Colorado Supreme Court
Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel
Promoting Professionalism. Protecting the Public.
To Share or Not to Share?
Lawyers keep secrets
every day. Confidentiality is a cornerstone
of the legal system. Keeping personal secrets, however, big or small, can
threaten your mental and physical health.
The Colorado Lawyer Assistance Program can help you understand the
importance of appropriately communicating with others so you can lead a happier
and healthier life.
By SARAH MYERS
Spring 2014
Lawyers
make their living communicating with clients, colleagues, judges, juries, witnesses,
and in briefs, motions, and written transactions. And yet lawyers keep secrets, many of which
can change the outcome of a case and the course of one or more lives. Lawyers are duty bound to protect privileged
communication and information. Our legal system could not operate without the
attorney-client privilege. The majority
of the time, keeping information confidential is simple because it is part of
the job. Sometimes it can create short
term stress that is manageable. But
sometimes, when a lawyer is juggling necessary professional secrets AND keeping
personal secrets in his or her life, it can result in neurophysiological
changes that can compromise all aspects of health.
Good
lawyers make good story tellers. But what
happens when you are telling so many stories that reality becomes blurred? In order to zealously represent clients, lawyers
are expected to put aside their personal belief system, tell stories, and engage
in persuasive or deceptive communication on a daily basis. How often do you find yourself telling
half-truths or avoiding the question all together? In the legal profession, this is considered
not only an art form, but often necessary in representing clients. Much like a character actor who becomes
immersed in habits, movements, facial expressions, or the accent of the
character they are playing, lawyers too are required to put on a façade of
sorts. Over time, that façade can become
difficult to shed or even recognize, and can damage not only a lawyer’s mental
and physical health, but also their personal relationships.
Keeping secrets compromises our mental, emotional, and even physical
health. You’ve probably heard euphemisms
regarding secrets such as, you are “carrying a burden” or are “weighed down” by
a secret. University studies conducted
by faculty at Tufts, Columbia, Wake Forest, and Stanford suggest that there may
be a good reason we use language that euphemizes secrets as physical burdens. Individuals who conceal meaningful information
and keep personal secrets bear psychological burdens that translate into
physical exhaustion and stress. The
concept of “secrets” is truly a complicated one. Like stress, there are good secrets and there
are bad secrets.
Waiting to see your spouse, partner or best friend in person before you
tell them you just got a promotion is a good secret. Hiding the fact that you are concerned that
your current anxiety or stress is negatively impacting your work is a bad
secret. The difference lies in the
potential outcome of the secret being revealed.
How risky do you perceive its protection? Will people be hurt, angry, or even violent if
the secret is revealed? Do you believe you could you lose a
relationship if you speak the truth? The
more negative the consequences (or perceived consequences) of the secret being
revealed, the more psychological and physiological damage you will do to
yourself by keeping it. To make matters
worse, there are also secrets that might qualify in categories such as self-deception,
“little white lies,” concealment, exaggeration, equivocation,
half-truths, misdirection, or pretense. It takes much more energy for the body and the
brain to keep a secret than for us to appropriately express what is going on. There are, of course, some topics that
warrant privacy and discretion, depending on the situation.
In the “Age of Oversharing and Social Media,” where is the line between
actually having some privacy and keeping a secret that will compromise your
health or relationships? The phenomena
of social media and reality TV have created a relatively new social norm: tell EVERYONE in the world EVERYTHING about
you. If you don’t disclose all of your
thoughts, opinions, and daily experiences, you are off the grid and invisible.
Relationships can adopt this model as well.
There are individuals who believe that you are being secretive if you do
not share every detail of your experience with them. Depending on the situation, telling private
secrets to judgmental, non-trustworthy individuals can make the situation much
worse. They could berate or shame you
about things that are already upsetting you, causing you to withdraw further,
or cause irreparable harm to the relationship.
They could use your secret against you as ammunition in future
disagreements or as gossip. The goal is to find trustworthy confidents
that you respect, are unbiased and do not project their person opinion onto
your life, your choices, your thoughts, or your beliefs.
Dr. Anita Kelly’s book The
Psychology of Secrets explains that one reason we keep secrets is because
we feel shame or are fearful of other people’s reactions. The problem is that we don’t know for sure how
someone else will react to us. Instead,
we project how we imagine someone else will react and, imagining the worst,
keep the secret rather than unburdening ourselves. This challenges and distorts our perception
of reality because it takes a tremendous amount of physiological energy to keep
secrets. The mental and emotional
exertion it takes to continually hide truths from others affects brain
functioning. For example, individuals who knowingly lie
often perceive others as being dishonest.
In addition, frankly discussing or disclosing information comes across
less negative than if the individual conceals information that is later
discovered. In fact, research suggests that we need to
discuss and process traumatic situations after they happen. If we do not discuss or process them, secret
experiences will become a source of guilt, shame, or anxiety. The guilt, shame, and anxiety will ultimately
become more traumatic and damaging to us than the original experience. In other words, it is not what happens, but rather
how we mentally and emotionally process events that matters in the long run.
The emotional burden of keeping secrets becomes a physiological issue
over time. Part of our brain, the cingulate cortex, is
wired to tell the truth. If we override its
natural functioning, the brain and the body will become immersed in a stress
response that impairs memory, learning, and even weaken the immune system over
time. Finding appropriate ways to
express yourself safely is a challenge for every lawyer. Whether you are in court, with clients, with
partners, or at home with family or friends, it is a daily practice. Lawyers must learn to balance and
compartmentalize the duty of confidentiality under the Rules of Professional
Conduct with the need to be honest in their personal relationships. It’s not about sharing your confidential work
life in your personal life, but rather learning how and when to put down the
lawyer persona. You shouldn’t have to be
secretive or deceptive or persuasive with those in your personal life. It is the ultimate balancing act and is made
even more complicated by the fact that for everyone, the concept of secrets can
be illusive.
Secrets aren’t always obvious, even to the keeper. People hold back certain thoughts or needs
for many reasons. We don’t want to hurt
or offend others, we feel there may be negative consequences for sharing. We might believe we are protecting people by
not sharing the truth with them. Sometimes
we are so afraid of what other people will say or think that we go to the
opposite extreme and blurt out information that isn’t really the whole truth in
demanding, insensitive, and even cruel ways.
Depending on our past experiences with expressing our thoughts or
feelings, we may believe that other people cannot “deal” with us or will let us
down. Over time we become so used to
asking other people what they need or think that we forget to look at our own
desires. Or we unconsciously want to push
other people away because we’d rather “hurt them before they hurt us.” Honest and authentic communication is a not
just an interpersonal skill, it is also an intrapersonal skill. Communicating authentically means to be
honest and say what we really mean. Lawyers
are innately skilled in specialized forms of communication that are necessary
for the practice of law, but that doesn’t mean they are always skilled at the
styles of communication that benefit personal relationships.
Are you aware of your own needs and feelings? Lawyers spend their time helping and taking
care of the needs of many other people. Take
some time to examine your own well-being.
Are you aware of how many times in a day you keep secrets or are
deceptive in your communication with others?
Make a list of your secrets. Examine
each and decide which ones are worthy of discretion, and which are burdening
you unnecessarily. There are outlets for
communicating these in appropriate ways and with appropriate people. If you are struggling, knowing there are
resources available to help you isn’t enough.
You have to take the first step and reach out for assistance so you can
avoid the stress of “living in secret.”
Sarah Myers, LAC,
LMFT, is the Clinical Director for the Colorado Lawyer Assistance Program.
Your Colorado Lawyer
Assistance Program provides free and confidential services for judges, lawyers,
and law students. If you need resources for ANY issue that is compromising your
ability to be a productive member of the legal community, or if there is
someone you are concerned about, contact COLAP at (303) 986-3345 or toll free
at 1-855-208-1168. For more information about COLAP, please visit www.coloradolap.org.