“That’s So Traumatic!” |
Clinical language is expanding into non-clinical settings.
Clinical language is being distorted in digital spaces.
Young social media users are apt to self-diagnose mental health conditions.
Since the time last week that my adolescent nephew used the term “trauma” in a phone conversation to describe something that happened to him at Washington Square Park, i haven't been able to stop reflecting on how fully clinical language is being embedded in the vernacular among developing youth. While the psychologist (and doting aunt) in me had my antenna up when he used the term, I was also relieved to hear that while what he was describing that happened at the park was distressing for him, it was not, in fact, a description of a traumatic event.
Neuro-atypical. Narcissism. Insecure attachments. Panic attacks. Trauma. It seems like in every corner of the culture, clinical language is being used: Scroll through a young user’s social media feed, and there are bound to be influencers whose usernames or handles have accompanying descriptions seeped in clinician speak—recovery, trauma, inner child, addiction—regardless of whether or not they have actually undergone any kind of mental health evaluation and/or intervention for a given disorder or episode.
In my book,........