Therapy speak is the new "It's not you, it's me"

New clichés, same shitty behaviours

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.

If I didn’t know better, I might think the whole world had joined me in gobbling up new self-help books, from the way the vocabulary of self help has made its way into the everyday. But of course that’s not the case. Social media has been highly effective at spreading what some are calling “therapy speak” into the language of our romantic relationships, families, friendships, parenting, and even workplaces.

In her recent piece for Bustle, Rebecca Fishbein shared several stories of friendships that were ended via opaque messages filled with therapy-like buzzwords. These ultimately left the receivers feeling almost as bad as if they’d been ghosted:

Anna was hurt, and frustrated. “It felt like she was ending the friendship with an HR memo,” she said. “Like, I would have hoped that you’d respect me enough to give me something more straightforward, or at the very least more kind.”

Even if the friendship couldn’t be saved, Anna says, she would have at least l…