“Promise Not to Tell”

Of the things that I have written, no piece excites so many so deeply and consistently as a shortie on confidentiality published a decade ago (Golembiewski, 1989, pp. 162–172). Basically, it proposes that absolute confidentiality can be counterproductive in a range of situations in which consultants typically find themselves. To nail that point with an extreme case, the piece uses the counterexample of a child molester, who urges on his victim one form of absolute confidentiality: “Promise not to tell.” That injunction became the title of an impactful book (Polese, 1985),