therapy-speak
/ˈθɛɹəpi spik/
therapy-speak noun: the employment of psychologic jargon to converse with other people.
Noun
therapy-speak (uncountable)
- The employment of psychologic jargon to converse with other people.
- We recommend that authors and reviewers carefully consider whether manuscript quality is enhanced by the use of therapy-speak.2022 January 15, Amy M Franks, David Caldwell, “Unpacking the Use of Therapy-Speak in Scholarly Writing”, in American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, volume 87, number 3, published 1 April 2023...
- Whatever Huberman’s failures of honesty and communication, for instance, he appears extremely well versed in the kind of therapy-speak that’s supposed to tame libidinous excess — suggesting that predators and cads can work through this system as well as any other.2024 March 27, Ross Douthat, “The Quest for a New Vision of Sexual Morality”, in The New York Times
Forms of therapy-speak
| alternative form | therapy speak |
|---|---|
| alternative form | therapyspeak |
Origin of therapy-speak
From therapy + -speak.
Questions about therapy-speak
- What does therapy-speak mean?
- Therapy-speak means the employment of psychologic jargon to converse with other people.
- What part of speech is therapy-speak?
- Therapy-speak is a noun.
- How do you pronounce therapy-speak?
- Therapy-speak is pronounced /ˈθɛɹəpi spik/ (US).
Words near therapy-speak in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: therapy-speak (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-therapy-speak.wav.
Cite this entry: “therapy-speak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/therapy-speak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.