Psychobabble is psychological jargon used inaccurately and pretentiously that sometimes normalises unacceptable behaviour or criticises normal behaviour. It is also known as therapy-speak or pop psychology. A more specialised branch of psychobabble is neurobabble.
It is the vocabulary of the consulting room that has escaped into everyday conversation—trauma, triggered, boundaries, validation, gaslighting. It turns the terms of psychological diagnosis into melodrama.
Neurobabble has spawned many comic descriptors, the best being neuroflapdoodle (also neurononsense, neurogibberish, neurobaloney).
The definition of neuroflapdoodle (similarly applied to psychobabble) by Paul Fletcher, Professor of Health Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge: “a highly simplistic and questionable point is accompanied by a suitably grand-sounding neural term and thus acquires a weightiness that it really doesn’t deserve”.
Psychobabble glossary
Here is a glossary of psychobabble terms to be careful with.
REACHING OUT—once suggested trying to establish emotional contact or offer support. Now it can mean sending someone a text message with an emoji.
GASLIGHTING—deliberately manipulating you to make you doubt your perceptions of memory–not disagreeing with your recollection of events.
NARCISSIST—describes someone with a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and lack of empathy. It doesn’t mean a selfish person.
TRAUMA—means a deeply distressing experience that can have lasting psychological effects. It doesn’t usually occur during an unpleasant conversation
TRIGGERED—means something has provoked a significant involuntary emotional or psychological response. It doesn’t mean took offence at something.
BOUNDARY—sets a limit on what I will accept or do, not what you are allowed to do. If you shout at me, I will leave is a boundary. You are not allowed to shout at me is a rule.
VALIDATION—means recognising that someone’s feelings or experience are understandable. It doesn’t mean agreeing that they’re right.
TOXIC—describes behaviour or a relationship that is seriously and persistently harmful. It doesn’t mean someone irritates me.
BULLYING—means repeated behaviour intended to intimidate, humiliate or harm someone. It doesn’t mean someone criticised me.
PROCESSING—means working through a difficult experience or emotion to understand and accommodate it. It doesn’t mean thinking about something.
CLOSURE—means coming to terms with something that has ended or cannot be changed. It isn’t something another person is obliged to provide.
JOURNEY—is a metaphor for a gradual process of personal change or development. It doesn’t mean any task that takes a bit of time.
These words are on a journey. We have been reaching out to them beyond psychology, crossing boundaries, processing new meanings and giving them false validation. Some have become so detached from their original meanings that they might reasonably claim to have had their meanings gaslighted.