Therapy-Speak on Social Media: Are We All Talk and No Feeling?
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but when it comes to mental health today, memes might be worth even more. Therapy-speak has not-so-quietly taken over our everyday conversations, and psychological terms are now part of the social media vocabulary. TikTok therapists, Instagram memes, and LinkedIn posts turning coffee spills into life lessons have become our emotional translators. Strangely, nothing seems to resonate more.
The preference for digestible mental health content over professional therapy - a perfect example of how social media has become our go-to emotional translator.
Not long ago, mental health wasn’t something we talked about so openly. In some parts of the world, therapy has been normalized for years, but even then, conversations about mental well-being were mostly kept in the privacy of therapy settings. With the rapid expansion of technology and rise of social media, mental health challenges began rising too. According to the World Health Organization data, rates of anxiety and depression have increased by 14.9% and 18% respectively between 2005 and 2015, with a 25% global rise in both anxiety and depression during the first year of the pandemic.
Not only did we start seeing what was happening around the world; we also gained insights into what was happening within us. People began sharing their personal experiences and emotional struggles online, from daily self-care tips to deeply vulnerable posts about anxiety, depression, and trauma. Seeing others open up made many realize they weren’t alone. Suddenly, it became easier to say what is bothering us without shame, and the stigma long associated with mental health slowly began to fade. In some ways, that is a beautiful shift.
One observational study found that the phrase ‘mental health’ increased by nearly 100x on Twitter between 2012 and 2018, with much of that in retweets, indicating growing acceptance of public discussion.
Have we gone too far?
As we became increasingly open and comfortable with sharing our mental health challenges both with our close circles, and publicly, somewhere along the way, therapy-talk turned into therapy-speak. We took the terms we heard in therapy and poured them into the world. Disorders became distilled into punchlines, and complex emotional experiences are communicated in trendy buzzwords. “Trauma, trigger, gaslighting, narcissism, depression, boundaries, codependency”, and a holy grail of misused concepts “self-care” are words that we now hear or use almost daily.
We've reached a point where struggling with common issues is almost seen as a new normal, and where everyone is both a therapist and a ‘patient’ at the same time. TikTok became both the waiting room and the therapist’s office, a place for self-diagnoses and sharing tips like an expert. While online content and shared experiences can raise awareness, and reduce stigma, constant exposure to therapy-speak has created a new set of problems: overuse, misuse, pathologizing, and a loss of nuance. Feeling tired becomes “burnout”, setting boundaries turns into “cutting people off,” and everyday conflict gets labeled as “toxic”.
We make assumptions about our own mental health as well as the mental health of others. But without professional guidance, we risk misinterpreting our and others’ emotional experiences or self-diagnosing in ways that are inaccurate, or even harmful. As Harvard research estimate, people are 5-11 times more likely to misdiagnose themselves based solely on TikTok vs. a proper clinical assessment. In a world so quick to label, it is worth asking what those labels really mean, and what impact they might have on us.
The Psychology Behind the Labels
In psychological research, the effects of diagnostic labeling have been debated for years among mental health professionals. On one hand, getting a diagnosis can be validating. Many people who struggle with symptoms for a long time often blame themselves: “I’m just lazy,” “I can’t focus,” “I’m too sensitive.” Receiving a diagnosis like ADHD or depression can feel like a weight has been lifted. They realize what they’ve been going through wasn’t just them. Many people initially feel relieved as they can finally put a name to the problem, and with that comes the possibility of treatment, community, and support.
On the other hand, receiving a diagnosis can also feel restrictive. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the go-to manual used by mental health professionals to identify mental disorders, has been criticized for its reductive approach, condensing complex psychological experiences into narrowly defined categories and symptom checklists.
With its focus on the biological side of mental illness, social, cultural, and personal factors that shape our emotional struggles are often overlooked. It is no surprise that some people resist being placed in a psychological category that doesn’t fully capture the complexity of their experience. Others might fear being judged by employers, family, or friends.
And sometimes, identifying too strongly with a diagnosis can actually amplify the problem. Many psychologists criticize DSM-5 for the medicalization of natural and normal responses people have to their experiences. Feeling low might be part of life, but being told you have a "major depressive disorder" can shift the entire narrative, from something you're experiencing to something you are.
The Power of Discourse
We often underestimate how much language shapes our inner world. In psychology, discourse isn’t just a communication tool, it is a powerful force that influences how we interpret ourselves and others; how we interact with the world. Talk therapy exists for a reason: our stories matter. The way we phrase our struggles, the metaphors we use, the labels we assign, they all impact how we relate to pain, healing, and identity.
The stories we tell ourselves shape our reality.
Discourse creates meaning, shapes belief systems, and can even shift power. Dominant narratives have the power to persuade, to legitimize, and to define what is considered normal or problematic. Just by looking back a decade ago, the narrative around depression and anxiety was often dismissive or misunderstood, portraying them as personal weaknesses rather than valid conditions. But as the public narrative changed, societal attitudes changed too.
Narratives not only reflect the societal perspective, they actively contribute to it, influencing everything from policy to self-perception. Take ADHD, for example, one of the most publicly debated and controversial mental health diagnoses. By analyzing how ADHD was constructed in online information, a discursive psychology study identified two dominant and competing narratives:
“ADHD as a biomedical disorder: framed in clinical and medical terms, emphasizing scientific causes and the need for professional intervention”.
“ADHD as a behavioral convenience: portrayed as a label parents and schools use when children are challenging or hard to manage, often with moral undertones about parenting style”.
These conflicting narratives don’t just describe ADHD, they construct it. They influence how parents, educators, and the public perceive and respond to ADHD, thus shaping everything from treatment decisions to social stigma.
That’s why memes and therapy-speak can be both powerful and dangerous. They actively contribute to the narratives surrounding mental health. A well-crafted sentence can resonate deeply, offering clarity we’ve been searching for. A beautifully prepared TikTok can make us feel as if it was made only for us, and creatively structured memes can make us feel as if our problems are laughable.
But real understanding, especially when it comes to mental health, goes beyond clever wording. It requires empathy. It requires emotional presence. Knowing you’re traumatized doesn’t mean you’ve healed. And in fact, when we overly intellectualize what are ultimately felt experiences, we can end up stuck in cycles of awareness without transformation. Understanding is not the same as integration. And healing can’t be fast-tracked through language alone.
Healing vs. Performing Healing
I watched probably every movie ever that sets the storytelling in space. I’ve seen images of how the planet Earth looks from out there. I also know that once we pass the atmosphere layer, we enter a zero-gravity state. But no amount of information, movies, or research articles could ever help me understand how it could possibly feel to have the experience of going to space.
In a world where mental health awareness is trending, talk about healing has never been louder. We all “do the work,” “repeat affirmations,” “reflect,” and then curate our “healing journeys” into aesthetic Instagram posts. But the truth is, real healing is far from being linear, pretty, or even always shareable. Often, it happens in moments of vulnerability, silence, and away from screens.
The danger lies in mistaking fluency in psychological terms for actual growth. Just because we can articulate our trauma doesn’t mean we’ve felt it, processed it, or moved through it. Sitting with your own thoughts and feelings is far less enjoyable sometimes than scrolling through social media, and exchanging memes about shared mental health issues with your best friend. Language can be a bridge to healing, but it can also become a shield, one that protects us from the very emotions we’re trying to face.
It is OK to want to share our experiences and to be proud of our own progress. It is great if you are going to therapy and actively working on your mental health. We just need to be mindful of the impact that therapy-speak can have on ourselves and others.
Saying we have ADHD just because we got distracted for 5 minutes, or that we are traumatized by the hairdresser who gave us a bob, or that we are depressed because BBQ was canceled due to rain, is minimizing and demeaning to people who have actually been diagnosed and struggle with mental health. The goal is not to stop talking about mental health, but to ensure that our words lead to genuine connection with ourselves and others.
Healing doesn’t require a month of solitude somewhere in the mountains (even though it can), it more often happens in ordinary moments of self-compassion and honest conversations. We may never experience the weightlessness of space, but we can learn to sit with the gravity of our own emotions.