\n WALK through the digital world, or even just listen in on everyday chats, at work, in the pub, at the gym, and you\u2019ll notice something. Phrases like \u201cI\u2019m triggered,\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s a narcissist,\u201d or \u201cI need to set boundaries to protect my energy\u201d have become incredibly common. From social media feeds to popular dating shows, therapy buzzwords are everywhere.\n<\/p>\n
\n While it\u2019s great that we\u2019re talking more openly about mental health, something I spend lots of time encouraging, it\u2019s worth asking, are these terms always helping us, or sometimes, are they actually causing a bit of confusion?\n<\/p>\n
\n Take a moment to consider how quickly these words have entered our everyday language. You might hear people on TV shows asking about “attachment styles” as if they\u2019re deal-breakers, or someone casually declaring, \u201cThat\u2019s my trauma response,\u201d or \u201cYou\u2019re projecting.\u201d These phrases can sound insightful, but when we use them without a full understanding of what they truly mean, they can become quite problematic.\n<\/p>\n
\n For example, it might feel satisfying in the heat of the moment to call an ex a “narcissist” or “psychopath.” But these are serious clinical terms.\n<\/p>\n
\n Narcissistic personality disorder includes deep-seated traits like a profound need for admiration and a significant lack of empathy. A psychopath, in clinical terms, typically lacks remorse and often shows harmful, antisocial behaviours.\n<\/p>\n
\n Throwing these powerful words around casually doesn\u2019t just spread misinformation; it can also prevent true understanding of what someone might actually be going through, or mislabel perfectly normal (though perhaps challenging) human behaviour.\n<\/p>\n
\n We’re also seeing more and more people self-diagnosing on social media. Suddenly, everyone seems to have ADHD, or they\u2019re neurodivergent, bipolar, or they\u2019ll say they have OCD just because they like things tidy. While learning about ourselves and understanding our unique quirks is absolutely wonderful, it\u2019s easy to cross a line where a personality trait or a tough day gets mistaken for a clinical disorder. This rush to self-diagnose can sometimes inadvertently stop us from seeking real support and understanding from qualified professionals who can truly help.\n<\/p>\n
\n Here\u2019s the simple truth, being human is messy, and emotions like sadness, anger, fear, confusion, and discomfort are completely normal parts of life. Most of the time, there\u2019s nothing fundamentally “wrong” with us, and not every emotion or challenging habit needs to be labelled or explained with a clinical mental health term.\n<\/p>\n
\n When we “pathologise” (meaning, treat as a disease or disorder) everyday feelings, we risk seeing normal struggle as trauma and discomfort as dysfunction. If we start believing we\u2019re “broken” by default, we might spend all our time searching for answers and labels outside of ourselves, instead of actually living and navigating life’s ups and downs.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hopefully I have given you something to think about until next week\u2019s column.\n<\/p>\n
\n Martin Furber is a therapist. Contact: wellbeing@martinfurber.com\n<\/p>\n
\n If you are in a mental health crisis contact your GP, go to A&E, call NHS 111 (option2), the Samaritans on 116 123 or text SHOUT to 85258<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WALK through the digital world, or even just listen in on everyday chats, at work, in the pub,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-325091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114987341987343317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}