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Psychobabble is a pejorative term for the use of jargon from the field of psychology. It can imply that a specific usage of jargon is not meaningful -- for instance, when a legitimate term from mainstream psychology is being mis-applied by non-professionals -- or it can imply that the jargon itself is meaningless, especially when the jargon comes from popular psychology rather than mainstream psychology. The use of psychology and motivational training in business management has led it to spread into many workplaces.
Basis of the term
The term came into popular usage following the 1977 publication of Psychobabble: Fast talk and quick cure in the age of feeling. The text explores a virtual explosion of psychological treatments in professional and non-professional settings based on approaches that were said not to promote understanding of social and personal conflicts through the use of complex descriptive language.
Most professional fields develop a unique terminology that, with frequent usage, becomes a jargon of buzzwords referring to recognized concepts. As such, practitioners of psychology may reject the label "psychobabble" when applied to their unique terminology. But the vagueness inherent in many psychological concepts also permits the use of terminology in ways that may seem inappropriate to others.
Some pejorative allusions to psychobabble imply that certain concepts of psychology themselves so lack precision as to become meaningless or pseudoscientific. Science demands that ideas be testable in experiments where results are repeatable. In this context, psychobabble can imply that the language of psychology is not based on proven concepts. In other cases, psychobabble can refer to the use of jargon to imply meanings beyond those accepted by scholars and formally trained practitioners.
Likely contexts
In some contexts, use of psychological jargon may be labeled as psychobabble because it is used by untrained individuals, or in the context of pop psychology. Language often dubbed psychobabble includes the phraseology of New Agers, self-help groups, personal development coaching and LGATs (Large Group Awareness Training).
The term psychobabble in other contexts refers disparagingly to grandiloquent but allegedly empty use of jargon with a psychological tinge. Automated talk-therapy offered by various ELIZA computer programs produce notable examples of conversational patterns that, while not loaded with jargon, can be seen as psychobabble. ELIZA programs parody clinical conversations in which a therapist replies to a statement with a question that requires very little specific knowledge of a topic.
See also
"Psychobabble"