We must be the most psychologically aware group of people in history. Sigmund Freud himself could only have dreamed about terms such as “triggered,” “attachment style,” and “trauma” permeating the everyday lexicon as deeply as they have (and no doubt he would then have written an essay about said dream in order to deconstruct it, but I digress.)
You cannot possibly have missed the rise of so-called “therapy speak” in modern culture – it’s everywhere. We talk about “anxiety,” “projection,” and “boundaries” over lunch. We have never been more open to conversations around “depression,” “self-care,” and “coping mechanisms”. It’s even seeped into the workplace, where compulsory staff training courses on “resilience” and “mindfulness” are on the rise. I’ve attended a few in my time as a university lecturer and to say I was “triggered” is something of an understatement.
And while I absolutely applaud anyone’s effort to “do the work” and engage with regular therapy, when it comes to romantic, intimate relationships, I can no longer “hold space” for the overuse of therapy speak to pathologise a partner’s poor behaviour or excuse one’s own.
Psychological terminology sneaking out of the therapist’s office and into the general populace is nothing new. It was Freud’s work that gave us everyday terms like “subconscious,” “sexual repression,” and “anally retentive”. But the rise of social media in the last 15 years or so, combined with the wider work being done to de-stigmatise mental health issues, has resulted in information about therapy and psychoanalysis being easier to access than ever before.
Gentle parent your children away from me, please
Read MoreThis has done some truly wonderful things. For example, more of us are now willing to engage with mental health therapies to access help and support. According to the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, last year nearly a third (30 per cent) of British people said that they had accessed some kind of mental health therapy in the last year, with 70 per cent of those finding it helpful.
The stigma around accessing therapy is also decreasing, according to 72 per cent of respondents. This is a wonderful, marvellous thing. A good therapist can be truly life changing. I know that because I have one.
But, and this is the important bit, you cannot receive good therapy by scrolling social media or skim-reading a bunch of pop-psychology self-help books.
Appropriating therapeutic terms, without actually engaging with the process itself, is not only extremely limiting, but dangerous. When romantic partners draw on therapy speak, they run the risk of misrepresenting the very relationship they are hoping to understand. If you are not a licensed mental health care professional, you should not be diagnosing anyone, let alone a loved one, with mental health issues. Anyone that tries to dilute complex psychological terms down to a hashtag should be roundly ignored, or rather you should go “no contact” with them, to use the vernacular.
The problem with therapy speak is that it often moves a conversation away from the specific to the very generalised and abstract, which is unhelpful. Take for example, the widely misused term, “gaslighting.” Gaslighting comes from the 1938 play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton, which tells the story of a husband manipulating his wife by convincing her that she is going mad. One of the many things he does is change the brightness of the gas lights in their home and then deny that he has done it. Gaslighting is a very specific form of psychological abuse where the victim is made to question their own perception of reality. It does not simply mean someone who isn’t telling the truth.
And yet, if you look up the term “gaslighting” on YouTube, the top hits provide a lot of examples of partners lying, deceiving, and invalidating one another’s feelings, but very few of genuine, actual gaslighting. To be clear, telling lies is a form of manipulation and can be highly abusive, but that is not what gaslighting means. A partner lying about having been to the pub, for example, is manipulative and nasty, but it’s not gaslighting. However, if they then insist that they have actually been at home the whole time and their partner must have imagined they went to the pub, that is gaslighting.
“Narcissist” is another overly used psychological term that has become so watered down that it now bears very little similarity to its correct and original meaning. Narcissistic personality disorder is a very specific and serious condition that affects an estimated 1.6 per cent of the population worldwide. It is not simply someone who has behaved like a selfish jerk or won’t text you back. It cannot be diagnosed by an influencer on TikTok, only by a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist.
But this hasn’t stopped literally millions of people diagnosing one another on social media. The overuse of this word seems particularly prevalent when it comes to casual dating. A quick search on TikTok brings up a plethora of videos with titles such as “The Narcissist’s Greatest Fear,” “This is When a Narcissist Misses You,” and “Common Phrases Narcissists Use.” Amazon currently has over 9,000 book titles with the word “narcissist” in it. Given the prevalence of this particular term in our cultural register, either that 1.6 per cent of the population are really getting around, or the term “narcissistic” is now being used to describe run-of-the-mill, shitty, selfish behaviour.
But why does any of this matter? Words change their meaning and evolve all the time. The issue is that therapy speak has not yet shaken free from the world of actual, clinical therapy. In fact, it depends on that association to confer a level of authority, and that means that it can be weaponised within relationships, even casual ones. Calling someone a narcissist goes beyond simply calling someone a selfish git – it pathologises their behaviour as part of a serious mental illness.
Likewise, labelling a partner’s behaviour as “gaslighting” or “toxic” without fully understanding the implications can escalate conflicts rather than resolve them. It closes down conversations, rather than opening them up. I am talking specifically about romantic relationships here, but I feel the same way about the use of therapy speak in the workplace. Rather than lecturing staff about their capacity for “resilience”, why don’t employers just provide better working conditions for their employees? Psychological jargon can hide a multitude of sins.
Moreover, therapy speak can be used to deflect responsibility and even exert control over a partner. Remember when Jonah Hill hit the headlines in 2023 because his ex-girlfriend, Sarah Brady, made a series of text messages public? Brady is a pro-surfer and Hill had allegedly demanded she stopped posting photographs of herself in a bathing suit, because these were his “boundaries for a romantic partnership.” That’s not a boundary. That is couching jealous and controlling behaviour in psychological terms. A boundary would be Hill recognising his limits and not dating pro-surfers in the first place. (Hill has never publicly responded to the accusations.)
Therapy speak can also be deployed in a romantic relationship to avoid accountability, and I have some personal experience of this. A few years ago, a man I had been dating for a month or so sent me a text telling me he wanted to end things, that I wasn’t allowed to contact him again, and he hoped I would respect his “boundary.” He then blocked me across social media and all messaging apps, denying me any opportunity of saying goodbye or even asking what had changed. That’s not a boundary, that’s being a coward! I won’t be diagnosing him as a narcissist, but I am very comfortable calling him a total shit.
More often than not, it’s not that your date is mentally unhinged, it’s that they just don’t like you. They’re not a narcissist, they’re just an arsehole.
Engaging in a genuine therapeutic process can be extremely beneficial, not just to couples, but to all kinds of relationships. Therapy speak can be really helpful when it is applied with context and nuance, but as soon as it becomes name-calling or a way to avoid difficult conversations, it is no longer functioning as a therapeutic tool.
Ultimately, the goal of incorporating therapeutic principles into a relationship should be to enhance understanding and empathy, not to create barriers or labels. I hope that’s not too triggering.
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