Popular Psychology - Psychobabble

The misuse and overuse of technical psychological terms is called psychobabble.

Sometimes psychological jargon is used to dress up sales pitches, self-help programs, and New age ideas to lend these endeavors a respectable scientific appearance. Other times, people use psychological terminology to describe everyday, normal experiences in a way that medicalizes a normal behavior, such as feeling sad after a loss, by suggesting that unpleasant emotions are a type of psychopathology, like major depressive disorder. People may use psychobabble because they believe that complex, descriptive or special esoteric terms more clearly or more dramatically communicate their experiences of social and personal situations, or because they believe that it makes them sound more educated.

Some terms that have an origin in psychological terminology and are typically misused include co-dependent, dysfunctional, meaningful relationship, narcissistic, and synergy.

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