There is a mole in therapy-speak.
More and more of us in the mental health sphere have recognized another form of overcorrection: the dilution of clinical language and the rise of therapy speech, or language that originated in the clinical and research realm but fell victim to concept creep.
Trauma went from being a precise clinical term to one that now seems synonymous with “irritation.”
Gaslighting, once used to describe a deliberate, manipulative pattern of psychological abuse, is now invoked to describe disagreement.
Everyone is suddenly a narcissist or a people pleaser. And don’t get me started on being emotionally immature. The term coined by Dr. Lindsay Gibson in her excellent book originally helped adult children describe parents who couldn’t meet emotional needs – without pathologizing or labelling them as monstrous. Now it seems to serve as a rebrand for, well… a narcissist?!
But there’s another expression that’s quietly weaselled its way into everyday therapy talk…