What I Shared in HuffPost About “Therapy-Speak” — and Why It’s Hurting Modern Dating
Chloë Bean, LMFT is a licensed somatic trauma therapist based in Los Angeles, specializing in anxiety, burnout, trauma, and nervous system healing for high-achieving women. Her work integrates somatic therapy, EMDR, and IFS to support lasting regulation, resilience, and relational healing.
What “Therapy-Speak” Gets Wrong About Connection and Modern Dating
Therapy language has entered modern dating. Words like triggered, boundaries, attachment style, and capacity are now common ways people describe emotional experiences.
This shift reflects greater emotional awareness. At the same time, therapy-speak can unintentionally create distance rather than connection, especially when language replaces embodied experience.
From a somatic perspective, connection is not built through correct terminology. It is built through nervous system safety, presence, and felt experience.
What People Mean by “Therapy-Speak”
Therapy-speak refers to the use of clinical or therapeutic language in everyday conversations, particularly in dating and relationships.
Examples include:
Describing conflict as “my attachment system being activated”
Naming feelings with diagnoses rather than sensations
Using insight or analysis to explain emotions instead of expressing them
While these terms can be helpful in therapy, outside the therapeutic container they can become a way to stay intellectual rather than vulnerable.
How Therapy-Speak Can Bypass the Nervous System
Language can describe an experience, but it cannot replace it.
When emotions are filtered through analysis, the body is often left out of the conversation. Someone may sound regulated while their nervous system remains tense, guarded, or braced.
From a somatic lens, true communication begins with noticing what is happening internally, such as tightening in the chest, shallow breath, or an urge to withdraw, rather than labeling the experience from a distance.
Why This Pattern Shows Up in Dating
Many people who rely on therapy-speak are not avoidant of intimacy. They are protecting themselves.
For individuals with trauma histories, relationship anxiety, or people-pleasing patterns, language can function as a form of control. Insight becomes a buffer against unpredictability, rejection, or emotional risk.
High-achieving and highly sensitive women often develop this pattern as a survival strategy. It feels safer to explain than to feel.
The Difference Between Emotional Insight and Embodied Communication
Insight helps you understand why something hurts. Embodied communication helps you stay present while it hurts.
Embodied communication sounds like:
“I notice my chest tightening as we talk about this.”
“I feel myself wanting to pull away right now.”
“Something in my body feels unsettled, and I want to slow down.”
These statements invite connection rather than defensiveness. They keep the nervous system engaged rather than protected.
How Somatic Therapy Supports Real Connection
Somatic therapy works with the nervous system directly. Instead of focusing on saying the right thing, it helps the body feel safe enough to stay present during emotional moments.
Through somatic trauma therapy, clients learn to:
Track internal sensations without judgment
Regulate anxiety during conflict or intimacy
Communicate from grounded self-trust rather than hypervigilance
Build relationships based on co-regulation instead of performance
Learn more about somatic trauma therapy
Dating Without Performing Emotional Fluency
Connection does not require perfect language.
It requires slowness, curiosity, and permission to be human. When you stay connected to your body, communication becomes less about sounding healed and more about being real.
Therapy-speak often ends conversations. Presence opens them.
If you find yourself overanalyzing texts, rehearsing responses, or trying to say things the “right” way, it may not be a communication problem. It may be a nervous system seeking safety.
Somatic therapy helps you return to your body and build relationships where you do not have to perform insight to belong.
To explore working together, contact Chloë Bean, LMFT.
FAQ | Therapy-Speak, Somatic Healing, and Modern Dating
What is therapy-speak?
Therapy-speak refers to clinical or psychological terms such as boundaries, triggers, or trauma responses being used in everyday conversation. While these words can increase awareness, overreliance on them can distance people from direct emotional experience and genuine connection.
Why can therapy-speak hurt dating and relationships?
Therapy-speak can become a way to intellectualize emotions rather than feel them. In dating, this may create emotional distance, reduce vulnerability, or turn connection into analysis instead of shared presence.
How does somatic therapy help with dating anxiety?
Somatic therapy helps regulate the nervous system so you can stay connected to your body during emotional moments. This supports grounded communication, clearer boundaries, and the ability to respond rather than react when anxiety or old patterns arise.
What is the difference between insight and embodied communication?
Insight explains what is happening. Embodied communication allows you to stay present while it is happening. Somatic work helps bridge this gap by supporting awareness of physical sensations, emotional signals, and nervous system responses in real time.
Who benefits most from somatic therapy in relationships?
Somatic therapy is especially helpful for people who overthink communication, feel anxious in dating, struggle with people-pleasing, or notice that insight alone has not led to lasting relational change.