Are You Gaslighting the Psych Dictionary?

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I hear people using mental health diagnoses as adjectives to describe themselves or others. “I’m so OCD.” “They’re so bipolar.” I just read yet another thread online where people labeled someone they’d never met as a “covert narcissist.” Numerous people tossed in references to “trauma bonding.”

I asked ChatGpt to “list the top 10 commonly misused psychological terms of 2024.” It spat out the following:

1. Gaslighting
2. Triggered
3. Narcissist
4. Trauma bond
5. Antisocial
6. Codependent
7. High-functioning depression
8. OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
9. ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
10. Bipolar

That all got me wondering: Why are psych terms and clinical diagnoses in so many everyday conversations?

I came up with these three answers.

1. Psychology terms and concepts are available that have not been prior
2. Whether accurate or inaccurate, information spreads on social media
3. Human nature makes us categorize and label

1. Availability

Social media has done something extraordinary. It has made psychological information available to all with an Internet connection—for free. Prior, the information was primarily attainable in books or during expensive therapy or psychiatry sessions. As a result, there’s a lot of fresh-feeling information that is now available to be consumed. And that’s empowering!

Who doesn’t like to share their new knowledge with others, right? The problem is that a lot of the mental health information on social media is frequently partially to wholly wrong (Starvaggi et al., 2024).

2. Misinformation

It often flies like a pile of feathers meeting a high-powered fan.

A few years ago, there was a study that showed that anger is the emotion that can get people online to share far and wide (Fan et al., 2020). So of course, psych info—accurate or not—couched in anger and indignation will scatter. Since we’re going with analogies, think of seeds in a windstorm; they spread and then grow where the environment is ripe.

Also, there are influencers with messages and agendas. I remember watching a profound spread of misinformation with one mental health influencer who has over a million followers.

They are licensed and make sure to highlight that. Thus, they—along with what they say—look super legit. They posted something unfounded and contradicting what science has shown regarding eating disorders. No citations were provided. And as an expert in eating disorders, I know that what they posted was factually wrong and potentially quite harmful.

Still, that influencer’s claims spread quickly and garnered many thousands of likes and comments. I watched with saucer eyes as people thanked that influencer for the information and wisdom. Repeatedly, the followers referenced the influencer’s wrong information, thanking the influencer for their own “aha” moments.

All of that was based on incorrect psych information. And though well-founded professionals begged for the influencer to make the information more accurate, the influencer ignored those comments. At times, the influencer’s followers even jumped in to defend the influencer’.

Watching that, I felt the power of groupthink (cult-like) in the intolerance of others’. For me, that clearly demonstrated the following: Even when mental health information is wrong, skewed, or a money/fame agenda disguised as helpful information, it can easily be adopted as the truth in the public eye.

With up to 77% of those aged 18-34 having sought mental health information on social media (American Psychiatric Association, 2024), it makes sense that these kinds of instances are one of the ways that so much misinformation is out there and then becomes conversational.

3. Categorization

For human beings, categorizing happens automatically a lot of the time. Our brains try to keep us safe (Rhodes & Baron, 2019). So, they constantly group and organize stimuli such as people, personalities, and environmental factors.

Consequently, human nature is likely a big part of why we hear so many psych terms in everyday casual chats. Think about it: Diagnoses and psych terms can serve to label and classify—it’s part of why the terms were initially created! Then, add our natural tendencies to label and categorize ourselves and others, and boom. (It makes the list ChapGPT spit out pretty interesting, right? We seem to be categorizing so many heavy experiences.)

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Pros and Cons of Trending Psych Lingo

Pros

In some ways, conversational psychology is destigmatizing mental health. (Yay!) I’m grateful social media is making psych terms and diagnoses household knowledge. That kind of widespread awareness of formerly hush-hush or seemingly ivory-tower topics is something to celebrate—even if lots out there needs to be corrected.

Cons

In other ways, when psych terms become trends, we’re trivializing the seriousness of mental health. For instance, we’re taking actual diagnoses and terms that can rob people of their quality of life and using them as adjectives to describe ourselves or others. For example, “I’m so OCD” when someone simply likes organization; “They’re bipolar” when someone seems a bit moody, or even “I have an eating disorder. I love food.” (As a specialist therapist, I have had to endure this “joke” innumerable times. Icky!)

Additionally, when the info is wrong but seen as absolute truth, that “truth” tends to travel IRL or online. And at this time, the mental health field needs to provide a lot of education to counter the massive amount of misinformation out there. Or, maybe the field will change what has existed to better match the runaway misinformation trains. Who knows? Only time will tell.

Bottom Line

If you get any of your mental health information from social media, you are a valued part of this destigmatization movement. Yet to respect the experiences of those dealing with genuine psychological issues and to help lead people to accurate help, it’s important to use terms correctly.

We’re in the midst of an “infodemic,” which refers to the “proliferation of both accurate and inaccurate information that creates a challenge in identifying trustworthy and credible sources” (Ziapour et al., 2024). So let’s empower ourselves and others:

• Please ask online information providers where they got their information, if science backs the claim, to provide citations, etc.
• As you’re doing right now, go to trusted publications like Psychology Today or ask a licensed clinician if you have questions or want clarifications.