Summary
In this bonus episode, Julia and Sabrina delve into various mental health buzzwords, discussing their evolution and the implications of their usage. They explore terms that have become pejorative over time, such as 'crazy' and 'hysterical', and how societal perceptions of these words have shifted. The conversation also touches on contemporary terms like 'main character energy' and 'therapy speak', examining their legitimacy in the mental health field and the importance of context in understanding these terms.
Takeaways
Mental health buzzwords can carry negative connotations.
The term 'hysterical' has evolved in its usage.
Language in mental health is constantly changing.
Many contemporary terms are not recognized in clinical settings.
Context is crucial in understanding mental health terminology.
Words can marginalize certain groups, especially women.
The perception of terms can shift over generations.
Professionals may use trendy terms to connect with clients.
It's important to discern legitimate terms from popular slang.
Awareness of language can help reduce stigma in mental health.
Chapters
00:00 Exploring Mental Health Buzzwords
06:27 The Evolution of Language in Mental Health
09:30 Navigating Professional vs. Popular Terminology
10:12 riverside_outro_- no captions_julia_& sabrina's s.mp4
Sound Bites
"These are not real mental health terms."
"Most of them are not really real words."
"We always have more than we have time for."
Episode Transcript
Sabrina (00:00.321)
It's okay.
Julia Baum (00:02.945)
All right, we're back for our bonus episode, mental health buzzwords that we didn't get a chance to touch on in our main episode.
Sabrina (00:06.071)
Yes.
Sabrina (00:12.11)
Yes, and Julia really quickly, just looking at the list that we wrote down together. And there's one if you want to look at page one and then page two has stuff that we saw online. So just wanting to differentiate that maybe we can just list like read through the first list as an example and then expand on the other ones. How does that sound?
Julia Baum (00:20.526)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Baum (00:27.392)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Baum (00:37.933)
Yeah.
Yeah, sounds good.
Do you want to start with the first one? Okay.
Sabrina (00:47.414)
Yeah. All right. So this list was created in preparation for this episode, Mental Health Buzzwords. And so as an example of this, here are some of the terms or mental health terms. They're not diagnoses or diagnosis, but they're terms that have, in our view, become sort of pejorative over time or very, very negative and been weaponized at times.
So the first one is stupid or crazy. Let's say crazy, I think is a first one. Second, hysterical, which again, we don't hear as much of anymore, but is still there. A nervous breakdown, lunatic. And then growing up, we heard some terms that were used quite a bit. So growing up for us was...
two decades ago, that even make me wince a little bit to say them out loud. So now are so taboo and politically incorrect that I have trouble saying the next term. And again, this is not politically correct at all, but the term is mental retardation. don't like it. Really the clinical term nowadays,
actually been replaced in the clinical vernacular or the dictionary, the DSM basically, and it's been replaced as developmental disability, which is much more neutral and respectful, most importantly. So that's the first list. Any thoughts about that, Julia?
Julia Baum (02:32.909)
Yep. Yeah.
Yes. Well, first of all, I think we were growing up like three decades ago. But secondly, yeah, that word hysterical has been around for a long time. I kind of think now it's somehow more often is used in like a positive way. Like, that's hysterical.
Sabrina (02:43.486)
my god,
Sabrina (02:53.837)
Yeah.
Sabrina (03:04.489)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's again shifting.
Julia Baum (03:06.863)
that comedian's hysterical or whatever. Which, yeah, I don't even know what to think about that. That's where I feel like I would love a linguist's perspective on things like this, where it started out as it meant a woman was... Yeah. Yeah.
Sabrina (03:22.755)
Yeah.
Sabrina (03:30.912)
was like mentally unwell and hysteric, like hysterics or hysterical was actually, I don't think it was actually even ever adopted officially into medical literature, but it was actually used by psychiatrists such as Freud and Breuer and yeah, it was not a good thing.
Julia Baum (03:41.205)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's like that word has evolved to mean something completely different. It's pretty socially acceptable to describe something funny as hysterical.
Sabrina (04:01.516)
Yeah. Yeah, I think that the only thing that has sort of carried over from those times is just sort of the wow factor. I'm not maybe using the right word for this, but like the idea that like, this is an extreme sort of word. And so when I hear hysterical, I feel like somebody's saying, they're extremely funny nowadays, right?
Julia Baum (04:21.325)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Baum (04:26.561)
Yes, it does have that connotation, yeah.
Sabrina (04:29.868)
Right, whereas maybe in the 20s, 30s, 40s, it really just referred to mostly women who were so hysterical that they couldn't be listened to. it was very pejorative and really intended to marginalize women.
Julia Baum (04:35.68)
Mm-hmm.
Julia Baum (04:40.599)
Uh-huh.
Julia Baum (04:45.583)
Yeah, so that's interesting. And it makes me wonder how are some of these other words going to evolve over time. yeah, so yeah, we also kind of scoped out some of the Reddit community and kind of trending words.
Sabrina (04:55.47)
100%, yeah.
Sabrina (05:08.504)
Yeah.
Julia Baum (05:12.137)
Online. So I'll read off some of those. And a lot of these, will say, were written with a complaint about like, I'm sick of this word, or it's overused, or things like that. So main character energy, emotional labor, therapy speak.
Sabrina (05:15.416)
Sounds good.
Sabrina (05:26.518)
Yeah?
Sabrina (05:34.733)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Julia Baum (05:40.281)
Holding space triggered red flags and green flags, which we just did an episode called Red Flags, Green Flags. Boundary violation, safe space. I mean, it does go on. But any thoughts on those?
Sabrina (05:43.053)
Yes.
Sabrina (05:51.395)
Yeah.
We did.
Yeah, it's a big one.
Sabrina (06:06.506)
Yeah, real quick. And then I'd love to hear your thoughts. But if we're looking at like the first one, main character energy versus triggered, for instance, main character energy, in fact, the first three on that list, none of them are actual clinical terms. These were terms honestly probably thought of and put up on Reddit or Instagram or.
Julia Baum (06:11.0)
Mm-hmm.
Sabrina (06:35.982)
TikTok and people just kind of latched onto it. These are not real mental health, like they're not in our vocabulary in that way. So they're not legitimate in that sense from a...
Julia Baum (06:40.409)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sabrina (06:52.246)
Maybe let me rephrase that. They're not mental health recognized professionally terms. Triggered, being triggered, having a trigger, that is a recognized sort of mental health term. Again, it's not a diagnosis, but it's definitely something that comes up a lot in a lot of different types of mental health issues. Trauma is one of them.
Also CBT practitioners, I think, probably use that a lot. But it means something different when it's used by a lay person or somebody that's outside of, that's not a mental health professional. And that's important to look at, that when I'm looking at this list, most of them are.
Yeah, most of them are not really real words in the mental health professional community.
Julia Baum (07:47.477)
Mm-hmm, that is absolutely true. Yeah, I feel lucky in a way that I am in the mental health field so I can detect what's real and what's nonsense out there. But I'm just thinking, yeah, most people wouldn't know what's legitimate and what's not.
Sabrina (08:08.855)
Yeah
Sabrina (08:15.35)
No.
Julia Baum (08:16.611)
A lot of times you can tell from the way someone's speaking, like as a professional, you can hear another professional. You can like discern that. But yeah, if you don't have that background, I think it'd be really hard to say, well, what's the difference between this expert and that person who actually is an expert? Like it might be hard and you might just go more off of like personality or
Sabrina (08:21.314)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sabrina (08:27.234)
Yeah.
Sabrina (08:36.832)
Yeah.
Julia Baum (08:45.791)
vibe or like marketing materials and stuff.
Sabrina (08:47.532)
Yeah. Yeah. Does this person seem like an expert? mean, that has a lot, like people are very susceptible to that actually.
Julia Baum (08:57.357)
Yeah, yeah, so it's interesting. Also, we're out of time. But I will say a lot of professional therapists will throw in words like this just to be contemporary, which is a whole other issue. But yeah, we're going to stop now because this is just a bonus episode.
Sabrina (09:01.901)
Yeah.
Sabrina (09:05.416)
yeah.
Sabrina (09:13.707)
Yeah.
Yes.
Well, it was lovely like going through this with you. I think we both have a lot of opinions and thoughts and feelings about it. Yeah.
Julia Baum (09:27.937)
I know, so many. We always have more than we have time for. okay, well, thanks for listening to our bonus episode and stay tuned for our next full episode. Bye.
Sabrina (09:41.804)
Yeah. Bye bye.
Julia Baum (09:45.685)
Okay.