All of Pane 3 will be known to us but not to the people we deal with. This pane is sometimes called the mask or the façade. It is on the Bottom Left of the Window.
However it can also be a positive part of us – there will always be areas that are private to us that we do not wish to disclose to others. This is necessary for our protection. It may also be good for others’ protection.
For example if I, as a parent, disclose everything about myself without any sense of appropriate boundary, it may be harmful to my child’s growth.
Let us consider Pane 3 in the context of Family Support Work.
We can reduce its size through self disclosure. (This is the yellow box on the left with the arrow pointing down). That is, the extent to which we are willing to share information about ourselves with others, i.e. the information that is not normally shown to the world. If it was, it would be in Pane 1! (As I said when I was describing Pane 1, the dotted red line moves downwards).
It differs from Pane 2 in that we are making a conscious decision to share (or not share) the information. In that way it’s not a blind area. We know that we are sharing/not sharing and we usually know why too.
So it will often have an emotional dimension. (That is, there is an element of risk, emotionally, in sharing the information).