Have you ever been sitting around the lunch table in the middle of Usdan and heard one of your friends suddenly start talking like a psychologist? “Gaslighting” this, “boundaries” that. You might even use phrases like “intrusive thoughts” or “psychopath” in your daily vocabulary. These words and phrases are all examples of therapy speak, the practice of colloquializing mental health and psychotherapy terminology. As therapy and mental health have become more accepted topics of public conversation, the language they use has been brought into the public consciousness. With the rise of short form mental health related content on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, creators are encouraged to simplify the complex topics surrounding therapy into easily digestible videos. Fully understanding complex topics such as lovebombing or narcissism takes time and more effort in understanding the human mind than what can be disseminated in a two-minute video.
However, TikTok didn’t create the concept of therapy speak, even if it was part of the reason the term was coined. Before there was therapy speak, there was psychobabble. Psychobabble was the term for a very similar practice in the 1970s until the early 2010s; however, the vocabulary of psychobabble was different. People used phrases such as “closure,” “inner child” and “holistic healing.” Even the media from the time pushed psychobabble, using words like “psychopath” and “sociopath” to refer to anyone who did something morally reprehensible, from real life killers to fictional characters.
An important distinction between psychobabble and therapy speak is that psychobabble tends to be words and phrases that aren’t widely accepted by the psychology community, where therapy speak is often taken directly from the mouths of mental health professionals. The concept of the inner child can’t be falsified and as such remains a fringe idea; holistic healing is a pseudoscience; the words “psychopath” and “sociopath” were once used in the psychology community, but have been outdated for decades. Words commonly used in therapy speak have proper definitions and usages in psychology that differ from the ways they are used colloquially.
Some of the most common therapy speak phrases have meanings and functions that are either far more complex, or occasionally, entirely different than they are used. Gaslighting has been simplified to mean any attempt to lie or deceive a friend or romantic partner, especially if the person is refusing to take accountability for their actions. Gaslighting, or coercive control, is, in reality, a long-term practice of manipulation and psychological abuse which serves to make the victim question their perception of reality. Often people will cite boundaries when asking others not to perform an action or to change their behavior. However, personal boundaries are meant to be the exact opposite. Boundaries are ways of changing one’s own reactions to interpersonal situations. Intrusive thoughts have been turned into any strange or sudden thought, despite the fact that intrusive thoughts are meant to be involuntary thoughts or images which are inappropriate, especially for the context. Most are violent, sexual or distressing.
Given the serious nature of the topics these words and phrases encapsulate, it seems odd that they would be so prevalent in the public vocabulary. However, the use of these phrases can accomplish a variety of social effects. Most often, this kind of language is used to validate the feelings one is expressing in the moment. A traumatic experience is more important than a scary one. In a broader sense, therapy speak, like most use of jargon, is employed to make the speaker seem more important. Selfishness is a broad, poorly defined topic that is often discussed colloquially, but narcissism is a well-defined medical term which is meant to be reserved for members of the psychology community. In the worst cases, therapy speak can be used to justify one’s behavior or distance them from culpability entirely. “I’m sorry I hit you, it was an intrusive thought.” or: “I didn’t do that, you’re gaslighting me.” All of these uses are ways of obfuscating the truth through language which is meant to help reveal truths.
We should all make a conscious effort to remove therapy speak from our daily vocabularies, not just because it waters down the true meanings of the words, or how misusing these words can cause confusion and hardship to individuals who are actually experiencing these things, but because therapy speak avoids saying the truth. It avoids your real feelings, your real words, and your real actions. Colloquial, non-jargon words will provide the emotional weight through which the whole truth can be expressed. There is a reason Shakespeare said: “Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flattered be,” and not “we’re gaslighting each other into feeling better about ourselves.”
Photo Credit:
“The Argument” by Kurayba is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.
