In modern western society it is taken as a fact that “bottling your feelings up” is detrimental, and that the healthy thing to do is talk through your feelings, problems, issues, etc. with someone. And that, if you don’t, the final result will be more serious mental problems of some kind in the long term.
Has anyone ever actually shown this to be the case experimentally, in a scientifically rigorous manner?
I realize it is a difficult thing to design an experiment to test (you can hardly do a double blind trial). But given how central this premise is to so much in our society, it seems fairly important.
I don’t believe that bottling up our feelings is really the issue, the issue I believe is why are we having such strong negative feelings in the first place. We can process most any issue we have in life before it even gets to a point that is damaging to us. The exception to this rule I believe is with children and young adults who have not yet developed coping skills. Talking problems out with parents or other mature adults will often become teaching moments on how they can learn to deal with things.