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"50 psychological & psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate,misleading,misused, ambiguous,&

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
@Sean drew my attention to this.

It might be of interested to those interested in academic psychology and/or psychiatry.

We also do not address problematic terms that are restricted primarily to popular (“pop”) psychology, such as “codependency,” “dysfunctional,” “toxic,” “inner child,” and “boundaries,” as our principal focus is on questionable terminology in the academic literature. Nevertheless, we touch on a handful of pop psychology terms (e.g., closure, splitting) that have migrated into at least some academic domains.

Free full text: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01100/abstract

Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases

REVIEW ARTICLE

Front. Psychol., 03 August 2015 | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01100
Scott O. Lilienfeld1*, Katheryn C. Sauvigné2, Steven Jay Lynn3,
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Robin L. Cautin4, Robert D. Latzman2and Irwin D. Waldman1
  • 1Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
  • 2Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
  • 3Binghamton University – State University of New York, Binghamton, NY, USA
  • 4Department of Psychology, Sacred Heart College, Fairfield, CT, USA
The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science by curbing terminological misinformation and confusion.

To this end, we present a provisional list of 50 commonly used terms in psychology, psychiatry, and allied fields that should be avoided, or at most used sparingly and with explicit caveats.

We provide corrective information for students, instructors, and researchers regarding these terms, which we organize for expository purposes into five categories: inaccurate or misleading terms, frequently misused terms, ambiguous terms, oxymorons, and pleonasms.

For each term, we (a) explain why it is problematic, (b) delineate one or more examples of its misuse, and (c) when pertinent, offer recommendations for preferable terms.

By being more judicious in their use of terminology, psychologists and psychiatrists can foster clearer thinking in their students and the field at large regarding mental phenomena.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
This one is interesting:

Psychiatric control group. This phrase and similar phrases (e.g., “normal control group,” “psychopathological control group”) connote erroneously that (a) groups of ostensibly normal individuals or mixed psychiatric patients who are being compared with (b) groups of individuals with a disorder of interest (e.g., schizophrenia, major depression) are true “control” groups. They are not. They are “comparison groups” and should be referred to accordingly. The phrase “control group” in this context may leave readers with the unwarranted impression that the design of the study is experimental when it is actually quasi-experimental. Just as important, this term may imply that the only difference between the two groups (e.g., a group of patients with anxiety disorder and a group of ostensibly normal individuals) is the presence or absence of the disorder of interest. In fact, these two groups almost surely differ on any number of “nuisance” variables, such as personality traits, co-occurring disorders, and family background, rendering the interpretation of most group differences open to multiple interpretations
 

GracieJ

Senior Member
Messages
772
Location
Utah
Entertaining reading. Just about every paragraph contradicts itself. It's not a dog, it's a... dog. No, cat. No, dog.