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Notes -
Therapyspeak is the language of the Anarchist. It is the language of those who do not believe in discipline and self control, who want to erase the line between good and evil.
Some of the terms I've heard quite a bit in the past 5 years that I highly distrust:
"Toxic". People and relationships are declared to be toxic, and it is understood that bad actions can then be taken against them. There is no standard for what makes something toxic. Rhetoric using this term often recommends the user to end relationships, and it generally does not look like sound wise advice. Using this term is a request for power and authority, rather than an assertion of meaning.
"Self Care". This is a synonym for self-indulgence, but with a good connotation instead of a bad one. Spending 8 hours watching netflix for example, in my grandfather's English, would be understood to be a moderately shameful act of vice. Now it can be referred to as "Self Care", in which case it is understood as a noble recognition of ones own weakness.
"Triggered". This word is used to blame others for ones own mental outbursts. A man who has internalized a value system of discipline and personal responsibility would never use such a word, but a member of the CPUSA would never question one who did.
"Codependency". Means nothing more than "relationship", but again, it goes from having what is, according to my values, a correct positive connotation, to having an incorrect negative connotation.
There are values which lead to a good stable society. These values were baked into the our culture, into our stories, into our language itself. Most respectable men have internalized these values- its quite hard to achieve anything in life without doing so.
When people use therapyspeak, they are signaling their opposition to these values. They may truly oppose them, or they may want to signify membership in the group of people who oppose them. But if you are still committed to those values, for whatever reason, you may find such speech uncomfortable.
One thing I have no explanation for, is why all of these terms seem to have originated in therapy. I cannot think of any other recently popularized terms like this- terms designed to assault traditional European values and signal membership in the revolution- which did not originate in therapy.
A lot of these terms center around blaming other people for your problems. Individual therapy that blames your problems not on yourself but on various things in your environment are going to be more successful in retaining clients than therapy that just tells you to get your shit together. New terminology had to be invented to recast what would otherwise be considered as selfish behavior as being good and theraputic.
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