I used to be going through a breakup once I began therapy post-pandemic. My friends were telling me that I needed to work on healthier emotional boundaries. They said I used to be probably experiencing trauma from a toxic ex. Most likely, I’d been in a codependent relationship.
When I went to fill out the intake questionnaire before my first appointment, I regurgitated what I’d heard. I used to be searching for therapy to “establish healthier emotional boundaries due to a codependent relationship that had left me traumatized.”
But after just a few sterile sessions stuffed with the jargon I’d picked up from friends and the web, I finished using these terms—trauma, codependence, emotional boundaries. I used to be using language to distance myself from reality. I used to be confusing self-preservation for emotional maturity.
It’s not like these words were entirely inaccurate. It’s that they’d turn into clichés, shorthand that kept me from understanding the nuances of my very own experience. I wasn’t undergoing “trauma.” But I used to be fearful of what one other romantic relationship would appear like and anxious about whether it might prove the identical way this one had.
I’m not alone in my use of “therapy speak.” Thanks to social media, terms once confined to clinical settings are ubiquitous in on a regular basis conversations. A difficult roommate is “toxic”; conflict is “abuse”; every ex-boyfriend is a “narcissist”; and stress is at all times “trauma.” We are all “victims”; we’re all “gaslit.”
Sometimes, in fact, these words are warranted. With mental illness on the rise, it’s helpful to have common language at our disposal. As more people discuss their mental health, therapy itself is becoming destigmatized. Hearing other Christians talk openly about abuse stands out as the encouragement a victim needs to return forward. Acknowledging a painful childhood as “traumatic” may free someone to hunt skilled help.
But all of us, and Christians particularly, ought to be careful about overrelying on therapy speak to explain our relationships with others. This language has consequences—not just for understanding our own lives rightly but for living together because the body of Christ. How we speak shapes what we do, and therapy speak is likely to be limiting our ability to like our neighbors well.
Overusing therapy speak—or using it out of context—conflates different kinds of inauspicious experiences. That conflation may be confusing at best and harmful at worst.
Take, for example, a social media video that got here across my feed just a few years ago, through which a lady describes skipping a meal as “self-harm.” Of course, this will likely indicate a pattern of disordered eating. But in lots of cases, though skipping breakfast is unlucky, it’s also benign. Classifying one missed meal as self-harm undermines the seriousness of what that term really means.
Then there’s the word trauma. I’ve heard it used to explain a difficult class in school and even an encounter with a centipede in my first apartment (true story). But when trauma becomes a good characterization of normal conflicts or on a regular basis stresses, its real meaning—“exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence”—gets minimized.
Using words like toxic and gaslighting as sloppy shorthand for normal conflicts with parents, professors, and friends is dishonest, even when kept away from ill-intent. It dilutes the meaning of significant words for individuals who’ve undergone serious suffering.
For example, when abuse describes an argument between roommates, it’s not a helpful word for individuals who’ve experienced real mistreatment, including within the church. For congregations which can be reckoning with actual instances of sexual abuse, emotional abuse, or the abuse of authority, it’s especially vital to be precise with language. Overusing a word can take away its severity, making light of the heaviness it holds for those walking through dark valleys.
Overusing therapy speak can keep us from hearing one another. It may also give us an excuse to stop listening altogether. It’s hard to argue for reconciliation when a friend deems your relationship “toxic” or “problematic.” Nobody can beat back on plans canceled for “self-care.” And “emotional boundaries” just can’t be crossed.
When we use therapy speak to shut down conversations, relationships turn into dictatorships, with one person wielding terms over one other. A me-versus-them dynamic centers ourselves fairly than others. I feel unsettled about something you do; due to that, I need space. We seek to attenuate any conflict, discomfort, or inconvenience.
This deflection of responsibility discourages each introspection and even honest confession in regards to the ways we fail to like our neighbors. Labeling your friend as a “narcissist” is simpler than recognizing the part you play within the dynamic. It’s far easier to set an “emotional boundary” than to sacrifice for another person, especially when it appears like they’re being annoying or unreasonable.
Of course, sometimes, boundaries are warranted. Sometimes, relationships must end. But cutting people out of our lives should at all times be done fastidiously and thoughtfully. Therapy speak can simplify what ought to be a means of discernment and prayer about our own roles in a relationship right into a black-and-white judgment that doesn’t consider others’ complexities, mistakes, and imperfections. My mom remembers a conversation in a different way; she’s “gaslighting” me, and I won’t speak along with her anymore. My emotionally immature colleague didn’t respect my time during a gathering; he’s “toxic,” and never definitely worth the trouble of attending to know.
Our brothers and sisters will annoy us, hurt us, and misunderstand us. Sometimes, this may require a personal conversation to clear the air (Matt. 18:15), but often won’t warrant estrangement—or wielding these words as weapons.
God doesn’t promise perfect relationships, and we should always be asking the Lord to go looking our hearts, to discover the planks in our own eyes (Matt. 7:5). We should be honest about “any offensive way” inside as a substitute of assuming ourselves to be the victim (Ps. 139:23–24).
“Unquestioning validation” from those around us feels great within the short term. Distancing ourselves from those that have offended us is straightforward and may even be misconstrued as accountability or justice. But these relational quick fixes aren’t helpful in the long term—especially if what we would like is real Christian community.
For Christians, that community is everlasting. It’s also messy. In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer recognized that through hard relationships, we realize how much we’d like God’s grace: “Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, since it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together—the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.”
Therapy speak just is likely to be making us less patient, less kind, and fewer generous, slower to forgive and quicker to anger. Our culture too easily tosses people aside over difficulties which can be converted into trauma or toxicity. We limit the fruit that comes from living together. We turn sacrificial love right into a burden.
This is a possibility for Christians to be countercultural—not by promoting unhealthy relationships, closing down conversations about mental health, or rejecting the insights that therapy provides, but simply by utilizing our words fastidiously and by seeing people beyond the labels we ascribe to them.
After settling into therapy, I discovered the slow (and oftentimes ugly) practice of expanding on my emotions to be a fruitful one. My therapist helps translate what I’m saying into the terms that make sense for every situation. To be honest, sometimes I just need assistance determining strategies for conflict resolution. My therapist often jogs my memory that “it takes two to tango”; she confronts me thoughtfully and straightforwardly about how I is likely to be misrepresenting another person. Our process together has shown me how vital it’s to have a superb support system—a system that may “carry one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2) with patience and style.
Mia Staub is editorial project manager at Christianity Today.
