Talking sense: why a stiff upper lip can never be good for our mental health

Going over and over pain won’t alleviate it: there has to be movement towards a better future. Photograph: Everett/Shutterstock

A study out this week will probably have the therapeutic community in a spin. According to this report, talking about our emotions may not be good for us. More than that, apparently stoicism – deploying the traditional stiff upper lip – yielded better results than talking therapies when it came to “curing” depression.

I’m a therapist, and this made me think deeply. First, the study was conducted on a very small sample of people, so I wondered how relevant it could be. However, it’s also true that it almost shocked me to think that maybe not talking about our emotions was healthier than talking about them.