Catharsis: The Healing Power of Opening Up

On the French Mediterranean coast line near Banyuls-sur-Mer

With some regularity, I am told in my office something to the effect of: I've never told anyone this but... Or, I think you now know more about me than my own spouse. Or often in surprise, I can't believe the two hours is gone already. While the sort of naturopathic work I do with patients is not your standard-run-of-the mill, cattle-like appointments, most people still seem surprised at the fact that they have so much to say to me at all. However, my experience suggests we ought not be surprised. As humans we were born for connection. Whether we admit it or not, we all have a strong need to open up, to confide, to share (even if we aren't always aware of it), our experiences but more specifically our heavy, difficult experiences in life. Couple that need with the fact that many of us have few people and opportunities where we can authentically confide and what you end up with is what the psychologists call a culture of high levels of "holding back" or inhibition.

While"holding back" or inhibiting our sharing itself is not necessarily a negative thing--for instance there can be situations where it serves the collective good or is in our own best interest to inhibit--but when it becomes a fixed pattern it harms our health. According to James Pennebaker:

To actively inhibit one's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors requires physiological work. Active inhibition means that people must consciously restrain, hold back, or in some way exert effort to not think, feel or behave. Inhibition affects short-term biological changes and long term health....Over time, the work of inhibition serves as a cumulative stressor on the body, increasing the probability of illness and other stress-related physical and psychological problems... The harder one works at inhibiting, the greater the stress on the body. (from the book, Opening Up, the Healing Power of Confiding in Others).

Pennebaker's insight resonate with my experience in working with people. And given the current climate of collective fear of retaliation with free speech, his insight becomes all the more prescient. For many reasons inhibition is common. In my practice I've treated numerous cases of individuals whose physical illnesses (and of course, mental-emotional illnesses) have largely been triggered by the stress of long term inhibition of their feelings. I think of one case in particular where the inhibition of grief triggered a severe, longstanding blood disorder that only began to heal when the patient allowed herself to weep after many years. Is there a blood test to measure inhibition's triggering of illness? Unfortunately, no. I wish there was such a thing. In her case the extensive workup by a legion of experts left the inhibition of her grief as the only seemingly reasonable explanation of her disease. A homeopathic remedy helped her stop inhibiting and she began to grieve. Her allowing of her grief led to the resolution of her blood disorder.

Many of my colleagues report similar phenomenon in their practices. Sir William Osler described it well when he observed, The organs weep the tears the eyes refuse to shed.