26 August 2026

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“Therapist Talk” & Diagnostic Language

There’s been a lot of discussion in the last year or so about “therapist talk”, i.e. non-professionals (usually influencers on TikTok or IG) who have incorporated not only therapeutic/diagnostic terminology but who (sometimes annoyingly) use phrases like “holding space” and “trauma bonding” in their everyday language.

I think clarity is king. By this I mean that, even as a Registered Psychotherapist, reaching for clinical terms might be tempting in order to provide a diagnostic framework for an experience that a client is going through (internally or externally). And on some level there are certainly a good number of clients who might find a classification for what they are experiencing to be somewhat validating. That said, I try as much as possible to describe my impression of what’s going on in plain terms first. I might very well land on a diagnostic term at some point afterward, but there’s a risk in front-loading that kind of language in the therapeutic space. Namely, clinical language can sometimes go over people’s heads, or worse, two-dimensionalize our complexity.

For example, if someone’s relationships with others, especially after taking time to explore their early childhood experiences, seem to align with an “anxious” attachment style (referring to Attachment Theory), it’s going to be more effective–for me as a professional attempting to make sense of their style of interaction–to begin by drawing their attention to the pattern of behaviour, the way they can take an all-or-nothing approach to friendships, for example. By establishing that there’s a pattern, one that isn’t necessarily “bad” but unchecked can lead to confusion, it’s easier to then talk about Attachment Theory–what it is, how it it’s applied–rather than the other way around. I would hate to have a client feel intimidated by a heavy-sounding clinical term. It’s easier to discuss it in everyday terms first. In fact, sometimes it’s not necessary to even put on the clinician’s hat and attach a diagnostic term to what’s going on. They are, after all, just terms. So long as the pattern itself is explored and the client’s understanding of their behaviour broadened, then that’s the important part, right?

There are a lot of people who rush to a search engine to self-diagnose their behaviour…and that can have scary results. “Oh my god, I might have Narcissistic Personality Disorder!” they tell themselves, when in fact it’s nothing close to that (and, honestly, NPD is really, really rare in the real world). Also, and I like to make this clear with clients: clinical language is intended for clinicians. They provide a framework for people such as myself to begin to contextualize what’s going on with a client’s experience with others. Unfortunately, when we casually reach for clinical language we most often reduce the heterogeneity of human behaviour and experience into something that is less than three-dimensional.

If someone has been diagnosed with ADHD, then that’s important to note because that carries with it a number of ways in which that person might be challenged in an ableist and neurotypical society. But (I want to scream into the sky on some days) they are also human individuals with human idiosyncrasies; not everything they do or ways of reaction are to be seen as exclusive to neurodivergency.

I am, in a word, an anti-reductionist. Each of us is so incredibly rich in temperament, likes/dislikes, and attitude. While yes, it’s important that we have diagnostic language in order to allow us–professionals and non-professionals–to understand and communicate behaviour and experiences, clinical language can sometimes flatten and mute things.