How Therapy-speak is Destroying Your Mental Health
There is a strange shift happening in the way we talk about our emotions. On the surface, this sounds emotionally intelligent. But the tragic truth is that behind this polished vocabulary is something far more disturbing. These words that were designed to heal us are now being used in ways that confuse us, divide us, and sometimes even harm us tremendously.
When did emotional intelligence become a competition? When did therapy concepts become a way to win arguments? And when did every normal conflict get labeled as abuse?
00:00 Therapy Speak is Destroying Society
00:54 How Therapy-speak is Destroying Your Mental Health
05:33 The Meme-ification of Therapy
09:23 The Traumatic Rise of Therapy-Speak
13:02 How Therapy Speak Gets Weaponized Online
19:51 How This Harms Actual Mental Health
27:50 What Therapy Actually Is For
31:14 How to Use Therapy Language Responsibly
Listen to Aperture on Spotify: https://bit.ly/aperturepod
Support: https://www.patreon.com/ApertureYT
Shop: https://bit.ly/ApertureMerch
Subscribe: https://bit.ly/SubscribeToAperture
Discord: https://discord.gg/nDDVGv2MHp
Questions or concerns? https://underknown.com/contact/
Interested in sponsoring Aperture? contact@underknown.com
#therapy #mentalhealth #psychology #trend #socialmedia
33 Comments
In my experience, the entire mental health system in the US has become a cartel of pill pushers for the pharmaceutical industry.
Of all the exceptionally guildie takes: "Only the people who promulgated lobotomies and denying trans women estrogen unless they wore high-femme clothing are qualified to use Psychology Jargon." Is the most pathetic. Listening to vaccinologists that weren't gaining from pushing the dominant narrative wasn't bad for my approach to SARS-COV-2 either.
Wow, just wow! Your content is always so professional and informative. Loved every minute of this video. Since I create videos on the same topic, I'd be thrilled to do a collaboration with you. What do you think? 😊
An interesting video with many interesting comments.
Psychological epidemics
The sad thing is that the people that need to hear this most, are the ones to get defensive and never actually listen to it.
* cough cough * Feminism… * cough cough * White Women… * cough cough * iPad kids…
"You're right (/wrong) every time and you don't think that's a bit strange?"
I attempted a date and the girl was an hour late- very cavalier about it too, after I drove an hour to set it up. When I called her out she said I my response "triggered her and she sensed danger in me". Needless to say I didn't respond and drove back home.
Reminds me of when everyone was suddenly gluten intolerant and people with actual Celiac disease started getting interrogated at restaurants and doctor offices because of it.
Therapy is restarted and gay. My ten year old looked over at me during the Zootopia 2 therapy speak diatribe and said, "what is this, when characters speak like that?" I told her it's Millennial writing. Reddit communists trying to pretend they're smart. She said, "it sounds stupid".
“Mental health advice optimized for virality.” 💥
Very good content. Thanks.
More people need to touch grass, not go to therapy.
Yes I noticed this a while back. Fell into it too a bit. Weird.
IMO the worst part is people who get diagnosed (or not in some cases just assume) don't use it to better themselves but instead use it as an excuse for their bad behaviour and expect everybody else to leave them to act badly because they have (insert diagnosis here).
The ads on this video traumatized me
I try very hard to be understanding and flexible. This was a very good video just to make sure that I am being actually empathetic and understanding of other people and not just wanting my own way. My partner and I have a relationship agreement, it's a tool for both of us to understand each other's needs and just something we put in writing so that if we do forget we can look back at it and see you then oh yeah my partner gets really anxious when we talked about these certain topics so if we do need to talk about them I should approach them with care. In no way is it a form of manipulation to get either of our ways. We both signed it because we were both happy with it and agreed to all the stuff we put in there together. Needless to say though I appreciate this video.
Therapy, the DSM, and putting people in boxes can do harm, too.
Wait and see how post-therapy therapy will be the New Therapy.
That said, the content was insightful and helpful.
33:00 the part I think you’re missing is that I can be hurt AND you can be a narcissist. Both things can be true at once.
6:33 That's an important point. Issues surrounding mental health have become more visible and people have become more informed. Social media has also contributed to this. The visibility and awareness generated by social media can even be the first step towards diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Awareness/visibility/discussion > self-education > seeking professional help > getting diagnosed > treatment/learning how to cope. That's how it can look in an ideal case. In my case, for example, social media helped me learn more about neurodiversity and recognise my own ADHD. Not because I used social media as my only source of information and labelled myself with it. I became aware of the topic and connected with content creators who are familiar with it either professionally or because they are affected by it themselves. I then informed myself, bought books on the subject and consulted a doctor. In my case, it was vague, not quite so obvious; my symptoms are… I think you could call them atypical. But fortunately, it matched a diagnosis and I was prescribed medication. That was a huge relief, and I'm still learning how to manage my brain😂 The downside, however, is that most people don't have this media literacy and turn such diagnoses into a trend and a buzzword. In the beginning, it was self-diagnosis. They know the name and a few symptoms, but that's all. They are unable to really spot the disorder bc they lack of understanding.
And I've noticed that it's increasingly become a "phrase". I've noticed this among younger Gen Zers. Unlike in the past, where people simply used it to insult others who were a bit hyperactive or something, they now use it to describe themselves. "Ooh, my ADHD is kicking in; ooh, that was so ADHD of me, hahahaha; ooh, I'm so quirky, that's my ADHD." No. You don't have ADHD. You're just very annoying. Go and educate yourself.
Excellent video, very thought provoking.
I had this argument with somebody on reddit (i do all my arguing on reddit for the sake of my personal relationships 😂), over what qualifies as depression. More specifically, is depression another word for sad or is it a diagnosis that describes an imbalance of neurotransmitters? I got called a 'gatekeeper.' Which is fucking hilarious. Imagine limiting someone's access to spending hundreds of dollars every month on insurance, therapy, and medication. Therapy-speak reduces social awareness of mental health care. Not as much as the stigma from when I was young… but it ain't helping either.
My take on therapy is that it is about developing trust with a therapist so that you appreciate their feedback. Therapy is about receiving feedback to adjust how you perceive, and behave, in life.
Again, excellent video. As someone with severe mental illness, it makes me consider how I use therapy-speak in my daily life; how i use 'boundaries' to avoid uncomfortable situations.
insane title. It should be called "how the internet is destroying your mental health"
i haven’t seen one of your videos in a while. congrats on getting a camera!
It's creepy hearing 16 yr olds talk about their toxic relationships
Therapy speak is a friendship killer.
It causes clueless people to "diagnose" the people around them.
Anytime I hear someone say they were gaslit or have trauma I don’t believe them right away because of exactly all the things you mentioned, it’s bad and honestly just annoying because everyone wants to be a victim in this sense and seek sympathy when they may not even really deserve it. Personal accountability has been done away with largely and there is just endless mindless content to feed ourselves to reinforce the bias
The only people I know who use therapy speak on the regular are insufferable, completely self absorbed and have zero accountability for what they do or say. Life holds no kindness for them, only a mild state of contentment and periods of conflict in between. That's what happens when you deconstruct your entire personality and flatten your emotions around a rigid structure of words and their definitions.
I am an actual therapist and I have seen common people using more psychological terms than I do – and using 99% of them incorrectly just to gaslight people around them.
Thanks a Ton….
This video has healed me beyond I can express.
This video raises questions on the ethics of the psychiatrists out there on YouTube.
I was about to end a relationship mentally, this video made me give a second thought and try once more and give one more chance to my partner to help each other out
This sounds like gaslighting TikTok.
Psychologists for years.. have been trying to turn their fuzzy craft into a legit science like Biology or Physics. They've tried almost everything and continue to fail because there is no 1 cure for many people that can fit in any real-world economic model.
Either 10x the resources per-patient, solve the problem while going broke, or continue to pretend everyone is the same, fail miserably while getting rich. You know how this story ends…
Everyone can be a therapist now. 😂
👍 Thank you for sharing your view on this topic. In addition to the content of this video, another layer of perception perhaps. The language of use in cultural, generational and epigenetic differences between people from other parts of the world, the health care systems of different countries and their approach on mental health and teraphy are not on the same level in every country, region or nation. Things are shifting, but some systems are lagging behind. I might be wrong. Just one observation.