one mislaid credit card bill or a single dangling email message on the home computer would have ended everything the marriage the bigtime career the reputation for decency he had built over a lifetime so for more than 10 years he ruthlessly kept his two identities apart one lived in a westchester hamlet and worked in a new york office and the other operated mainly in clubs airport bars and brothels one warmly greeted clients and waved to neighbours sometimes only hours after the other had stumbled back from a work meeting with prostitutes or cocaine dealersin the end it was a harmless computer popup advertisement for security software claiming that his online life was being continually monitored that sent this new york real estate developer into a panic and to a therapistthe mans double life is an extreme example of how mental anguish can cleave an identity into pieces said his psychiatrist dr jay s kwawer director of clinical education at the william alanson white institute in new york who discussed the case at a recent conference but psychologists say that most normal adults are well equipped to start a secret life if not to sustain it the ability to hold a secret is fundamental to healthy social development they say and the desire to sample other identities to reinvent oneself to pretend can last well into adulthood and in recent years researchers have found that some of the same psychological skills that help many people avoid mental distress can also put them at heightened risk for prolonging covert activitiesin a very deep sense you dont have a self unless you have a secret and we all have moments throughout our lives when we feel were losing ourselves in our social group or work or marriage and it feels good to grab for a secret or some subterfuge to reassert our identity as somebody apart said dr daniel m wegner a professor of psychology at harvard he added and we are now learning that some people are better at doing this than others although the bestknown covert lives are the most spectacular the architect louis kahn had three lives charles lindbergh reportedly had two these are exaggerated examples of a far more common and various behaviour psychologists say some people gamble on the sly or sample drugs others try music lessons still others join a religious group they keep mum for different reasons and there are thousands of people gay men and women who stay in heterosexual marriages for example whose shame over or denial of their elemental needs has set them up for secretive excursions into other worlds whether a secret life is ultimately destructive experts find depends both on the nature of the secret and on the psychological makeup of the individual nyt