"The Confessional Poets" were a group of brutally truthful writers, uncommonly inclined to bare their souls and, in doing so, confronted controversial and painful topics. Preceded by the Modernists, whose works centered around "impersonality and objectivity", the confessional poets turned around completely to reveal the struggles of mental illness (and other taboo subjects such as sexuality) that were not widely discussed or accepted by society in the 1950s. They were also influenced by the increasing amount of focus on the self, brought about by the then blossoming fields of psychology and therapy. Confessional poetry is the expression of raw emotion and often ugly details via first-person narration; it is unrelenting, brave, and reflective. It is the examination and revelation of an "I" that refuses to be swept under rugs or locked behind doors, as proper society would prefer. Techniques used by these poets include direct and extreme diction and "the use of traditional form with nontraditional subject matter."