Psychospeak: How and Why to Stop This Communication Blocker

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“You’re a narcissist!”

“Yeah, well, you’re so borderline!”

“Stop gaslighting me!”

“Oh, please! I Googled the definition, and I’m not doing that!”

“Our relationship is toxic!”

Kim and Alicia, the couple in my office, glared at each other in sullen silence after I stopped this exchange with a suggestion that we work on real communication, concentrating on their underlying feelings and needs.

This habit of psychospeak, or the often loose use of psychiatric terminology and diagnoses, is amazingly effective at blocking communication. I’m seeing it more often these days in couples or individuals who have steeped themselves in self-help books, online psychology sites, and podcasts. While it’s good that curiosity about psychology is on the rise with more people dedicated to personal growth, the terminology some pick up in these explorations can be used (or misused) in counter-productive ways.

How does the use or misuse of psychological terms and definitions block communication?

• It can be just another form of labeling and name-calling. This can lead to defensiveness and the shutting down of all meaningful conversations.
• It can be used to avoid personal responsibility and mutual problem-solving. It dumps responsibility for a couple’s difficulties onto the other, pinpointing the reason for the conflict as something outside their shared distress and conflict-fueling habits to the partner’s alleged personality disorders or traits signaling irrevocable dysfunction.
• It can become a way of denigrating another’s feelings or extinguishing all hope. When one throws around terminology that the other may not understand, it may deflect a more plain-spoken partner’s feelings and needs and avoid any resolution. And labeling a relationship or a person “toxic” can convey the message that the person or relationship is intrinsically evil or flawed and thus beyond hope.
• It can be a way of stopping conversation and avoiding real feelings. Psychospeak can be a defensive tactic that keeps a couple—or any two people in a family or friend relationship—from getting to the real feelings underlying the conflict.

To stop communication-blocking psychospeak, it’s important to explore these feelings underlying your urge to engage in it.

But what if you feel that your partner or friend or family member really is diagnosable or does have an official psychiatric diagnosis?

While relationships can suffer when one or both partners have traits of psychiatric disorders or even an official diagnosis, it isn’t helpful, even then, to resort to labels. Yes, people with a diagnosis or traits of borderline personality disorder can be difficult partners, perhaps exploding with anger or rejecting the other over something that seems minor. The emotional roller coaster of living with someone with bipolar disorder (especially if they don’t take their medications) can be a trial. And life can be lonely with a partner whose behavior is selfish or uncaring, whether or not they meet the diagnostic criterion for narcissistic personality disorder. What matters is what you’re feeling right now and what you hope to resolve.

Are you feeling unloved, unheard, or misunderstood? Let your partner know how you feel without hurling blame.

When Kim was able to tell Alicia how she was feeling—that every time she voiced an opinion or a desire to change something about the way she and her wife treated each other, she got shouted down—Alicia began to see that she felt threatened by any evidence that their relationship wasn’t perfect. “We’ve gone through so much together in the past 20 years,” she said, suddenly tearful. “I get scared when I hear from you that something’s not working for you. I’m afraid you’ll leave me.”

Alicia realized, finally, that her fear was driving Kim away rather than keeping them close. They both cried when Kim said, “I would never leave you. I just want us to be happier and feel more comfortable together.”

Are you feeling exasperated or frustrated? That nothing you do pleases them? Express your desire to please your partner and your disappointment or frustration that somehow this isn’t happening. Ask for suggestions for creating more satisfaction, peace, and harmony with your partner, and be specific about your own needs.

“I started realizing that my husband wasn’t the narcissist I thought he was,” a client I’ll call Cassie told me recently. “He does care. He just shows it in ways that don’t matter as much to me. While I do like flowers on special occasions like my birthday and Mother’s Day, roses don’t cut it when what I really want is his partnership in bathing the kids while I’m cooking dinner or cleaning the kitchen after a meal instead of sitting in front of the television. We both work long hours. Why am I the only one who has a second shift at home? Once I stopped labeling him as a narcissist or an entitled male and told him how I was feeling and what I needed, things got a lot better between us.”

Are you feeling that all the blame and responsibility for the tensions in your relationship are being dumped on you? Rather than getting instantly defensive and hurling accusatory labels your partner’s way, it can be useful to examine your own part in this crisis. How can you change your behavior in the interest of resolving your conflict? You only have power over your own changes, not your partner’s. When you can acknowledge that you have a part in the tension between you and have a plan to remedy your part, you might tell your partner how you plan to change and what you need from them in order to resolve your differences.

Whether you’re feeling hurt or emotionally abandoned in your relationship, saying so in a non-accusatory way, simply reporting your feelings and what you wish could change, can make a difference. It can also help to reflect quietly on how you might fine-tune your expectations.

Carolyn, who just turned 40 and has never been married, told me recently that she generally has had relationships with men “who totally spoil me, giving me great gifts and trips and financial help when I’ve needed it.” Her current boyfriend, Alex, has a great job and income to match. However, he pays child support for a 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter and is saving money to buy a house in one of the country's most expensive areas.

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“He’s so sensible and frugal,” she said. “We haven’t been to Europe even once in three years of dating. He’s the best person I’ve ever known and great fun to be with, but I like to be spoiled. I’m used to that. I told him that he was a controlling, withholding narcissist who was triggering my trauma from my impoverished childhood. He said that hurt his feelings. He says he’s just trying to be responsible and loving with all the special people in his life, including me. It made me think. Maybe I should start appreciating his goodness and decency. Maybe he’s not a narcissist after all.”

When you focus on psychiatric diagnoses and labels rather than sharing your feelings in a mutually respectful way, you can get locked into the powerless mindset of the victim. Instead of eliciting mutual understanding and compromise, these labels can make the other person defensive rather than open to what you have to say. And sometimes you’re the one who sounds unreasonable, even ridiculous, when you use therapy terms loosely.

“So I told my girlfriend that she had to stop Tarasoffing me!” a client I’ll call Brad said recently in session.

I had never heard the Tarasoff Duty to Warn law used as a verb. “What does that term mean to you?” I asked.

He paused, looked at me, and smiled sheepishly. “I don’t know,” he said. “I heard it in a psychology podcast the other day, and it sounded cool. Is it like dissing me in front of her girlfriends? That’s what I meant.”

“And how did she react?”

He sighed. “She just said, ‘What the fuck?’ And she stormed off.”

“What if you tell her next time how much it hurts your feelings when she publicly criticizes you?”

“Just like that? In plain English?”

“Yes.”