Recently, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee called Dr. Anthony Fauci to testify. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/us/politics/fauci-testifies-rand-paul.html The context for this hearing was partisan anger over how the Biden Administration handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Dr. Fauci served as the Chief Medical Advisor to the president, he recommended many of the controversial policies.
As part of the proceedings, details from Dr. Fauci’s diary were revealed. While I do not wish to comment on political issues, I do need to object to what I view as a serious moral and ethical violation by the committee in revealing private diary entries to the public. I am disturbed by the violation of Dr. Fauci’s privacy. The fact that this journal was written on a government server does not mitigate the offense. Further, I want to clarify any misunderstanding folks may have about journals and emphasize why keeping them private is essential.
Journaling: the basics.
To be clear, a diary or personal journal is a private written record of one’s experiences. It is an exercise in which a person reflects on and sorts through their deepest thoughts, feelings, and concerns freely and without fear of condemnation or judgment.
Obviously, diaries differ emotionally from other sorts of writing. Specifically, they provide a space to be psychologically vulnerable while exploring embarrassing or disturbing issues.
The Science Behind Journaling
While journaling is an ancient practice, https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=5026 , the science behind it is a more recent development. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=4552b . When thoughts and feelings are put into words, brain activity shifts from the right hemisphere, where distress is felt, to the left side, where the experience can be understood and analyzed. The impact of this shift is to lower stress levels by as much as 38%. https://childmind.org/blog/the-power-of-journaling
It is not surprising, given the research, that primary process journaling, as counselors like to call it, is a crucial part of the therapeutic process. In addition to psychotherapy, journaling is an important part of good mental health practices.
The Importance of Privacy
I think we all can agree that a personal journal must be a protected private place. Privacy allows a person to feel safe enough to explore and put into words confusing, difficult, or even taboo feelings and thoughts without worrying about possible consequences.
Thus, given the private nature of diary postings, any unauthorized public release of such material is a violation of implicit confidentiality. https://revmichaelheath.com/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-journaling-why-putting-feelings-in-to-words-is-so-important Indeed, view this disclosure as a gross and unwarranted violation of privacy and parallel to a priest revealing the contents of a penitent’s confession.
It goes without saying that in order for a person to feel free to honestly write about what is felt, they must be confident that no one else will see what is written. Without that reassurance, a person will self-censor what is written. Being less than candid in a journal destroys its emotional and therapeutic value. Conversely, breaching a person’s privacy by revealing intimate journal details is abusive and psychologically harmful.
With this understanding, it is easy to see why maintaining privacy is so important to protect the integrity of the journal. While it is the responsibility of the writer to password-protect or secure their paper documents, these efforts are not enough. The release of private information without prior authorization from the author needs to be forbidden.
A Common Myth
Sadly, many folks don’t understand the human mind or how dark some of its thoughts and feelings can be. They falsely believe that if a person writes something that is morally or otherwise disgusting, it means the person is bad.
The socially unacceptable expressions found in a private journal are not necessarily indicators of poor character or mental illness. Unfortunately, many people (including certain members of the Senate committee) have a naive and unrealistic view of human nature. To be clear, good people have bad thoughts. To state the obvious, everyone has outrageous and socially unacceptable thoughts.
The Conflicted Human Brain
To fully appreciate journaling, it’s important to understand why we have socially unacceptable thoughts in the first place. The reason lies within the evolutionary nature of our brain. Here’s a secret that people need to understand: All humans have outrageous feelings and thoughts because of the brain’s basic construction.
Specifically, the human brain contains both an instinctive/animal (limbic/ANS) and a rational/human (medial prefrontal cortex) part. Unfortunately, the two often conflict. The rational part of the brain is reasonable and social. The instinctive part is predominantly fearful and selfishly asocial.
Unexpected events that threaten or frustrate a person’s expectations can create an animal response. The reaction shifts the locus of brain activity from the calm, human part to the irrational, instinctive area. In other words, the same person who is loving and pleasant also experiences dark thoughts and reactions that are insensitive to their social impact.
Again, rather than judging people by their secret thoughts, behavior is a more accurate measure. The real difference between people is not what they might feel or think, but how they act. A person’s character is best judged by how well they are able to control and filter out socially unacceptable thoughts and impulses.
Going Forward
Going forward, it is important to investigate and learn from the devastation caused by the COVID pandemic. But we must do it in a better way. The blaming and scapegoating that some of the senators employed must stop. While there must be empathy for the traumatized, we must reject the blind rage some of the senators displayed. Reason, not rage, must influence critical assessments. Raw emotion is not an excuse to violate a person’s right to privacy.
Reasonable people must push back against politicians who exploit emotional vulnerability and violate human decency for their own gain. While the problem is complex, prohibiting the use of personal journals in the political arena is an important step in restoring reason and decency to our nation.
Rev. Michael Heath, LMHC, Fellow AAPC Fayetteville 8 02 2026
