Can keeping a secret result in a psychological condition?

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Consider the concept of a secret. The main thing known about secrets is that keeping them is unhealthy for the brain.46 Psychologist James Pennebaker and his colleagues studied what happened when rape and incest victims, acting out of shame or guilt, chose to hold secrets inside. After years of study, Pennebaker concluded that “the act of not discussing or confiding the event with another may be more damaging than having experienced the event per se.”47 He and his team discovered that when subjects confessed or wrote about their deeply held secrets, their health improved, their number of doctor visits went down, and there were measurable decreases in their stress hormone levels.48
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Within the team-of-rivals framework, a secret is easily understood: it is the result of struggle between competing parties in the brain. One part of the brain wants to reveal something, and another part does not want to. When there are competing votes in the brain—one for telling, and one for withholding—that defines a secret. If no party cares to tell, that’s merely a boring fact; if both parties want to tell, that’s just a good story. Without the framework of rivalry, we would have no way to understand a secret.*** The reason a secret is experienced consciously is because it results from a rivalry. It is not business as usual, and therefore the CEO is called upon to deal with it.

The main reason not to reveal a secret is aversion to the long-term consequences. A friend might think ill of you, or a lover might be hurt, or a community might ostracize you. This concern about the outcome is evidenced by the fact that people are more likely to tell their secrets to total strangers; with someone you don’t know, the neural conflict can be dissipated with none of the costs. This is why strangers can be so forthcoming on airplanes, telling all the details of their marital troubles, and why confessional booths have remained a staple in one of the world’s largest religions. It may similarly explain the appeal of prayer, especially in those religions that have very personal gods, deities who lend their ears with undivided attention and infinite love. The newest twist on this ancient need to tell secrets to a stranger can be found in the form of websites like postsecret.com, where people go to anonymously disclose their confessions. Here are some examples: “When my only daughter was stillborn, I not only thought about kidnapping a baby, I planned it out in my head. I even found myself watching new mothers with their babies trying to pick the perfect one”; “I am almost certain that your son has autism but I have no idea how to tell you”; “Sometimes I wonder why my dad molested my sister but not me. Was I not good enough?” As you have doubtless noticed, venting a secret is usually done for its own sake, not as an invitation for advice. If the listener spots an obvious solution to some problem revealed by the secret and makes the mistake of suggesting it, this will frustrate the teller—all she really wanted was to tell. The act of telling a secret can itself be the solution. An open question is why the receiver of the secrets has to be human—or human-like, in the case of deities. Telling a wall, a lizard, or a goat your secrets is much less satisfying.

Like the text in the quote says depends on the consequences of revealing it and what effect it has on you for with holding it. The kind of psychological problem you develop is related to the kind of secret I guess. There could be obsession and depression that I can think of.

I think you're mistaking 'keeping a secret' with repressing a memory or feeling that seemed so terrible that it manifests itself in other ways through your unconscious.

Yes, but I believe its more accurate to say Reclusivness or Mutism would be the most common ways people get Mentall Illnesses, Privacy and secrets would probably lead into Mental Disorders.

Imho I dont believe Mental "DIS-ORDERS" are a problem..why? I believe it's becaus people with them are not in the ORDER of the Majority, not saying its fully just Im just saying that it's a balance that needs to exist that is commonly attacked imo

Supression?

I only read the title sorry but agree with what you just said. we are always told to read our textbook or read our prelab. Why aren't we told to figure it out and come up with our own theories in class? I'm not a teacher nor a person who would probably know the answer. But I guess it helps with following rules IDK. I'll probably change my mind on that at some point.

I think its ironic that *mental illness* is synonymous with *mental disorder*.

Disorder means a deviation from *order*; which means *chaos*. So the term suggests that chaos is bad (undesirable). But chaos is actually good.

On another note, sociology and today's society in general is always trying to pigeon hole us into the middle of the bell curve; the middle 80% lets
say.

So the middle 80% are normal. They are order. Ordered people are easy to manage and fit into society.

So the bottom 10% and the top 10% are abnormal. They are chaos. Chaotic people are hard to manage and fit into society.

If Einstein was *normal*, then we would not have General Relativity. Is this desirable? Heck no.

This is one of the reasons that labeling *mental disorders* is pointless. It clearly shows that society is viewing the mind and psychology in the wrong light.

Another reason that labeling *mental disorders* is pointless, is that the mind is impossible to measure.

Now people might say, "But what if there is a measurable brain damage". Well then this is a *brain disorder*, not a *mental disorder*.

The brain and the mind are not the same thing. The brain is biology. The mind is consciousness.

Yes the mind is affected by the brain. But the brain is only one part of the mind. The mind also has knowledge.

Humans are universal creators. Therefore each mind has the capacity to create/learn knowledge and therefore *change* its own mind. And I don't mean changing decisions. I mean literally changing ones own mind; ones consciousness.

The mind has an mind-bogglingly awesome capacity to rewire itself. Each wire is a neural pathway. Each pathway is a learned concept. So how does
one rewire her own mind?

By learning!