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Key points
- Words have psychological effects—the power to inspire and motivate but also the power to hurt.
- Negative words have stinging power when we pin them on ourselves.
- Rethinking what we say to ourselves can free us from prisons of our making.
In a previous post, I examined the psychological power of conjunctions, especially that warm, fuzzy, inclusive conjunction: and. Here we expand our focus to the psychological power of words in general and, in particular, words we apply to ourselves.
We think in words, and the words we utter can have psychological impacts, especially words we pin on ourselves. You are probably familiar with the childhood rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” This old adage reminds us that harsh, stinging words from others don’t have to upset us. But far too often, harsh, critical words inflict pain in the form of emotional abuse. So, too, can words we utter to ourselves, about ourselves. Indeed, these words can hurt us just as deeply as any stinging criticism.
Language Influences Thought
Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941)—not the Star Trek character—was an early 20th-century American linguist who proposed that the way we perceive the world is influenced by the language we speak. You may have heard that Northern Indigenous peoples, such as the Inuit, think about snow very differently than the rest of us because they have more than 50 different words for snow. Whether this is merely urban legend remains debatable. Those of us living in lower latitudes have perhaps only a few words to describe different types of snow, such as soft fluffy snow, frost, slush, and, for us city dwellers, the “yellow snow” we see at the curb the day after a snowstorm.
Whorf’s proposal doesn’t depend on how Inuits or other Indigenous peoples think about snow, but more broadly on how our language influences our thinking. Consider gender-based terms. It wasn’t so long ago that people commonly used gender-typed terms, such as the masculine form when referring to members of traditional male-dominated occupations (think firemen and policemen). These occupational terms have largely been supplanted by gender-neutral terms, such as firefighter and police officer. In addition, occupational titles that traditionally carried separate gender designations, such as waiters and waitresses, are now referred to generically, using terms such as wait staff or servers. Many people endorse these gender-neutral designations and for good reason—they can change how we think about occupational opportunities available to young men and women. Today, a young girl may aspire to a career as a police officer, while her mother or grandmother might have felt cut off from this career path because the designated occupational title at the time was policeman.
As a practicing psychologist and not a linguist, my interest in language focuses on the psychological power of words. The road of life is strewn with disappointing, frustrating experiences and outright failures (my pitiful attempts at tennis come to mind). But losing does not make one a loser, and even a pitiful performance on a tennis court does not render one pitiful. A failure is just that, a failure; it does not make a person a failure unless the person labels themself a failure. Life experiences, whether positive or negative, are not statements about personhood—not unless we apply these words to ourselves and permit them to pierce the veil of our personhood.
Label Thyself (Not)
Cognitive therapists recognize that pinning negative labels on ourselves is a type of cognitive distortion that can affect our moods and how we feel about ourselves. If Jane screwed up a presentation at work, she might take failure as a learning opportunity and resolve to make changes the next time around. But if she smacks the label “screw-up” on herself, she might think, “What’s the point of trying?”
A tiger who thinks it is a lamb will act like a lamb. A person who pins a screw-up label on themself may find the expectation of failure fulfilled. Attaching labels to oneself assigns us to a prison of our own making, as we begin to construe ourselves based on the label and act accordingly. Labeling yourself a failure or a loser only makes you feel miserable about yourself. It does not direct you to ways of resolving problems you face.
Choose Your Words Carefully
Yes, words have power. They can inspire and motivate us to move mountains. But they can also work in the opposite way by setting ourselves up for negative outcomes in the form of self-fulfilling prophecies. Expecting to fail leads us to underperform, which can lead to failure.
Adopting a self-questioning style of talking to yourself puts your interpretation of daily experiences on temporary hold, giving you time to consider alternative ways of thinking. Rather than using declarative statements (e.g., "I'm a failure") that posit a fixed view of reality, stop yourself in the act of thinking negatively and substitute a rational countering thought: “I’ve made mistakes, but it doesn’t mean that I’m a failure. . . Stop labeling yourself and figure out what you need to do next." I remember a speaker at a college commencement encouraging the audience to think differently about failure by saying to themselves, “Failure is not fatal. It is feedback.”
In Hamlet, Shakespeare reminds us, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." If thinking makes it so, then rethinking can make it something else. The more you pick away at troubling thoughts, the better able you will be to recognize their flaws and replace them with healthier ways of thinking. You may benefit from consulting a cognitive-behavioral therapist to guide you in identifying your own thought triggers and help you change your inner dialogue to avoid infecting your mind with negative thoughts and nasty labels.
Whose Words Are These, Anyway?
What do you say to yourself when no one else is listening? Do you talk sense to yourself, using inner speech to prepare for the challenges you face in life? Or does your self-talk bring you down? And if you do put yourself down, whose voice does it sound like? Whose words might you be parroting? As I’ve seen so often in my patients, negative self-talk reflects what they have heard (and then internalized) from significant figures in their lives—parents, teachers, siblings, friends.
The takeaway message is that the put-downs and snarky comments you say under your breath about yourself cannot occupy your mind without your permission. After all, it’s your mind. We can take a lesson from the playwright Oscar Wilde, who famously said, “Please do not shoot the piano player; he is doing his best.” By the same token, we need to remind ourselves that we are doing our best and not shoot ourselves by using words that add insult to injury.
General Disclaimer: The content here and in other blog posts on the Minute Therapist is intended for informational purposes only and not for diagnosis, evaluation, or treatment of mental health disorders. If you are concerned about your emotional well-being or experiencing any significant mental health problems, I encourage you to consult a licensed mental health professional in your area for a thorough evaluation.
© 2024 Jeffrey S. Nevid.
