Think Twice Before You Use These Words from Psychology

You do not have to stray far in social spaces (whether online or in real life) before you come across these words, and many more like them:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• PTSD
• OCD
• Autism
• ADHD
• Anti-social

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These are terms found within the field of psychology.

But unlike other psychological terms like jealousy, personality trait, or empathy, the aforementioned words are not the kind that just anyone can casually and accurately throw around in a conversation. They are clinical terms. They are labels used to categorize and identify a cluster of highly complex factors within a unique human individual, and the ability to use these properly remains unperfected even in people with more than six years of education and decades of practice.

The average person just cannot — and should not — use them.

I am not a clinical psychologist myself, but I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Oslo and extensive experience with several mental illnesses myself. Therefore, take this as a critique of the current discourse surrounding mental health rather than as a professional look at the terminology of clinical psychology (or the clinical procedures that are connected to their usage), which I would be unable to provide.

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Sadly, it is all too common for people to lightly throw these words around.

I have heard some joking about their “childhood trauma” that gave them “PTSD”. I have seen headlines on Medium referring to “borderlines” and “anti-socials”. I have frequently heard people label those they dislike as “autistic”.

This is really harmful for several reasons.

• One, it undermines the decades of research, education, practice, and credibility that professional psychologists possess — and even they can admit that their understanding of these terms are limited and flawed
• Two, it reduces actual illnesses (or, in the case of autism, for example, highly misunderstood conditions) to jokes and quips — and often, they even turn into slurs, which are based on damaging prejudices and stereotypes, and which reduce human individuals to mere labels
• Three, it blurs the lines between people who satisfy, and people who do not satisfy, the criteria behind a specific clinical diagnosis by essentially removing one of the central purposes of the terms, which is to identify anomalies in a larger population (hopefully for the benefit of the people involved) — and because of this, it makes it harder for those among the latter who are actually struggling to access the resources they need

Source: Loïc Fürhoff on Unsplash

And even this is not the full picture.

Giving a diagnosis to a patient or client is a complicated and often lengthy procedure. Our understanding of traits and symptoms — and how to apply theoretical clinical concepts to actual individuals — is biased and flawed besides (for lack of a better word), because the research behind it, like all research, is imperfect and incomplete. Many psychologists themselves are careful to use terms like the ones above because of their complexity, and it requires a keen and trained eye to be able to identify a case of autism or anxiety.

So, think twice.

Think twice before you call your boss anti-social.

Think twice before you joke about OCD or trauma.

Think twice before you use words you do not actually know.