psychobabble

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Psychobabble (a portmanteau of "psychology" or "psychoanalysis" and "babble") is a form of prose using jargon, buzzwords and highly esoteric language to give an impression of plausibility through mystification, misdirection, and obfuscation. The term implies that the speaker of psychobabble lacks the experience and understanding necessary for proper use of a given psychological term. Frequent usage can associate a clinical word with less meaningful buzzword definitions. Some psychological buzzwords have come into widespread use in business management training, motivational seminars, self-help, folk psychology, and popular psychology. Laypersons may overuse such words in describing life problems as clinical maladies when such nomenclature is not valuable, meaningful or appropriate. Theodore Dalrymple defines the term as "the means by which people talk about themselves without revealing anything".^[1]

Psychobabble is also a psychological term used to denote the misdiagnosis and misclassification of natural variation in human psychology as psychopathological, or mentally disordered, and is based upon the premise of exaggerated overmedicalization of physiological ailments to increase profits for the medical industry.^{[citation needed]}

Basis of the term

The use of psychobabble reflects the idea that social and personal situations become more understandable through the use of complex, descriptive or special esoteric language. The word itself came into popular usage after the 1977 publication of Psychobabble: Fast talk and quick cure in the era of feeling by author and journalist Richard Dean Rosen.^[2] He invented the word in 1975, and it featured in a cover story in the magazine New Times, titled "Psychobabble: the new language of candor".^[3] The book Psychobabble explores an explosion of psychological treatments and terminology, in both professional and non-professional settings. Rosen's description is as follows:

Psychobabble is … a set of repetitive verbal formalities that kills off the very spontaneity, candour, and understanding it pretends to promote. It’s an idiom that reduces psychological insight to a collection of standardized observations, that provides a frozen lexicon to deal with an infinite variety of problems.

Most professions develop a unique vocabulary which, with frequent usage, may become commonplace buzzwords. Psychology-practitioners may reject the "psychobabble" label when applied to the "ownership" of their special terminology. The vagueness inherent in many psychological concepts increases the use of psychobabble.^{[citation needed]}

Some pejorative allusions to psychobabble imply that certain psychological concepts lack precision and eventually become meaningless or pseudoscientific. Science demands the testing of ideas in experiments where results are repeatable. In this context, the "psychobabble" label is pejorative in the implication that the language of psychology is often not based on scientifically proven concepts. In other cases, psychobabble can refer to the use of jargon to imply meanings beyond those accepted by scholars and trained practitioners.

Likely contexts

In some contexts, certain psychological jargon may be dismissed^{[by whom?]} as psychobabble when used without training, or in discussion of pop psychology themes. New Age phraseology, self-help groups, personal development coaching, and Large Group Awareness Training often include alleged psychobabble.

The word may refer contemptuously to pretentious gibberish with psychological jargon. Automated talk-therapy offered by various ELIZA computer programs produce notable examples of conversational patterns that, while not loaded with jargon, can be accurately described^{[by whom?]} as psychobabble. ELIZA programs parody clinical conversations in which a therapist replies to a statement with a question that requires little specific knowledge of a given topic.

A related term to psychobabble is neurobabble (Miller 1986). In Unvalidated Fringe and Fraudulent Treatment of Mental Disorders, Beyerstein (1990) writes that neurobabble can appear in "ads [that] suggest that brain 'repatterning' will foster effortless learning, creativity, and prosperity" and relates neuromythologies of left/right brain pseudoscience to specific New Age products and techniques. He adds that "the purveyors of neurobabble urge us to equate truth with what feels right and to abandon the commonsense insistence that those who would enlighten us provide at least as much evidence as we demand of politicians or used-car salesmen."

Examples

Psychobabble terms consist of selected words and phrases with roots in psychotherapy practice. Psychobabblers commonly overuse such terms as if they possess some special esoteric value or meaning when they might not. (Various terms and phrases from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders are but one significant source of psychobabble, as the usage of various terms waxes and wanes, while, for the most part, the incidence of true mental disorders does not vary significantly over time).

Terms to consider include: co-dependent, delusion, denial, dysfunctional, empowerment, holistic, meaningful relationship, multiple personality disorder, narcissism, psychosis, self-actualization, synergy.

Extensive examples of psychobabble appear in Cyra McFadden's satirical novel The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County.^[4] Lodge gives a structural analysis of the language used in the book, and an endorsement by McFadden of the use of the term in Working with Structuralism.^[5]

See also

Psychology portal

• Corporatese
• Glittering generality
• Gobbledygook
• Legalese
• Technobabble

Notes

References

• The Tower Of Psychobabble, By Dr. John A. Riolo. "In psychotherapy we have our own jargon or lingo. Over time some of the terms have become household names."
• Beyerstein. B.L (1990). In Unvalidated Fringe and Fraudulent Treatment of Mental Disorders, "Brainscams: Neuromythologies of the New Age." International Journal of Mental Health 19(3): 27-36,27.
• Ganz, Richard L. Psychobabble: The Failure of Modern Psychology and the Biblical Alternative pub. Crossway Books 1993 ISBN 0-89107-734-0