Disclosure and Its Risk

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading, that we have no already discussed, that you found useful or interesting, and discuss it.

Disclosure is something that everyone does at some level. This is why I find it very interesting. Because disclosure can be such a sensitive tool it is important to use in a controlled environment where you can minimize potential fallout. Following is an example I experienced about the wrong way to disclose.

I am sure that everyone in this class has come across people who prefer to admit everything about themselves, even when it is not asked of them. I remember riding the light rail and I could hear a lady talking to a man she had just met, and going into sordid detail about her illnesses, family situation, drug addiction, and even her love life.

Perhaps if she spoke in hushed tones it would have been slightly more couth, but I was in the back row and could hear every syllable, as could all fifteen people between her and I.

While disclosure is a healthy mechanism which is meant to draw people together through empathy and understanding, it can also serve to our detriment if that information ends up in the wrong ears. In this lady’s case, hers was not a controlled environment where she could manage the intake of her private information.

Who knows how that information could later return to haunt her from the now sixteen random individuals now loose with her information in the city?