No One Keeps Secrets Better Than Your Therapist
A side benefit of therapy is that it’s the perfect place for gossip.
I recently called up Jean Stafford, an executive coach in Washington, D.C., to ask a simple question: Who is it safe to complain to?
Complaining can have benefits, if not always psychologically, then at least for the levity of heart that comes from someone else knowing what an idiot that dude is. But when it comes to work-related issues, Stafford wouldn’t recommend downing Chardonnay at a happy hour and venting about your boss to sympathetic colleagues. Sometimes we “misinterpret someone’s friendly behavior to mean that person is a friend,” she said. Complaints about that one guy on your team, the struggles you’re having finishing that project—that information could be used to undermine you later.
Some people, after
