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I used to think that welcoming the soul into group conversations required a promise of confidentiality. The late Rachael Kessler, pioneer in the field of social and emotional learning and author of The Soul of Education, changed my mind.
For sure, a spirit of confidentiality helps. When we share unfiltered truth, we’re letting masks drop away. It’s no surprise, then, that the soul—that raw, vital, authentic innermost part of ourselves—shies away from direct confrontation or full exposure. Trusting that our listeners will protect and defend our vulnerability—rather than ridiculing or exposing it further—gives us safer ground to stand on. We can speak more honestly. We can share what’s difficult, halting, or tender. And in so doing, we can reach what’s most creative, courageous, and connective. Taking a firm, unequivocal stand against sloppy boundaries of communication means a group can go deeper much faster, promoting real and often astonishing change. The soul feels welcome. We transform.
Such a commitment also raises questions, however. For one, what happens if someone speaks about something illegal or dangerous? Most soul-welcoming groups or experiences neither claim nor intend to serve as group therapy but that doesn’t necessarily mean they avoid therapeutic territory. Maybe in the reassurance of the circle, a participant confuses that boundary and shares a struggle with suicide or a torment about having committed a crime. Maybe a student brings up instances of abuse at home. For teachers in a high school setting, the guidelines are clear: we’re obligated to report any threat of violence, to others or to oneself. A circle of adults won’t have such clear direction and will have to wade through much murkier waters.
Further, a promise of confidentiality can limit one’s ability to process emotionally charged information. That’s especially true if we’ve committed to double confidentiality where, not only will we not share with anyone outside our group, we won’t bring up the topic with anyone inside our group either. Such an expectation might work fine in a group that has just met and won’t likely see each other again. But what happens in an ongoing group when someone drops an emotional bombshell or opens a can of worms? What happens if someone’s honesty insults or stirs another’s feelings? Where can participants turn to work through what they’ve heard? Words shared in such circles do not just disappear. They can’t be unsaid or unheard. If I’m your co-worker and you tell our group how little you feel motivated on the job, for example, I may have a tough time trusting in your effort going forward. How can we not acknowledge that reality? Again, such sticky situations may happen only rarely, but they will happen. Saying we’ll keep full confidentiality can put us in a tough spot.
The late Rachael Kessler, one of my heroes.
In her writings and workshops with the Passageworks Institute of Boulder, CO, Rachael Kessler argued that, in fact, we should not promise confidentiality, even when we want to encourage discussions about things that really matter. Humans make mistakes, she acknowledged. Even when adults and young people alike intend to provide confidentiality, we sometimes let things slip. When we’ve been assured of full confidentiality, such missteps breed an even deeper mistrust and sense of betrayal that can permanently damage a group. Like Charlie Brown falling down after Lucy pulls the football away despite having promised she’d leave it on the ground, the soul gets left alone wondering when or if it could ever really be safe.
In Kessler’s mind, we do better instead to commit to honoring privacy. Confidentiality represents a binary commitment: either I don’t talk about what I’ve heard in the group or I do. I’m not really forced to pay much attention to my process around doing either. I keep the secret or I fail to. Honoring privacy, on the other hand, asks for a more active, more resilient, more participatory stance. Rather than relying on a brittle or inflexible yes/no wall, we form a boundary of expectation through communication and interchange.[1] We find more fluidity. What privacy would I want as a speaker? What would it look like, sound like, and feel like? How can we respectfully address any concerns that come up? With such questions, a group does usually register its intention to keep what’s said in the group in the group—but also defines and develops tools to carefully monitor any leaning away from that intention.
Pretty quickly, honoring privacy becomes a practice of awareness and observation, both of self and of other. If I’m the one sharing something private, I can take a moment to ask why I’m offering the information or story. Am I trying to advance the topic at hand or to generate sympathy? Am I looking to get attention or to advance understanding? Should this get relayed unintentionally outside the circle, will I survive? If the answer to this last question is yes, for example, I can put myself forward. If not, I should refrain from sharing.
Likewise, when I’m tempted to speak outside the circle, I can run through a healthy inquiry checklist first. What makes me want to share this story or information? Am I just enjoying the thrill of being a gossip insider? Or do I have legitimate concerns for my own self-care or for the well-being of others? Whom does my speaking serve? Who could it harm? Honoring privacy means that I can share my struggle with the larger group rather than denying it. With our combined dedication, we can work together to navigate any thorny terrain. Here, our discussion and direction would serve to deepen and confirm the group’s original commitment, clarifying what might have been entered blithely or without sophistication. The commitment to privacy, then, becomes an active practice, always growing, always refining.
Adults can gossip just as well as young people do.
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It might be true that the questions raised here apply more when working with young people than they do when working with full-grown adults. For sure, kids need skills that many adults have—containing and processing loaded information, asking questions of themselves and their own motivations, asking for help when they need it, and the like. At the same time, many adults also lack those very same skills.
As a teacher or as a participant, I don’t want to promise something I know the group will have difficulty delivering. I’d rather commit to an ongoing process of mutual definition, one that acknowledges complexity and subtlety. Even if we don’t set a black-and-white bar with the word “confidentiality,” we can stay fierce in tending the boundaries of appropriate privacy. Hopefully that’s enough to encourage each participant to speak openly and honestly. Hopefully, that’s enough to welcome the soul.[2]
[1] In my classes, I do actually have students generate their own commitments rather than having me just hand expectations down. Starting that way gets more buy-in and finds language unique to that particular constellation of kids. I can steer the conversation—toward honoring privacy, for example—but the final words remain theirs in the end.
[2] I’m eternally thankful for Kessler’s clarity and provocation here. I trust that my take on the issue will continue to evolve, but she has given me a firmer, more skillful foundation on which to stand.
Thanks for your thoughtful discussion of confidentiality, Ted. There are indeed difficulties in maintaining confidentiality, and I personally have experienced times when professional commitments obligated me to violate it and personal issues and mistakes have lead me to violate it as well.
One question I’d ask, though, is: Are there any situations in which a commitment to confidentiality creates such a benefit that it would be worth making, even if in our humanness we might not be able to utterly guarantee it?
An analogous question might be: Are there any relationships in which a commitment to being faithful with our affections and our sexual behavior creates such a benefit that it would be worth making, even if in our humanness we might not be able to utterly guarantee it?
Having just celebrated my 11th wedding anniversary, I would answer the second question with a resounding “Yes!” And having recently experienced the inner security and freedom to “let my soul speak” in a group committed to double confidentiality, I would answer the first question in the same way.
Just as my commitment to being faithful in my marriage – and my success at following through on that commitment – has created the framework for my relationship with my wife to be trusting and loving, the commitment to double confidentiality in that group allowed me to explore my very personal question in a way that I would not have been able to without it. If group members had had the option to talk about what I said with me, with each other or outside the group, it would have had a chilling effect on my willingness to speak what was true for me and on the insights that came from speaking that truth.
This sort of inner exploration is a very delicate process, and for me and many others, it requires a great deal of safety. How do we get that safety in relationships unless we are able to make explicit promises to each other to preserve it – even if there is a slim possibility that despite their best efforts, others might break those promises, “let things slip,” and betray us? Without a firm confidentiality agreement, no relationship or group would be safe enough for such a sensitive exploration.
I would also say that Kessler’s process of “honoring privacy,” although it might be appropriate and even ideal for groups of students learning to be responsible for their behavior within a group, does not provide the high level of safety needed for groups facilitating exploration of our inner wisdom. It would feel very unsafe for a group committed to “honoring privacy” to have the right to discuss the conditions under which they might share my innermost thoughts with others. It would feel equally unsafe if individuals in such a group had the option, even after thoughtful consideration, to discuss my delicate inner exploration with each other or outside the group. I would not mind, however, if someone who was upset by something I said processed it within a confidential counseling or psychotherapy relationship. That might be worth considering as an option within the confidentiality agreement in such a group.
I do agree with your rather different point that those in the position of sharing need to be mindful of what they say in the context of the people and relationships within the group. In the group I was in, one of the members was in a position to influence the decision about whether I would become one of his organization’s facilitators. If I’d had doubts about whether I wanted to become a facilitator, I would not have explored them in a group that he was part of.
Similarly, the limits to confidentiality that my psychotherapy clients explicitly agree to when they sign a “consent to treatment” form gives them the responsibility of whether or not to share information with me that I cannot maintain in confidence. But these examples are not so much to the point of whether confidentiality should ever be asked or given, but about being thoughtful regarding the topics, circumstances and relationships in which the commitment to confidentiality legitimately can or can’t be present.
Being human is often about doing our best and trusting that others will do theirs. Creating and maintaining strong agreements for safety and confidentiality as best we can in specific relationships and groups for purposes such as “letting your soul speak,” engaging in psychotherapy, or enjoying a loving marriage is not more than we can and should ask of each other – and indeed, those agreements are essential to making it possible for us to experience the full range of who we really are.
Maintaining privacy and confidentiality helps to protect souls from potential harms including psychological harm such as embarrassment or distress; social harms such as loss of employment or damage to one‘s financial standing; and criminal or civil liability. Especially in social/behavioral clinical/spiritual situation the primary risk to subjects is often an invasion of privacy or a breach of confidentiality.
The compact between group leader and participant in the group situation is not predicated on the absolute, but on the understanding of the individual in the situation about the boundaries of the communication. The participant must understand that certain information cannot absolutely be retained by either group members or group leader. Below is a paraphrase and adaptation of a discussion of privacy and confidentiality by the University of California, Irvine.
What is Privacy?
Privacy is the control over the extent, timing, and circumstances of sharing oneself (physically, behaviorally, or intellectually) with others. For example, persons may not want to be seen entering a place that might stigmatize them, such as a substance abuse treatment program clearly identified by signs on the front of the building. The evaluation of privacy also involves consideration of how the group leader accesses information from or about potential participants (e.g., recruitment process). Group leaders should consider strategies to protect privacy interests relating to contact with potential participants, and access to private information.
Privacy is…
• About people
• A sense of being in control of access that others have to ourselves
• A right to be protected
• Is in the eye of the participant, not the group leader
What is Confidentiality?
Confidentiality pertains to the treatment of information that a participant has disclosed in a relationship of trust and with the expectation that it will not be divulged to others without permission in ways that are inconsistent with the understanding of the original disclosure.
During the informed consent process, participants must be informed of the precautions that will be taken to protect the confidentiality of the information and be informed of the parties who will or may have access (e.g., other group members). This will allow participants to decide about the adequacy of the protections and the acceptability of the possible release of private information to the interested parties.
Confidentiality…
• Is about identifiable information
• Is an extension of privacy
• Is an agreement about maintenance and who has access to identifiable information
Informed Consent allows the participant to understand the limits of the human condition and the ability to maintain confidentiality and preserve privacy. Informed consent empowers the participant to exercise discretion in what is disclosed; it allows the soul to determine whether the group is the appropriate place to reveal soul stirring or soul challenging issues. With informed consent, disclosure of issues of child abuse, threats of violence, or criminal acts that demand disclosure may in fact be disclosed because the group offers the venue for disclosure of secrets that cannot be kept by the disclosing participant. This, then, infuses the group with a sense of vitality due to the validity of the processes of the group.
It is better to see confidentiality as an extension of privacy. The violation of either threatens the processes of the group. Informed Consent, however, permits the group leader, the group members, and a specific participant to accept the inherent limitation of the human conscience.