When talking to your friends, or scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, do you often use or hear words like “trauma,” “gaslighting,” “love-bombing,” or “victim” to describe everyday experiences and behaviors?
What is your reaction to this kind of language being used so frequently? Do you think it is always appropriate and accurate for the issues being discussed? Or are words like these becoming hyperbolic and overused?
In the Opinion essay “If Everything Is ‘Trauma,’ Is Anything?,” Jessica Bennett writes about the pervasive nature of what some have called “therapy-speak” or “trauma talk”:
The man had been effusive, at first — sending compliments, engaging in witty back-and-forths, making a playlist that included that song by Mazzy Star (you know the one). And then, suddenly, he wasn’t.
As it turned out, the guy had sent that same playlist to multiple women. He’d allegedly sent at least one of them an unsolicited nude photo. As he woke up next to one woman, he was planning that night’s date with another. Like so many online daters before him, Caleb was a creep.
But in the language of TikTok — and, perhaps, the language of our current moment — he was more than that: He was pathological. Caleb, better known at this point as “West Elm Caleb,” a 25-year-old furniture designer in Brooklyn who was the subject of viral mania last month, was accused of “love bombing” women by showering them with interest, “gaslighting” them by making them think he liked them, then abruptly ghosting them, leaving his “victims” to bond over their “shared trauma.”
There are plenty of words to describe somebody like Caleb: deceitful, manipulative, inconsiderate, liar. There is in fact a word, one we can’t print here, created entirely for men like this. But in the souped-up language of today, none of those words seem like enough. “All pain is ‘harm.’ All ‘harm’ is ‘trauma.’ All ‘trauma’ comes from someone who is an ‘abuser,’” said Natalie Wynn, a philosopher turned popular YouTube personality. “It’s as if people can’t articulate disagreement or hardships without using this language.” And so, Caleb became a “predator.”
Call it post-traumatic hyperbole. Or TikTok pseudo-psychology. Or even therapy-speak. There are plenty of horrible things going on in the world, and serious mental health crises that warrant such severe language. But when did we start using the language of harm to describe, well, everything?
Consider “love bombing.” The term originated with cult leaders, in the 1970s, to describe the process of luring recruits by showering them with compliments and affection, which was often followed by more serious measures, like sleep deprivation and isolation. “Love bombing is a coordinated effort,” the psychologist Margaret Singer observed in her book, “Cults in Our Midst,” that involved “flattery, verbal seduction, affectionate but usually nonsexual touching, and lots of attention to their every remark.”
Much like “gaslighting” — which comes from a British play that was turned into a Hollywood film, “Gaslight,” in which a husband drives his wife to question her own sanity — “love bombing” became an important term in the domestic violence space to describe patterns of manipulation by an intimate partner. But the terms are meant to refer to patterns, not individual instances of behavior.
Ms. Bennett continues, explaining the phenomenon this way:
The phrase “semantic creep” has been used to describe how the meaning of words change over time. What we’re seeing today, according to the psychologist Nick Haslam, a professor at the University of Melbourne, could be called “trauma creep” — when the language of the clinical, or at least the clinical-adjacent, is used to refer to an increasingly expansive set of everyday experiences.
Beneath our collective embrace of such language, Mr. Haslam argues, is in fact a better understanding — and in turn, sensitivity — to the psychological aspects of harm. Which, to be clear, can be a good thing. “We’re calling out bad behavior that was previously tolerated, identifying harm that was previously ignored,” he said.
The word “trauma” comes from the ancient Greeks, who defined it as physical injury. And while the term is still used to describe physical harm, today it’s more commonly expressed in the context of the emotional. That shift was critical in the 1990s and early 2000s to legitimizing the concept of domestic abuse, said the sociologist Paige Sweet, the author of “The Politics of Surviving” — and even helped shelters gain government resources because it “medicalized” the concept.
But as words gain useful new meanings, over time, they can also lose precision.
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
What is your reaction to the article? Which lines stand out most to you, and why? Have you heard or used this kind of “trauma talk” or “therapy-speak” in your own life?
Nick Haslam, a professor at the University of Melbourne, said that our collective embrace of this kind of language could be a good thing because, as Ms. Bennett writes, it showed “a better understanding — and in turn, sensitivity — to the psychological aspects of harm.” Do you agree? Have more clinical words or ideas ever allowed you to identify your own or someone else’s actions, or helped you better understand and navigate a difficult situation?
Ms. Bennett cautions that even “as words gain useful new meanings, over time, they can also lose precision.” Can you think of a time when you have heard or used words like “trauma,” “gaslighting,” “love-bombing,” “victim,” “abuser” or other clinical words in a way that was exaggerated or not totally accurate? What effect do you think that language might have had on you or the people around you? Do you think the overuse of these words can be harmful?
Ms. Bennett gives several reasons for why this kind of “therapy-speak” might be becoming more prevalent. Why do you think people are using this kind of language more often today? To what degree do you think language shapes our culture versus culture shapes our language?
Dr. Haslam said that “when we start to talk about ordinary adversities as ‘traumas’ there is a risk that we’ll see them as harder to overcome and see ourselves as more damaged by them.” What is your reaction Dr. Haslam’s statement? Do you think that focusing on trauma in this way may make it harder to overcome both deep trauma, as well as daily inconveniences? Do you think it is possible to strike a balance between the two?
Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
