Humanities & Cultures

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Human society and cultural news, studies, and other things of that nature. From linguistics to philosophy to religion to anthropology, if it's an academic discipline you can most likely put it here.

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'Therapy speak' is everywhere, but it may make us less empathetic. (www.npr.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The article gives a short discussion about the use of traditional therapy terms in everyday parlance. They describe it like someone is acting like human resources when communication about relationships, or is making semi-diagnostic statements about someone's behavior.

I worry that this follows the trend of medicalization of normal(rather, non-pathological) behavior, feelings, and thoughts. It replaces the interaction and introspection of a relationship via communication with diagnosis and management of some "problem". I feel it can make a relationship feel transactional by attempting to avoid investigating the feelings and emotions of both parties. Emotion and feeling are an important and expected part of a friendship (even to a minor extent in less "deep" relationships), or at least can be discussed and explored without a clinical mindset.

Therapy speak, as it appears in non-therapeutic enviroments like Tik-Tok, support groups/forums, and other online forums can lead to misunderstandings about mental health and therapy, maladaptive coping, and misinformation about mental and emotional health.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Right with you on this. I got a BA in psychology nearly ten years ago and since then I've done a lot of personal therapy as well as researching complex ptsd, neurodivergence, polyvagal theory and working in social services for at least six. This shit is dangerous, I feel like it can be a very convenient way to escape culpability, to think in black and white instead of engaging in nuance, and can keep people emotionally immature. It can also be very weaponized and potentially uses to gaslight people which is in and of itself really traumatizing.

That being said I think "trigger" and "gaslight" are some words that people do not understand at all, and it feels like it devalues a person's experience whose gone through trauma. Someone on a subreddit was talking about their mom gaslighting them because mom denied that OP was autistic. I gently mentioned that that situation was not gaslighting; it was belittling, sure, but it was a disagreement which is VERY different from someone constructing an elaborate, long game psychological manipulation in order to make you question your own reality. A bunch of people jumped down my throat for that, but like, that's dangerous because that kinda implies that their mom is abusive, when from that context that's not who she is. Black and white thinking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It seems like an extension of what I’d call the casualisation of language that we’re going through. It seems similar to what happened to “legitimate” a while ago, where now it’s meaning has been diluted to the point that it’s usage in the general population has changed.

I don’t think it’s specifically good or bad but it does make it harder for neurodivergent individuals to interpret others (which obviously is bad, but in general words changing meaning/being used differently isn’t good or bad).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Lol I say legit all of the time. I think the difference for me is that using clinical language like this can be weaponized to justify abusive behavior, whereas the meaning of "legitimate" colloquially is innocuous.

An example is Clementine Morrigan who is an online personality, influencer, whatever. She has weaponized therapeutic and abolitionist language in order to cape for her manipulative, abusive partner who has taken advantage of numerous people. They now have a podcast together that's about "anti cancel culture" with thousands of viewers; she has over 100k followers on Instagram who may take in a lot of what she says even if it can be detrimental to others

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

While I understand the concern, generally speaking I think people are becoming more aware of how to be mentally healthy and to have appropriate frameworks on how to talk about issues rather than just yelling at each other or acting shitty. There's obviously downsides in that some people learn the language but don't grow and weaponize this language in order to continue to be shitty but avoid some level of consequences. I think it's important to call out what's good about this increasing awareness as well as to call out the bad actors and how to deal with them.

I've seen firsthand this nomenclature in addition with basic concepts from poly relationships get weaponized by tech bros in the burner culture and I've had to help a good deal of people recognize just how they were being taken advantage of. I have a lot of scorn for people who are doing this, but also I recognize that they would find other ways to manipulate and that the language is just one of many tools at their disposal. Ultimately I think being more educated as a populace on mental health concepts outweighs the issue of some people using the language inappropriately.