Practitioners can sometimes foster more egalitarian relationships with clients through exposing their own feelings of vulnerability and frustration. But they should proceed with caution, warns Robert Mirow

VULNERABILITY is not a condition we enjoy. It seems natural for us as individuals to seek to protect ourselves from that which might hurt us. The dictionary definition of vulnerability refers to a state of ‘being capable of physical or emotional wounding, hurt or exposure’. To suggest, therefore, that our vulnerability may assist us in caring and supporting others appears to be nonsense.