psychobabble

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PSYCHOBABBLE. [From the title Psychobabble: Fast Talk and Quick Cure in the Era of Feeling, 1977, a book by the US journalist Richard D. Rosen: compare TECHNOBABBLE]. A form of JARGON in which terms from psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and related fields are used to impress the listener, give an appearance of scientific objectivity to mundane ideas, or inflate what someone has to say. According to Rosen, it is ‘a set of repetitive verbal formalities that kills off the very spontaneity, candour and understanding it pretends to promote’. A person engaged in psychobabble might seek ‘ego reinforcement through consciousness raising by going where the energies are in my extrinsic peer group orientation’.

psy·cho·bab·ble / ˈsīkōˌbabəl/ • n. inf., derog. jargon used in popular psychology.

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