The short version: unintentionally learned some extremely personal information about my therapist, that I was absolutely not looking for and feel very awkward having. Wish I could forget it.

Long version: this situation is really bizarre, but I'm wondering if anyone else can relate. A coworker sent me a pre-publication academic article a friend of theirs wrote on a topic they know I'm interested in. One of the interview subjects in the article is almost certainly a family member of my therapist--you're going to have to take my word for it, but I am 99.9% sure based off of the details and circumstances involved, despite the subjects' identities having been (poorly) hidden. There is some VERY personal information in this article about my therapist.

Aside from the issues with the article (I'm going to have my coworker let the author know that some of the subjects are identifiable, since that's a big ethical problem), I'm at a loss for how to handle having this information. It is extremely intimate to the point of being things you wouldn't necessarily tell all of your close friends. It even alludes to ongoing very private issues in his personal life. I feel terrible about invading his privacy this way, even though it was a total accident, and part of me feels like I need to tell him. But it would be incredibly awkward to tell my therapist that I have all this information and figured out it was him. I have no idea how I would even describe it to him without having to recap all the details, since he likely doesn't even know his family member participated in this research, let alone what information is in the article, and even if he did know he wouldn't have expected the researcher to do such a bad job maintaining subjects' privacy.

AHH. I wish I could go back in time and not read this thing!