Stigma and disclosure: Implications for coming out of the closet

Disclosure is a set of levels, not a switch — and the argument arrives by way of what another community worked out first.

Corrigan, P. W. & Matthews, A. K. (2003). Stigma and disclosure: Implications for coming out of the closet. Journal of Mental Health, 12(3), 235–248.

Type

Journal article

Find it

doi.org/10.1080/0963823031000118221

Checked

Against the abstract, 16 September 2026

Why it is on the list

A conceptual paper about disclosing a psychiatric diagnosis, which gets there by asking what the gay and lesbian community had already worked out about coming out. It reviews stage models of identity — confusion, comparison, acceptance, immersion, synthesis — and weighs costs against benefits: social avoidance and disapproval on one side, improved psychological well-being and interpersonal relations on the other. It ends with a review of levels of disclosure for people who opt to come out.

Week 10 uses the idea of levels of disclosure when distinguishing audiences and teaching partial disclosure.

Only the abstract was read, so its levels are not reproduced here or in the lecture; the course teaches its own working model. The paper concerns psychiatric diagnoses. Its population and findings should not be treated as interchangeable with those of autism studies.