February 2007

Secret Keepers in the News

by John Prin
Addiction Counselor
When Michael Devlin was apprehended in mid-January for kidnapping two junior high boys, my first impulse was to think he was the Secret Keeper in the story.* But as the facts unfolded, the more intriguing Secret Keeper (to my mind) became Shawn Hornbeck, the first boy abducted 4 years ago, now 15, who never turned himself in.

While Devlin definitely fit the profile of secret-keeping criminals (the 4th category on the Continuum of Secrets**), it shocked me that Shawn had had multiple chances to turn himself in but never did. Knowing his parents were anxiously searching for him, why didn't he end their agony and his own captivity given his many opportunities? Now that's a secret?

Then I read an op-ed piece about the highly secretive MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, which assigns ratings like G or PG-13 for the movies we see.*** In it, author Kirby Dick exposes the levels of secrecy unknown to many of us.

The past 40 years, for example, all eleven raters on the MPAA board have remained anonymous. The same for a separate appeals board, whose decisions eschew due process and are final without explanation. Period.

"This is particularly troubling," states Dick, "because the appeals board is almost exclusively made up of executives from corporations that belong to the MPAA or the theater owners association, the very corporations that stand to gain the most from influencing a rating."

As noted in my previous column on the secrecy scandal at UnitedHealth Group, I call this kind of hidden mischief "institutional" Secret Keeping. It's a quantum leap beyond personal secret keeping, typified byaccused kidnapper Devlin or his "son" Shawn Hornbeck. The latter is sleaze in a dumpy part of town perpetrated by a pizza parlor worker, the former is sleaze in skyscrapers perpetrated by captains of commerce in starched white shirts.

Sleazy and slimy either way (for more on "slimy" see page 72 of Secret Keeping).

Is there a solution? Yes. The entire second half of Secret Keeping, all 8 chapters with titles such as Committing to Coming Clean and Authenticity in a Messy World, point out ways for people to free themselves from the captivity of keeping unhealthy, shameful, harmful secrets.

Email John Prin your thoughts.

You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my books, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. and the sequel, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions.

* USA Today, Jan 15, 2007, p. 1A.
** Secret Keeping by John Howard Prin, New World Library, 2006, p. 23.
*** This Rating System Is Not Yet Honest, editorial from Minneapolis StarTribune, Jan. 29, 2007, p. A11.