How to Spot Weaponized Therapy Speak
Welcome to PsyberSpace. I'm your host, Leslie Poston. We're back to our normal program after last week's five part series on Entropy. I hope you enjoyed it. This week, we're talking about therapy speak how it became mainstream, why that's actually a good thing, and how to spot when it's being weaponized against you.
Leslie Poston:Let's start with what I mean by therapy speak. It's psychological and clinical language showing up in everyday conversation. Words like gaslighting, narcissist, trauma, or anxious attachment or boundaries. You see it on social media, hear it at dinner parties, and even read it in group text arguments. This democratization of psychological knowledge has been genuinely revolutionary.
Leslie Poston:This expansion of clinical language into everyday life has helped millions of people finally understand themselves. Someone who spent decades struggling with focus issues or being called lazy watches a video about ADHD and thinks, That's me! A woman told she's too sensitive learns about rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and finally has a framework. People who thought they weren't sick enough for therapy recognize themselves and descriptions of complex PTSD or developmental trauma and get help. This is progress.
Leslie Poston:Self diagnosis is valid and important. It's how many people particularly women, people of color, or anyone who didn't fit into narrow diagnostic models finally learn they can access care. For people who can do so safely, it can also help them seek additional professional evaluation and treatment. But that same language is sometimes weaponized, used not to heal or understand, but to control, manipulate, and avoid accountability. Today, I'm going to show you how to spot when therapy speak is being twisted into a weapon, in three key areas: your relationships, politics, and at work.
Leslie Poston:Let's talk about how we got here, because understanding the journey matters. Clinical psychological language used to be confined to therapy rooms and diagnostic manuals. Professionals spent years learning what these terms mean and when to apply them. But as psychology evolved, so did our understanding of mental health. This big shift started when researchers like psychologist Nick Haslam identified something called concept creep in 2016.
Leslie Poston:That's the expansion of psychological concepts over time. But not all concept creep is bad. Sometimes concepts expand because we learn more. We start listening to people we'd ignored. Take trauma.
Leslie Poston:The original definition was incredibly narrow only life threatening events, combat, or serious accidents. That definition excluded women with chronic childhood emotional abuse, people who experienced ongoing neglect, or anyone whose trauma didn't involve a single dramatic incident. The clinical expansion to include complex PTSD, developmental trauma, or attachment trauma, for example, recognizing both big T trauma and little t trauma wasn't diagnostic drift, it was the field catching up to what survivors had been saying for decades. Research shows that constant childhood criticism creates the same trauma responses in the nervous system as surviving a car crash. The brain doesn't distinguish between life threatening and soul crushing.
Leslie Poston:Both create lasting changes in how we process threat and safety. This expansion has allowed millions who didn't fit the shell shocked soldier model to finally access treatment and be believed. And then came the digital revolution. Social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube democratized this knowledge in unprecedented ways. Suddenly, psychological information that used to require expensive therapy or a graduate education was available in thirty second to sixty second videos.
Leslie Poston:Any teenager could learn about executive dysfunction. Any adult could discover they've been experiencing dissociation for years without knowing there was a name for it. In short, this has downsides. Studies show some of the content on TikTok isn't scientifically accurate and can be potentially damaging. But that content has also connected people to life changing information and to community.
Leslie Poston:The self diagnosis boom, for all its complications, has helped people who never would have sought evaluation otherwise finally get proper diagnosis and treatment. This is a revolution worth protecting: accessible psychological knowledge that helps people understand themselves and seek appropriate care or accommodation so they can live their fullest life. Be clear about something. Self diagnosis is valid. In fact, it's often the first step toward getting proper clinical evaluation for those who can do so safely.
Leslie Poston:Many people, especially those from marginalized communities who face barriers to healthcare, use self diagnosis as a jumping off point. When someone watches content about ADHD and recognizes their lifelong struggle with executive function, that's not pathologizing normal behavior that's just connecting the dots. When a woman learns about masking in autism, and sees her struggles reflected in women who post about being late diagnosed autistic online, she suddenly understands why social interactions have always exhausted her. That's a path to insight, not delusion. Research backs this up.
Leslie Poston:Studies show that increased access to mental health information correlates with increased help seeking behavior. People who self identify symptoms are more likely to pursue professional evaluation. The concern isn't that people are learning about mental health, it's what some people are doing with that language once they have it. Ideally, recognizing yourself in clinical descriptions should lead to seeking solutions. Maybe that's therapy, evaluation, treatment, or just accommodation.
Leslie Poston:It should lead to taking responsibility for managing your condition and understanding its impact on others. Having something like ADHD, for example, explains why you struggle with certain things. A diagnosis doesn't give you a permanent pass to hurt people without working on strategies to mitigate that impact. The dividing line is this: are you using psychological language to understand yourself and grow? Or are you using it as a shield to avoid accountability, or as a way to manipulate?
Leslie Poston:That distinction matters enormously. Now let's talk about how to spot when therapy speak is being weaponized in your personal relationships. Therapist Esther Perel has written extensively about how labeling enables us not to have to deal with each other. This is the core mechanism. Someone uses clinical language to shut down conversation and avoid accountability.
Leslie Poston:Here are some red flags to watch for: One is diagnostic deflection. You raise a concern about your partner's behavior, and they've been withdrawn, critical, and have broken promises to you repeatedly. Instead of engaging with what you said, they respond, you're projecting your abandonment issues, or that's just your anxiety talking. They've just shifted the entire conversation from their observable behaviour to your psychology, and you're now discussing those issues, not the actual problem that was raised. Another is unidirectional awareness.
Leslie Poston:Notice whether psychological insight is flowing in both directions. Someone who is genuinely doing therapeutic work on themselves uses that language to understand themselves and to take responsibility. Someone who is weaponizing it is only using it to explain why they can't be held accountable and why you're the problem. Do they ever turn that awareness inward in ways that lead to actual change? Or is that awareness always aimed at you?
Leslie Poston:Also have the permanent diagnosis card. That's I can't help my anger, I have trauma. Or I'm too anxious to discuss this. Or I dissociate when you criticize me. These claims make it impossible to ever address problems in a relationship.
Leslie Poston:While mental health conditions are real and require accommodation, they don't absolve someone of responsibility for their impact. Is this person actually seeking treatment and working on management, or are they just using diagnosis as a reason why you can never bring up a concern? Lastly, have term twisting. Watch for someone using clinical terms in ways that don't match their actual meaning. You might see this as calling every disagreement gaslighting, labeling any requests for connection as codependent, or describing normal emotional responses as toxic.
Leslie Poston:They're co opting serious clinical concepts to frame your reasonable needs as a dysfunction. Research shows this pattern, particularly with men who've learned to use just enough therapy speak to weaponize it against a partner, but it's certainly not exclusively in that direction. Using terms like enmeshed or people pleasing to frame any request for emotional connection or accountability as pathology, or saying you're being codependent when asked to follow through on plans, or that's you people pleasing when your partner is upset that someone doesn't show up, or work on your anxious attachment when your partner wants more communication. This is actual gaslighting, taking someone's legitimate concern and reframing it as a symptom of their psychological problems, which makes them question their reality and ask whether they have a right to be upset. It works especially well on people who've done therapeutic work because they know they have issues and patterns.
Leslie Poston:So when someone throws that language back at them, part of them thinks, Maybe they're right. Maybe this is just my trauma talking. So the key here is asking, does this person use therapy speak to take responsibility or to avoid it? Therapy speak has entered political discourse in some concerning ways. We're seeing it used to shut down debate, dismiss dissent, and to claim moral authority.
Leslie Poston:Here's what weaponized therapy speak looks like in politics: You might hear a trauma claim. Political opponents or policies being described as traumatizing are triggering, not to describe genuine psychological harm but to delegitimize the opposition. When every political disagreement is framed as causing trauma, it becomes impossible to have substantive debate or to reach substantive, coherent conclusions. It transforms political discourse into a question of who's most psychologically damaged by whose existence. We also have the weaponization of boundaries.
Leslie Poston:Setting boundaries is a therapeutic concept about protecting your own well-being. In politics, however, it's increasingly used to mean I refuse to engage with anyone who disagrees with me, and anyone who tries is violating my boundaries. You see this a lot on the left end of the spectrum, often referred to as a purity test. Actual boundary setting is about your own behavior what you'll accept in your own space. Weaponized boundary claims try to control others' speech and behavior and expression under the guise of that self protection.
Leslie Poston:We've done several episodes that look at solid research on politicians that have various disorders, and on the tendency of certain personality types and neurotypes to gravitate towards politics and positions of power. We rely on solid research rather than attaching a mental disorder to a specific politician we've never met, because armchair diagnosing political figures or groups with personality disorders does two harmful things. It stigmatizes actual mental health conditions by associating them with villainy, and it replaces substantive political critique with psychological speculation. We don't need to diagnose someone with narcissistic personality disorder to criticize their authoritarian tendencies. The behaviour itself is the problem.
Leslie Poston:There's also the performance of wellness. Politicians and political figures performing psychological awareness as proof of moral superiority. Talking extensively about their therapy, their trauma work, or their healing journey, not because it's relevant to policy, but because it signals they're evolved and safe. This turns mental health into political currency rather than actual health management. Research on this is still emerging, but we're seeing patterns where therapy language gets used to create in groups and out groups based on who has the right psychological framework.
Leslie Poston:Again, it becomes a purity test, rather than a tool for understanding. Watch for these patterns. Is therapy speak being used to engage with ideas or to avoid engaging? Is it being used to understand different perspectives, or to delegitimize them entirely? Is it opening up conversation or shutting it down?
Leslie Poston:The workplace is where therapy speak weaponization gets particularly tricky because power dynamics are already at play, and your livelihoods depend on your work. Here's what to watch for: Something I like to call the HR shield someone who is repeatedly using therapy language to avoid accountability for poor performance or problematic behaviour. Saying I can't meet any deadlines because of my ADHD without having a discussion to seek accommodation through proper channels or working on strategies with their team or their boss. Saying any feedback triggers my trauma, which means they can never receive performance reviews. Mental health conditions are real and legally require accommodation, as they should.
Leslie Poston:Accommodation also means finding ways to meet a job's requirements, not an exemption from all expectations. There is also toxic label inflation. Everything becomes toxic. A demanding manager with high standards? Toxic.
Leslie Poston:A coworker who disagrees with you? Toxic. A workplace that has any conflict? Toxic. This dilutes the term toxic until actual toxic workplaces get lumped in with places that just have everyday professional friction trying to get a job done together as a team.
Leslie Poston:You also have more boundary manipulation. You're starting to see a pattern with this. For this one, a manager or colleague might claim boundaries to avoid normal professional responsibilities, such as it's not my job to manage emotions when providing basic feedback is literally their job. Or that crosses my boundaries when asked to collaborate or compromise. Real workplace boundaries are important, such as not answering emails outside of work hours or not tolerating harassment.
Leslie Poston:Weaponized boundaries try to reshape job responsibilities around personal preference. Then there is perhaps one of the more ubiquitous ones, and that's the culture trap of wellness. Companies performing mental health awareness while creating conditions that harm your mental health, such as offering a meditation app while maintaining impossible workloads and crazy hours, that's weaponization. Therapy speak becomes performative. Everyone is using the right language, but nothing changes structurally.
Leslie Poston:Or worse, employees who actually need accommodations are told to practice more self care instead of receiving more genuine support. Studies of workplace psychology show us that when clinical language replaces direct communication, it actually decreases problem solving. Instead of this report was late and incomplete, we get, I feel like this situation is triggering my anxiety around your reliability. The focus is shifting from the concrete issue to emotional management. So the key question in workplace context: Is therapy speak being used to facilitate better working relationships and genuine accommodation, Or is it being used to avoid responsibility, shut down feedback, and create special rules for certain people?
Leslie Poston:Here's the framework for spotting weaponized therapy speak across all contexts. First, do a directionality test. Ask yourself, does this person use psychological awareness to take responsibility for their impact, or only to explain why they can't be held responsible? Genuine therapeutic language is bidirectional. It's helping people understand their own patterns and change.
Leslie Poston:Weaponized language only flows outward toward others. Do a change test. Does using this language lead to actual behavioural change, seeking treatment or problem solving? Or does it just become a permanent explanation for why things must stay as they are? Someone genuinely working on their anxious attachment, for example, might seek therapy and have strategies to work with it, whereas someone weaponizing it is just using it as a reason why you must accommodate them indefinitely.
Leslie Poston:Do a conversation test. Does therapy speak open up dialogue or shut it down? Real psychological awareness makes it possible to discuss difficult things with more nuance. Weaponized therapy begins conversations. You're diagnosed, you're labelled, and you're dismissed.
Leslie Poston:Lastly, do a context test. Is the clinical language appropriate to the situation? Is it leading towards solutions? Someone recognizing their ADHD and working with their employer on accommodation strategies? That's appropriate use.
Leslie Poston:Someone claiming every deadline is traumatizing them without seeking any treatment or strategies? That's weaponization. The expansion of psychological language into everyday life has been genuinely positive. It's helped millions of people understand themselves better and access care. Self diagnosis, when it leads to seeking proper support, whether that's professional or just in your family and friends and work environment, is valid and important.
Leslie Poston:But we need to get much better at recognizing when that same language is being twisted from a tool of healing into a tool of control. Watch for the patterns. Notice when therapy speak is being used to avoid rather than embrace accountability. Stay grounded in observable behaviour what someone actually does, not just the labels they assign. And remember, someone who is genuinely psychologically aware doesn't weaponize that awareness.
Leslie Poston:They're using it to grow, change, and take responsibility for their impact on others. Thanks for listening to PsyberSpace. This is your host, Leslie Poston, signing off. As always, until next time, stay curious. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a week, and send this episode to a friend if you think it will help them.
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