cover through the lens of their factory settings?

Subscribe to Beyond Parody with Bridget Phetasy to submit questions, suggest topics and access all Factory Settings Bonus Episodes.