Humanities & Cultures

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.