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The Christian in a Therapeutic Age

November 14th, 2024 | 16 min read

By Ian Harber

There have been numerous pieces published by secular media outlets and influencers lately warning of the rise of “therapy speak.” While hard to define, you could loosely say that it is the prescriptive use of psychological and therapeutic terms in everyday language to describe one’s experience, identity, and the various situations in life. You hear it most in the overuse of words like “trauma,” but it shows up in many other places. Shame, attachment, inner child, trigger, holding space, gaslight, anxious, depressed, narcissism, boundaries, vulnerability, PTSD, OCD, self-care. The list of these words and phrases seems nearly endless and, more importantly, suddenly ubiquitous in the lexicon of the average Millennial and Gen Z person today. 

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Ian Harber

Ian is an author, writer, and marketer at Endeavor. Ian has written about faith and technology, deconstruction and reconstruction for The Gospel Coalition and Mere Orthodoxy. He regularly writes on his Substack, Back Again, and is the author of Walking Through Deconstruction: How To Be A Companion In A Crisis Of Faith (IVP 2025). Ian lives in Denton, Texas with his wife, Katie, and sons, Ezra and Alastair, and is a member at The Village Church Denton.