3 ms·
If you think that those deserve to be called trauma then I'd expect you to be as outraged by the cheapening of the word as I am.
by sandspar 2y ago
If you think that those deserve to be called trauma then I'd expect you to be as outraged by the cheapening of the word as I am.
- MyHypatia 2y agoI agree that the word "trauma" is overused and exaggerated to describe situations that are not really traumatic. Ironically, I think that the word "outrage" is similarly misused. I couldn't help but giggle at the irony of "outrage" being used as the word to describe the response to this.
- sandspar 2y agoHaha I felt the same way reading back my own comment! "Oh no, I'm one of those 'outraged' people now."
- snthpy 2y agoI'm not a psychologist but my wife is. My understanding is that terms like trauma have a technical meaning in these fields which doesn't always match exactly how it is used in everyday language. For a medical doctor anything that leads to a bruise would be a trauma. For a psychologist it could be anything that negatively affects your mental state. I'm not in the US and my impression is that PC culture there is getting ridiculous and any "micro-agression" might be seen as trauma etc which I don't agree with either. However that doesn't invalidate vernacular use by professionals.
- snthpy 2y agoSo my point is that it's not cheapening but rather semantic drift akin to how compile and run in tech also mean something different from everyday English usage.