Radical Honesty is a concept introduced by the author and psychologist Dr. Brad Blanton. Radical Honesty consists in always telling the truth. That's it. However, radical honest means really telling the truth, all of the time. This means telling your boss you think he is ugly or that you didn't think someone's joke was funny. It means telling your parents that you smoke pot and have had sex with 30 people. It means telling your current boyfriend or girlfriend about sex with previous partners, and how they compare.
Brad Blanton wrote a book, "Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth", published in 1994. In this book, he describes his strategy of radical honesty and the benefits he believes it can have. According to my understanding of the book, Dr. Blanton believes that much of our psychological problems and stresses are caused by lying. Lying hurts our relationships because when we lie, we are not sharing our true self with another person. We are alienated from them by lying. We are worried about our lies being found out, and we stress about that. And finally, lying is hard work. Having to constantly evaluate everything we say and decide whether we should really say it or make something up is a lot of work and a real pain in the ass.
The way out is through telling the truth. In telling the truth we are free. Free to love, free to be angry, free to interact as a real person with another real person. Free from the tyranny of lies, of having to lie every waking moment of our life.
There is also a website, www.radicalhonesty.com, where Brad Blanton has more information, as well as workshops and an email mailing list.
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