Sometimes, as part of anti-stigma campaigns, you’ll hear that we shouldn’t say people are bipolar, schizophrenic, etc. The thinking goes that phrasing it this way puts people in a little box in which they’re primarily defined by their illness. Yet at the same time, you’ll find many bloggers referring to themselves as “I am bipolar.” …
Crazy. Psycho. Schizo. Nutbar. Mad. Retard. Lunatic. Loony tunes. Insane. F***ed in the head. Bonkers. Whack job. Batshit crazy. Certifiable. These are just a few examples, but when it comes to derogatory mental health-related terms, there are many of them and we hear them often. Sometimes, we even use them ourselves. A study by Rose …
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychological terms. This week’s term is neuro-linguistic programming. Every so often, I read something that refers to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). I really had no idea what it was, so I thought it was worth taking a closer look. The site nlp.com likens NLP to …
The language people use when it comes to mental health matters. A lot of words are tossed around to describe who we are and what we experience, and in this post, I’ll consider some of the issues around labelling and mental illness and whether certain words are helpful or harmful. Role identities We all have …
