Lately, you might have noticed clinical-sounding speech is showing up everywhere. You could be in a brainstorming session at work when you’re told it’s a “safe space”. Or perhaps you’ve been invited to “nurture your inner child” as you squirm in downward dog during a yoga class? Maybe a friend has told you they’re worried about their “avoidant attachment style”, a phrase you’ve had to take your phone out to google.

“Therapy-speak” (language usually reserved for a psychologist’s office) has infiltrated our everyday conversations: where we were once “pissed off” or “hurt”, we now feel “gaslit” or “triggered”. We “set boundaries” rather than take some alone time. A friend who circles a conversation back to themselves constantly is a “malignant narcissist”. While it’s often simple hyperbole (being late for a morning meeting due to a crammed train will not, of course, bring on actual PTSD), there are also instances where it’s born from a genuine attempt to understand the human experience. But how has this happened? And can it do more harm than good?

To understand its impact, we must first look at where it’s come from – and how it’s grown alongside an uptake in therapy. During the pandemic, psychologists reported a major increase in demand for mental health treatment, with three in 10 saying they were seeing more patients than they were before. Women are more likely than men to receive mental health treatment, with 11.7% of them attending therapy in 2019. Simply put, if you or the people in your friendship group are attending therapy, the language that you use for that ever-important hour of the week might filter into your day-to-day conflicts and conversations. In recent months, therapist Kathryn Kline has been struck most by clients using this language of their own accord. “I try to keep sessions jargon-free because I believe too much terminology can intellectualise the therapeutic experience,” she says. “It can prevent people from working through relational issues that could in fact be resolved. If everyone I disagree with is a narcissist, why try to resolve problems in the relationship?”

Why are we all adopting therapy-speak in our everyday conversations?