Psychobabble Is Killing Your Relationship

How Jargon Tricks Us Into Thinking We Have All The Answers

It occurred to me recently that I have never seriously thought of my partner as "avoidantly attached." But, in our early days, I totally could have labeled us as having a slight anxious-avoidant or pursue-withdraw dynamic, primarily during conflict. When we were having hard discussions, he would shut down. I would spiral and talk a lot. I would want to stay up talking. He would roll over and go to sleep.

How I Coped When My Partner Completely Shut Down During Conflict

As A Verbal Processor Who Craves Resolution, Not Space When I’m overwhelmed during conflict, I start talking and I don’t stop. I make a bunch of repetitive attempts to fix the situation that predictably just make it worse. My language gets sloppy; I exaggerate, and I gesticulate. I speed up.

Love Notes for Real LifeMarina Rosenthal

Together, we've learned to reshape this dynamic so we both get our needs met (yay!). And we did so without labeling each other as anxious or avoidant.

Although I am a psychologist who knows a lot of terminology, I personally choose not to apply almost any of it to my relationship. That's because, after working with hundreds of couples, I believe that that in intimate contexts, psychological language often causes more trouble than it is worth.

Today, I'm exploring exactly why I don't think you need fancy terms to fix your relationship—and why, in fact, those fancy terms might be keeping you stuck.

I'll walk you through seven reasons you might consider stepping away from the psychobabble, strategies to assess whether psychological terminology is hurting or helping, and an honest look at how I reconcile my role as a relationship expert on the internet with my deep desire not to add any more noise to the already noisy cultural climate!

Let's dive in.