Is Therapy Speak...Gaslighting Us?

The Philosophy of Therapy Speak

Therapy-speak is the byproduct of increased comfort with mental health language, but has it gone too far? What’s going on when we over-use therapy speak, and what does it mean on a philosophical and sociological level? What's more, are we losing sight of bigger societal problems when we get too obsessed with “gaslighting" and "self care?" Let’s find out in this Wisecrack Edition: Is Therapy-Speak Driving Us Nuts?

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Written by Rachel Van Nes
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Michael Luxemburg
Edited by Andrew Nishimura
Produced by Olivia Redden

Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound

#therapy #philosophy #wisecrack

© 2023 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc. / Enthusiast Gaming

[ML-dilt]

As a therapist, I was hoping you would go into the weaponization of therapy speak, such as people using "toxic" when they really are just trying to excuse bullying someone

[HipsterLumberjack]

I feel like a big outcome of therapy speak is that it leads people to say,

"anyone could be traumatized or neurodivergent, including me, so people should be considerate of me"

but they never apply that to how they treat others and say,

"anyone could be traumatized or neurodivergent, including you, so I should be considerate of you"

[razvangrelus]

you should also make a video about corporate talk. I swear to God I literally cannot have normal conversations with any person in mid to late 20's anymore because I feel like I am speaking with either a HR manager or an annoyin team lead.

[Relesy]

BetterHelp preys on people’s pain and then doesn’t even provide quality therapy, and takes people’s money. They spend so much money on advertising it’s insane. And they call patients “customers”. Not to mention they sold people’s private health information. There were so many people that were worse off after using the app.

[lordfreerealestate]

As an abuse survivor with CPTSD, words like abuser, gaslight, narcissist, and the like get misused so much. The dilution of those terms does harm to the conversation around mental health and abuse. In addition, both my abusers learned the psych terms to weaponize them against me.

[HaloJumper]

Is Wisecrack lovebombing us with all this quality content or am I being gaslit into believing so?

[thoughtfuldevil]

As somebody actually diagnosed with autism it's good to see somebody finally addressing this, especially when 'On the spectrum' gets thrown around like a cow in a tornado.

[RecklessFables]

The notion of " Concept Creep" happens for a lot of professions that have their own jargon.

[theroamingsavage]

Agreed.
All of a sudden everybody is "gaslighting" everybody.
Everyone is a "narcissist", and everyone has BPD 😂

[toysoldiernerio]

I think this is a bigger issue than people realize and im glad someone as big as wisecrack is talking about it.

[vOtEbIdEnTosAvEdEmOcRaCy]

Truly bizarre when people accuse their friends of "emotional dumping, " as if you aren't supposed to talk to anyone about your problems except for your therapist. Surely there can't be any issues saving everything you have to say to a one-hour block once a week (or less)

[dondrap]

Agree. Now everyone calls everyone else "toxic" or "a narcissist" or "on the spectrum", etc.

[WisecrackEDU]

Has this ever happened to you: you're having a normal conversation with a friend and all of the sudden you feel like they're dropping hyper clinical terms to describe a pretty normal human things? Has this ever happened to you?

[meringue]

"they are individualizing a societal problem" perfectly put

[rabsaque]

Also the goal of therapy has changed is not anymore about fixing ourselves to be happier or healthier but about to fixing ourselves to be more productive, cause got forbid you may be a psycho or be depressed AF everybody will accept that about you, but nobody not even yourself will accept you if you are unproductive.

[bobbypines]

Really loved the point about how while the search for self-understanding is definitely a good thing, it further emphasizes the neoliberal self as an agent of change and takes our eye off the ball in terms of acting collectively.

[angelcanez]

That last bit about just shoving all your emotions deep down inside and just die is so relatable. That's exactly the mentality my grandparents taught me LOL

[EpicSquirrel]

As a psychology major, I always ask my professors how they feel about the improper use of mental diagnosis or therapeutic methods being used by people who don't really know what they are talking about. And they are all annoyed about it, especially how social media seems to have trends where everyone has ADHD, Autism, or that everyone is a victim.

[anthonyshea]

Signs you might have ADHD: you walk into a room and forget why you’re there. You’ve been late once in your life. You haven’t accomplished any of your goals recently. You’ve been within 50 feet of a phone. Sponsored by Amphetamines

[jeffreythomson]

I'm so glad you touched on the larger societal issues that underlie a lot of the mental health issues - that boys having a hard time sitting still in school must mean they have ADHD rather than it pointing to schools being poorly structured. Or for adults, wondering why everyone seems to be depressed these days without thinking that maybe it's because they work a job they hate for barely enough money to survive while having to worry about getting shot walking home from work because their car broke and they can't afford to fix it. Like, maybe it's just me, but pretty sure that's going to make your life pretty f*$(%cking depressing and full of anxiety. Not because you actually have those conditions (and to be fair, a lot of people do clinically have them) but because life in general sucks and needs to be improved. It's like seasonal affective disorder only it's situational affective disorder. Once the situation is improved, depression goes away.