An expression isn't psychobabble just because it's ugly jargon. True sychobabble has to be untrue somehow. Often it lets people skate over problems by providing cliches.

Take 'quality time.' I've only heard 'quality time' used about children. When parents provide quality time, they are giving the child their undivided attention. At the adult's convenience, of course.

The term skates over the fact that the kid may have been ignored or disappointed so many times that he doesn't open up to the parent on schedule. In fact, he may not know how to.

My husband told me a story of un-quality time. He accompanied a friend and her daughter to a movie, so the kid could see that some men are nice. The movie was too violent for her, and she cringed in her seat, covering her eyes. Yet she had to sit through it.

The instant they got out of the theater, the mother whipped out her cell phone and began long talks with her girlfriends. They went out to eat, and the mother hardly spoke to the daughter. After that was basketball practice, then homework, then bed.

I'm sure if that mother spends a half-hour talking with the child, she brags that they had quality time. Yeah, right.