The Risks of Therapy Speak

What is therapy speak?

To put it simply, “Therapy speak” is when people use psychological phrases and clinical language in their daily lives.

In order to comprehend the dangers of therapy speak, we must reconsider the way we discuss language. The purpose and implications of a word are just as relevant as its meaning. Paul Grice, a linguist and philosopher, was deeply fascinated by implicature— that is, not what a statement says but what it communicates without explicitly stating.

Authority-laden speech is a clear example. There is epistemic authority in medical speech. If something is referred to as a disease, it implies severity and authority. We rarely question whether someone has a disease if they'd say they do because we assume that the proclamation has come from a medically sound source. This authority comes from trusting medical professionals, and there are laws preventing us from saying that we are doctors if we do not have the required qualifications. Therapy speak works in a similar way. Trained therapists are treated as experts in interpreting human behaviour, and terms like gaslighting borrow some of that authority.

Problems arise when therapy talk is used outside its proper context. Imagine a heated disagreement. Describing it as a heated disagreement frames the situation as two people on roughly equal footing. Describing it as gaslighting suggests there is little chance of the other person being correct and places the speaker on a moral high ground. Calling someone a narcissist implies they fall into a scientifically designated camp of bad people. In this way, therapy language can turn a personal interpretation into something that seems objective.

This connects to concept creep. Alfred Korzybski argued that labels can change our perceptions. In his infamous dog biscuit anecdote, students who thought they had eaten ordinary biscuits suddenly found them repulsive when they learned they were for dogs. Labels do more than describe reality; they can shape it. Calling someone a narcissist or an event gaslighting abstracts behaviour into a fixed identity, which can distort reality. The terms narcissist or gaslighting are commonly used on social media for anyone a person disagrees with or for events that don’t fit the original descriptions. Over time, this can dilute the meaning of terms that are genuinely useful.

Therapy speak also carries ethical assumptions. Kevin R. Smith explains that therapy carries ideas about what makes a good life. Some see therapy as fixing abnormal symptoms, others as self-knowledge, and others as addressing social or environmental circumstances. Popular therapy speak often emphasises extreme individualism, viewing people as isolated agents. Discussions of burnout online often reduce it to personal boundaries, ignoring social and economic pressures such as housing or inherited values about work and achievement. Relationship advice prizes independence while minimising duty or compromise.

This phenomenon is not limited to therapy. Language more broadly can borrow authority or obscure values. Scientific or statistical language can be misleading. Abstract terms like enhanced interrogation or pacification can hide what is happening on the ground. As with therapy speak, abstraction can make subjective perspectives appear objective. Recognising this helps us approach mental health, politics, relationships, and scientific reporting with critical awareness. It is essential to recognise the tools that deceive us so that we can be cautious about the information we consume.