Self-Disclosure
Times Are Changing for the Better
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21613819 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Balon (0000-0001-6598-2242, Wayne State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 97 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 1094-1095 |
| Publication date | 2022-08-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Academic Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1040-2446 • E-ISSN: 1938-808X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1097/acm.0000000000004726 |
| PMID | 35917536 |
| OpenAlex | W4288058331 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
To the Editor: The May 2021 issue of Academic Medicine presented an insightful collection of articles addressing the value and importance of self-disclosing one’s mental health issues: Brower 1 and Kirch, 2 2 prominent psychiatrists, reflect on their personal struggles with depression and anxiety. Vaa Stelling and West 3 describe the use of faculty self-disclosure in resident education about stigma toward help-seeking during training. In their editorial, Coverdale, West, and Roberts 4 acknowledge that speaking openly about one’s mental health requires a great deal of courage, and how much they appreciate it. Although these articles remind us that the stigma of mental illness in medicine still exists, they also illustrate an important change: We now talk and write about stigma and self-disclosure, and promote this discussion in medical education. As we know, this has not always been the case. Over 25 years ago, at the time when self-disclosure was almost taboo, Kay Redfield Jamison published An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness.5 This brave woman and celebrated scholar exposed her vulnerability with experiencing bipolar disorder in the midst of a male-dominated academic world. Jamison’s memoir brilliantly explores and contemplates her mental illness from all possible angles. It was not always well accepted. Yet, this work has survived the test of time and is a remarkable memoir that I personally recommend to all residents. Times are gradually changing for the better, and self-disclosure is far more accepted now than it was when An Unquiet Mind was published in the 1990s. We should not forget that we owe gratitude for this change, in part, to the trailblazer of self-disclosure, Kay Redfield Jamison
Courage · Family medicine · Memoir · Mental health · Mental illness · Political science · Psychiatry · Psychoanalysis · Psychotherapist · Self-disclosure · Social stigma · Taboo · Empathy and Medical Education · Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout · Law · Medicine · Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
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