Recognising Psychobabble

Subject: Recognising Psychobabble
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 09:19 PM

I was reading another thread about "attitude", and it set me thinking about all the other psychobabble expressions which set my teeth in edge.

So I thought rather than drift that thread I'd start one specifically about that - a listings thread to start with, maybe it might turn into a discussion about what is actually meant by the expression, and why some people loathe this way of talking, and others seem to value it highly.

So:

Attitude problem
Quality time
Closure
Meaningful relationship

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 09:29 PM

Celebrate the differences
Self-empowerment
Hot (as in s/he is hot (meaning attractive))

I'm posting because this is still above the line.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 09:41 PM

"Thank you for not pissing on my floor."

-Joe, moving it below the line-

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: ragdall
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 09:44 PM

I feel invalidated.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 09:52 PM

"Quality time" is the one that really makes me feel ill. I was going out with a great girl once, and she mentioned one day that she was going to be spending some "quality time" with her Mum, who hadn't seen her in some time. She mentioned it several times. Somehow, the "magic" began to fade for me from that moment forward... ;-D

I will also kick something if I hear about "closure" again from anyone.

I know what it's like to feel "invalidated", ragdoll! Oh! The pain! But is it as bad as feeling "violated"? Or how about "sullied"?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 10:07 PM

Thanks in advance.

(It's still above the line.)

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 10:10 PM

Don't thank me until you've opened the package, okay?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: dianavan
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 10:11 PM

consultation, co-operation and collaboration.

These terms are used by people who want it their way but wish to appear to be 'fair'.

I also hate the word accountability. It always means more useless paperwork.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 10:34 PM

Also, 'policy'. Policy just means no one has to think. "It's corporate policy."

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 10:56 PM

All these words have realmeanings -- they just get pirated by lazy thinkers to do work for them they don't want to confront.

Policy: general guidelines on how people in a group will handle situations. Perverted definition: an excuse to give you crappy service.

Closure: A feeling of completion which brings relief to one who has attention held onto something not finished. For example, if you send a letter revealing deep feelings, and the person hasn't answered yet, no closure until th e big question mark is resolved. Similarly if you have has a fighting relationship with a parent for thirty years, but somehow the two of you finally get to communicate and settle the issues between you, you both feel that relationship has reached a completion point and experience closure. Perverted definition: used to make you do something you don't want to even start, let alone finish!

Quality time is shorthand for time two people spend being with each other and enhoying each other's company, sharing thoughts and experiencing their mutual friendship. It is used in sharp distinction to helter-skelter business time, or having to get things done in a rush so all communications have to be chopped short. Perfectly legitimate distinction. Perverted use: Used as an excuse for very low-quality time by promising quality time later; used as a substitute for the actual article by taking about "quality time".

All relationships are meaningful -- the problem is some people give them very skimpy meanings! : D


A

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:02 PM

Kevin, this concept really resonates with me, and if we can get some more validation, we can use the synergy to create a new paradign, which I see it as a definite win-win situation---

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Janie
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:05 PM

Well said, Amos.

Janie

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:18 PM

Oh, YEAH, M.Ted! I, for one, am deeply gratified to hear such a proactive statement as you just made. ;-)

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:23 PM

So...do we have a consensus on that?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:30 PM

How much collateral damage will there be, though?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:35 PM

And how much of it will be internalized?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:37 PM

Thanks for putting it in words, Amos! Smooth, easy phrase or not, the feeling it supposedly connotes is a valid one. (And that resonates with me. :>)

If I can judge others by my own experience, when we use a word or phrase like that it is usually because we are searching for a true description of what we are feeling or planning.

I don't tend to say "quality time" but I know what I'd mean by it if I did use it. I would mean a period of time when our attention was attuned to each other, i.e., we didn't go shopping or bowling or whatever; maybe we didn't even make music together. To me it means a time of connection, of being in the moment- another phrase that is over-used and therefore suspect.

I do use 'resonate', only because to me it describes a feeling that is internalized, a feeling that is almost physical, a 'knowing' that is true and deep and honest.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Janie
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 11:37 PM

Not much, if we can marginalize the suckers.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 12:00 AM

Actually, me, too, Ebbie. I use those terms but in a way that means something to me and the person to whom I am speaking. I think there's a lot to be said for "validation," too, and I don't mean a parking lot charge!:-)

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: michaelr
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 02:00 AM

Thanks, Amos. Let's reclaim the words.

It seems to me that "psychobabble" is a term that's used to say "I can't be bothered to try to understand your point of view". (Without saying so.)

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 02:28 AM

It all depends how people say the words, and what kind of meaning they put behind them when they say them. I do have trouble with "quality time", though, for some reason. ;-) Maybe I just starting hearing it used way too much.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: autolycus
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 03:02 AM

It also depends on how the words are heard.

They might be said honestly, and if the listener is sufficiently cynical, easily annoyed or superficial, the honesty of the expression can be dissolved.

As Amos says so well, any language can be devalued by misuse, commercial use, flippant use, thus fostering the avove listener characteristics.

I think one of the things going on here is that there are many people who go to therapy or, more likely counselling, and come away only with the husk of a vocabulary, having missed the kernel. They then use the words superficially, and others pick up on the emptiness.

On the other hand, to a cynic, anything can be reduced to meaninglessness. So, for example, the great game of chess becomes just pushing bits of wood around a black and white board. Chess is thus emptied of meaning.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 03:06 AM

come away only with the husk of a vocabulary, having missed the kernel

beautifully put, ivor. Thanks,
kat

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 03:57 AM

Most of the words quoted are management speak, which is something like social worker speak, aka circumlocution; saying something unpleasant in a different way to make it sound more acceptable to the listener/reader.
I think that attitude problem or bad attitude predates most of the examples quoted, and is derived from a genuine problem.
Most of these expressions have their genesis in the PC and equal opportunities industry. They are awkward sounding, mainly because they are usually trying to impose an unnatural doctrine on an unwilling recipient.
Giok

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,JTS
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 08:08 AM

What I don't like are words that are cliched putdowns disguised as intelligent or witty thought.

"Psychobabble", "Doublespeak", or "liberal" as used by "ideological" conservatives. While the words were probably discriptive and meaningful in their first use, their usefulness quickly errodes as they are applied to every possible situation.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 08:41 AM

"I think we've all arrived at a very special place. Spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically."





Capt. Jack Sparrow

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: MMario
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 08:48 AM

disrespect - used as a verb.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 08:55 AM

Usually rendered as 'dis' which is even worse, and usually more sinister too.
G..

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:10 AM

I hate it when people use "the carrot and stick" analogy, and get it wrong. The carrot is indeed a lure, but the stick is used to hold the carrot out in front of the donkey, NOT to hit the donkey from behind! Newspeople and politicians get this wrong all the time. My head explodes.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:34 AM

Giok is on to something meaningful here--and I think he is right. Most of these words are used to mean the opposite of what they seem to mean--When people say they are going to spend some "quality time" with someone, it really means that they have been neglecting them--"validation" is used to indicated that something has been disregarded --People usually propose using a "carrot and stick" approach to conceal the fact that they haven't done anything to support or encourage the subject at all--

As to "psychobabble", excluding this discussion, when you hear it, it is the usually the speaker who is babbling like a psycho--

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:47 AM

Rapport, energy flow, anal retentive, homophobe,...

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:48 AM

I think psychobabble is a useful expression, as well -- because when terms like these and others -- "relationship" and "self-relaization" for example -- are used without a sense of the context and depth of their original meaning, they become a sort of babble which is difficult to relate to. On the other hands there are similar abuses in any field where understanding is replaced by BS. There is religio-babble, or spiritubabble, there is technobabble, and probably cuisinibabble, autobabble, marine-babble, and god knows, literababble.
Art babble is so common that it turns people into hard-boiled pragmatists just to listen to it! LOL

A

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: heric
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:49 AM

Is this it?:

"Not self-identity identity itself equivocally, not the dark itself equivocally, in "self-alienation," not "self-identity, itself in self-alienation" "released" in and by "otherness," and "actual other," "itself," not the abysmal inversion of the light, the reality of the darkness equivocally, absolute identity equivocally predicated of the self/selfhood equivocally predicated of the dark (the reality of this darkness the other-self-covering of identity which is the identification person-self)."

Leahy, G., Foundation: Matter the Body Itself.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,jts
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:55 AM

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/carrot.html

"Carrot on a stick" vs. "the carrot or the stick."

The Usenet Newsgroup alt.usage.english has debated this expression several times, most recently in spring 1998. No one there presented definitive evidence, but dictionaries agree that the proper expression is "the carrot or the stick".

One person on the Web mentions an old "Little Rascals" short in which an animal was tempted to forward motion by a carrot dangling from a stick. I think the image is much older than that, going back to old magazine cartoons (certainly older than the animated cartoons referred to by correspondents on alt.usage.english); but I'll bet that the cartoon idea stemmed from loose association with the original phrase "the carrot or the stick" rather than the other way around. An odd variant is the claim broadcast on National Public Radio March 21, 1999 that one Zebediah Smith originated this technique of motivating stubborn animals. This is almost certainly an urban legend.

Note that the people who argue for "carrot on a stick" never cite any documentable early use of the supposed "correct" expression. For the record, here's what the Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary has to say on the subject: "carrot, sb. Add: 1. a. fig. [With allusion to the proverbial method of tempting a donkey to move by dangling a carrot before it.] An enticement, a promised or expected reward; freq. contrasted with "stick" (=punishment) as the alternative."

[Skipping references to uses as early as 1895 which refer only to the carrot so don't clear up the issue.]

"1948 Economist 11 Dec. 957/2 The material shrinking of rewards and lightening of penalties, the whittling away of stick and carrot. [Too bad the Economist's writer switched the order in the second part of this example, but the distinction is clear.]

"1954 J. A. C. Brown Social Psychol. of Industry i. 15 The tacit implication that . . .most men . . . are . . . solely motivated by fear or greed (a motive now described as "the carrot or the stick").

"1963 Listener 21 Feb. 321/2 Once Gomulka had thrown away the stick of collectivization, he was compelled to rely on the carrot of a price system favourable to the peasant."

The debate has been confused from time to time by imagining one stick from which the carrot is dangled and another kept in reserve as a whip; but I imagine that the original image in the minds of those who developed this expression was a donkey or mule laden with cargo rather than being ridden, with its master alternately holding a carrot in front of the animal's nose (by hand, not on a stick) and threatening it with a switch. Two sticks are too many to make for a neat expression.

For me, the clincher is that no one actually cites the form of the "original expression." In what imaginable context would it possibly be witty or memorable to say that someone or something had been motivated by a carrot on a stick? Why not an apple on a stick, or a bag of oats? Boring, right? Not something likely to pass into popular usage.

This saying belongs to the same general family as "you can draw more flies with honey than with vinegar." It is never used except when such contrast is implied.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:05 AM

Thank you for sharing.

Catharsis.

Positive / negative feedback.

positive / negative reinforcement - reinforcement at all, for that matter.

I guess what gets to me is the difference between the meanings of jargon terms within the scientific jargon and in plain English, where it always ends up meaning something that is NOT what it meant in the original jargon. My problem is that I know the jargon...

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: bobad
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:14 AM

I feel your pain.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:16 AM

"He flied out."

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:21 AM

From the Word Detective:

[...the earliest (1916) citation for the phrase listed by the OED seems to refer to a carrot dangling from a stick attached to and moving forward with the donkey itself: "The spectacle of an otherwise intellectual individual engaged in trying to plumb the depths of duplicity to which dealers can descend in faking old furniture is like that of the donkey pressing eagerly forward after the dangling carrot. It would ... be very pleasant to possess the carrot of complete knowledge, but the conditions render it impossible."

My guess is that the "perpetual motion" sense of the phrase was the original, probably inspired by a fanciful cartoon (real donkeys, unlike voters, are not stupid enough to fall for such a trick for very long). But the world being what it is, the "reward and punishment" meaning took over rather rapidly, and is thus the one heard most often today.]


There, I think we have made a lot of progress today. How does the group feel about that?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: kendall
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:21 AM

State of the art.
Pushing the envelope
The cutting edge.
BOLLOX

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,JTS
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:28 AM

I think "Carrot and Stick" means one thing, "Carrot or Stick" the other. When I was in Business school the case you are talking about was simply called "rewards", where Carrot or Stick was used to describe alternating rewards and punishments.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:32 AM

Catharsis is a good old Greek word and even in the psychological manifestation it is still being used in almost its true and original form, one of those rarities that actually means what it says even in the fashionable world of psycho analysis.
Purge...whether the body or the mind is involved.
Giok

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:37 AM

HEric's quote is the most egregious piece of awful writing I have ever encountered. It presumes referents for things which have no referent, and pretends to map territory which does not exist, leaving the reader in a tail-spin of multi-dimensional meaninglessness.

That is the purest of psychobabble.

"State of the art" is a commonly used term in patent processes.

"Pushing the envelope" was very meaningful in its original context which was high-speed (faster than sound) flight.

When a meaningful expression is stolen and turned into a "buzzword", used for excitation instead of communication, babble ensues.

A

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:53 AM

generate your own babble automatically here.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:57 AM

You say "In what imaginable context would it possibly be witty or memorable to say that someone or something had been motivated by a carrot on a stick?" --carrots are funny--apples and oats are not funny. Everyone knows that.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,JTS
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:13 AM

Of course Bugs Bunny is famous for the "Carrot and the Schtick".

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Becca72
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:20 AM

I have a friend who is in a constant state of therapy...she hasn't moved forward in 20 years. Keeps bringing up needing "closure" for things that happened in high school (16 years ago) that hurt her "self-esteem"...I say, MOVE THE F### ON with your life. The closure for such an issue is called graduation. What "closure" means to me most of the time is "I want the last word". Well, in real life you don't always get the last word. Deal with it.

Also, not psychobabble, but a word I'm getting sick of hearing is "literally"...not because I don't like the word, but because it seems very few people know what it means. I actually heard someone say "it scared me so bad I literally jumped out of my skin". Now THAT I'd love to see.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:28 AM

At this point in time . . . .

The thread is still above the line.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,JTS
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:32 AM

Peace,

Your line must be broke, literally.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:40 AM

Not at this point in time. Isn't this thread so fun?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Charmion
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:46 AM

My office cubicle is next to the "human resources" (speaking of babble) cell, and I invest a great deal of effort every day in blocking their utterances from my awareness. The section head (known as Foghorn for her resonant and forceful voice) has replaced her entire vocabulary with psychobabble, and one of these days I'm going to record her -- just for giggles. My tongue has a permanent dent in the tip where I keep it firmly clamped between my teeth to prevent myself from screeching at her that the idea behind language is communication, not obfuscation.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:56 AM

from a post on the BS generator page:

"wow, if only we could all evolve vertical relationships; imagine a world in which innovative front-end technologies ceaselessly synergize turn-key networks; it would be a landslide, a paradigm shift, a breakpoint. Now all I need to do is visualize my bleeding-edge niches and I will be complete..."

Sadly, people use language like this as a substitute for thinking and for actually saying something which might be challenged. It would be hard work to mount a serious debate on WHETHER 'the group needs to actualize its potential for integrated recapitulative cooperation within selective value-laden parameters.' So, they all just nod and agree they will do it....and then send memos back & forth on what progress has been made 'within the cooperative structural paradigm '.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 01:22 PM

LOL!!!! My Gawd...

Well, that gets today off to a good start, eh? Thanks, all! Specially you, Bill.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 01:24 PM

At This Point In Time was Nixon...

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 01:29 PM

(Expletive F******ng Deleted!) (Characterization C*******er Omitted!)

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 01:47 PM

I hate the word 'choice' as used by politicians. It means (approx) 'we are going to sell off socially useful services to a bunch of licensed bandits who will charge premium prices for shafting the poor saps who used to get the aforesaid services for free'.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 01:48 PM

Yeah, Amos: It won an award for bad writing back in the nineties. I don't know why those awards were discontinued – I hope it wasn't for legal / risk management reasons – They were the funniest things on the internet.

Disincentivize the babblers, I say.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Kaleea
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 01:51 PM

The word, "issues," which is now pronounced as, "issyewz," no longer means human attitude problems.
For example, I call the tech support for Dell. A guy in India who says his name is, "Scott," asks, "So, your computer has issyewz?"

technopsychobabble or psychotechnobabble?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Escamillo
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 02:07 PM

"Great interpersonal skills"

This is a requirement for candidates to be employed in Argentina by an international "call center" (customer assistance, telemarketing)

They have found that many young people in Argentina speak English very well and are unemployed or underpaid, so they mounted large call centers to assist users from U.S, Canada and Europe. They pay $ 1.70 per hour, against approx. 8.00/hour in USA. The shifts are 9 hours with a 30 min break. The time actually paid is the connection time, not the breaks. Breaks allowed between one call and the next, are 30 seconds maximum.

The next time you call to Motorola Customer Service, you will probably be received by an Argentinian young girl who will tell you the same bullshit with a different accent, but with great interpersonal skills.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 02:31 PM

Mrr's post made me think that we talk about different types of psychobabble. Most expressions here are psychobabble also in the sense that they not even have a well defined meaning within psychology and not only when used in daily talk. They are expressions coming from what is sometimes called, disparagingly, soft psychology.

Negative/positive reinforcement have very clear definitions within the science but are often (negative, in particular) used wrongly in daily talk. There is no need to use such expressions in daily talk.

Positive and negative feedback are of course no psychobabble but have a very good and well defined use in theories of motor control and also in game theory. Or do you know other uses, Mrr? (grin)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: autolycus
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 03:12 PM

Kat - Thank you, most kind.

The problems we're discussing aren't going away.

a)too useful in business, PR,etc

b)English lang and lit. at school is not well enough taught and not well enough learnt, either.

c)Philosophy is not yet universally taught to children.


It's also, from my experience as a therapist, interesting how much people can be surprised, worried etc. when I take what they say and the way they say it seriously. So the language we're talking about also survives because not too many people involved are taking the language particularly seriously.


Around the top of my hate list is "friendly fire", a very soft way of saying we're killing our own side. Disgusting.



   Ivor

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,been there, done that
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 04:33 PM

Diversity Committee:
The self-appointed who are concerned with Inclusiveness, whose practical task is largely to re-attach the horse behind the cart.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 04:54 PM

That is worthy of both Ambrose Bierce and Dr Johnson. If that is original, bravo. If you stole it, you have excellent taste.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 05:27 PM

I hear what you say...

Let's try to unpack it.
.................................

In fact both those expressions, and most of the rest quoted can make perfect sense, and be helpful at times.

What I dislike is when this sort of language is used as a way of avoiding some tricky issue, by manipulating the discussion so as to slip round it, but at the same time giving the illusion to the other person or people that it has been dealt with, or indeed that there is no problem. That's to me what the term psychobabble means - not so much the words and the phrases, but the way they are used.

"Quality time" should mean, for example, that, alongside the normal time when a parent is there and available to a child, there will be some times when they make a special effort, and sort out differences, maybe. But it typically gets used in a way that implies that what's best for children is measured doses of intense parental attention alternating most of the time with absence. Whereas most of the time, it seems to me, what kids need is a parent somewhere around, available if need be, but not dominating things. Non-quality time, in fact.

Rationing time can indeed be inevitable sometimes, and trying to make the most of what there is a sensible way to try to compensate - but the term is used to suggest that it's really just what is needed, and to suggest that without actually examining it.

"I hear what you say" should mean "This isn't the time when I can talk about what you have just said - I may agree with you or I may not agree with you. There is something else we need to talk about right now". And it's a very economical way of saying that. But it often gets used is to say in effect "I can't be bothered to reply to what you say. Now you listen to what I am going to say." But using the expression makes it harder for the recipient to object.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 05:46 PM

Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.
What the fuck does that mean?
Giok

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 05:54 PM

It's a way of sorting out the willing dupes, the easily bribed, and the sycophants from those who will not agree to your unreasonable proposition. ;-D

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 05:55 PM

why, Giok..it means we should toss it in the pool and see if it floats! Simple!

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 06:19 PM

As a Public Servant attending seminars and meetings, one gets tired of the psychobabble. There is a great game called Bullshit Bingo.
Just print off a couple of cards and play this game at your next meeting or group get together it is so much fun..One way to enjoy the psychobabble

http://www.bullshitbingo.net/cards/bullshit/

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Richard Brandenburg (been there, done that)
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 07:57 PM

"Diversity Committee:
The self-appointed who are concerned with Inclusiveness, whose practical task is largely to re-attach the horse behind the cart".

"That is worthy of both Ambrose Bierce and Dr Johnson. If that is original, bravo. If you stole it, you have excellent taste".

Thanks, Peace, for the comment; actually made it up at breakfast, thinking about the last place I worked. Then felt a little over-exposed and made up a name... which was supposed to be comically cliche. I clicked it and it showed another post by some other anon poster. Tangled up in Mud. I probably had better just join.

Richard

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:33 PM

Using "anal" to mean "neater, more exacting than I am."

Using "compulsive" the same way.

I have a friend whose elderly aunt lives in a house stacked full of paper, mostly junk mail. There is room in the dining room for one lounge chair, in which she sits and sleeps. If anyone offers to remove any papers, she gets very anxious and won't allow it. That's compulsive.

But to psychobabblers, if I make a plaid blouse and match the plaid, I'm compulsive. What do they know?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:42 PM

abuse, agenda, contradiction, define, identity, issue, potential

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Punctuality is minute honor. :||

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: heric
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:49 PM

My secretary, who is a very, very prim and proper shiny happy squeaky clean churchgoing midwestern values kind of gal, frequently likes to tell me that she is "anal," meaning a good editor. When she looks at me with that cherub face and says that, well, I believe there may be a microsecond pause before I nod in agreement. I think anal is a very good psychobabble term to leave out of the common man's vernacular.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 09:59 PM

It refers to a classification system invented by the good, if cockamamie, Dr Feud. Why he chose the ends of the food tube as his labels beats me.

A

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:15 PM

What would Herr Liebenscheiss say about it?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:28 PM

Or Dr Strabismus (Whom God Preserve) of Utrecht?

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:48 PM

"--and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents--"
"Certainly," said Alice.
"And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!"
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't--till I tell you. I meant, 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean do many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."
Alice was much too puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them--particularly verbs: they're the proudest--adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs--however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"
"Would you tell me, please," said Alice, "what that means?"
"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. "I meant by 'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life."
"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."
"Oh!" said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
"Ah, you should see 'em come round me of a Saturday night," Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side, "for to get their wages, you know."

from

www.leeandkristin.net/OldQuotes3.html

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Mrs Olive Whatnoll
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 10:59 PM

You lot need your 'ands put to useful labour is wot I fink. You're a lot of bleedin' ninnies wot wif yer silly sychobabble rubbish. You would not do well in a workin' class town loik where I'm livin' in. You'd be a laughin' stock, that's wot you'd be. I'll give you some "quality time" all roight!!! Stop round and see.

As for diversity, I'll tell you wot diversity is a sign of. It's a sign of moral decay! It's a sign of comin' societal collapse. I loik a place where all the men wear the same kind of 'ats and drink the same ale and all the women talk the same line of gossip.

I've lived that way all me loif and it ain't done me no 'arm. It's people loik me wot keep society from fallin' into chaos.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Howard the Turtle
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:05 PM

Are you related to Popeye the Sailor Mrs. Whatnoll? You sound an awful lot like him. If you are can you tell me what he is really like. If you are not, can you talk like everyone else around here.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Mrs Olive Whatnoll
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:21 PM

No, I'm not related to that stupid sod Popeye! E's a cartoon character and a right silly one if you ask me...although 'e does stand up for the old values, 'e does. That I can respect. And why would I want to talk loik you lot do? Wot good would it do me? None, that's wot.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Howard the Turtle
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:24 PM

Are you Australian? Say boomerang.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:28 PM

And if it doesn't come back when you throw it, say stick.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Howard the Turtle
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:33 PM

Hey Peace. I bet the stick would come back and hit the old bag Mrs. Whatnoll in the head.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Mrs Olive Whatnoll
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:45 PM

IF I 'ad a stick in my 'and and you was in range I'd give you jolly wot for wif it, boyo.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Howard the Turtle
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:48 PM

Go ahead ya smelly ole bag who can't talk. I'll just hide in my shell.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Peace
Date: 27 Apr 06 - 12:09 AM

"I'd give you jolly wot for wif it, boyo."

Old bat's likely 2/3 English and 1/3 Irish.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Apr 06 - 03:21 AM

Not to forget Mr Justice Cocklecarrot. {Thanks Kevin}
Yes J B Morton may indeed have been the originator of psychobabble.
Giok

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Alba
Date: 27 Apr 06 - 06:50 AM

This Thread too is refresh...ing

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: bbc
Date: 27 Apr 06 - 09:57 AM

no child left behind

teacher accountability

bbc

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Apr 06 - 10:23 AM

Bush version.."No Rothschild left behind"

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Apr 06 - 01:17 PM

"No child left behind" may be an empty slogan, implying that something is being done when it isn't, but I can't see how it's really psychobabble.

Not all lies have the special qualities of psychobabble, that implication that, by pinning a quasi-scientific label on a difficult situation, the problem has been identified and effectively solved. "Sorted" as they say in London and around (a prime example of what you could call "soapbabble").

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: bbc
Date: 27 Apr 06 - 02:12 PM

sorry. guess I need to work on my definitions.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Crisscross
Date: 11 May 11 - 12:34 AM

The psychobabble words & terms that set your teeth on edge do so because they are pure bull. In defiance of such mush, I make it a point to state that I have PROBLEMS, not "issues." And my problems are ABOUT things, not "around" them. I don't want "closure" so much as I want unpleasant things to be DONE. And if I never used a "should statement" toward someone, then I wouldn't be able to "tell them how to feel." Grrrrrrrrr. Sorry I "vented."

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 11 - 01:02 AM

What you really need to do is implement a cutting edge state of the art facilitization of maximum content holistic imperatives that can readily be synthesized and then further massaged to yield motivation-enhancing scenarios and quality relationships.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Smokey.
Date: 11 May 11 - 11:29 AM

In other words, LH, we need to grasp the bull firmly by the tail.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Ed T
Date: 11 May 11 - 03:48 PM

Bonding sessions, strategic thinking and strategic planning (or strategic anything), brainstorming, prioritizing (much more "strategic" than priorizing), goal setting and team work can always take up a lot of time, if you have time to spare.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 11 - 04:24 PM

Without effective and proactive prioritizing, someone is likely to drop the ball, and that could upset the high foreheads and disadvantagize the entire program. My advice is: don't screw the pooch just because you're busy downloading the little friskies.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Janie
Date: 11 May 11 - 10:17 PM

From: Amos - PM
Date: 25 Apr 06 - 10:56 PM

All these words have realmeanings -- they just get pirated by lazy thinkers to do work for them they don't want to confront.

Policy: general guidelines on how people in a group will handle situations. Perverted definition: an excuse to give you crappy service.

Closure: A feeling of completion which brings relief to one who has attention held onto something not finished. For example, if you send a letter revealing deep feelings, and the person hasn't answered yet, no closure until th e big question mark is resolved. Similarly if you have has a fighting relationship with a parent for thirty years, but somehow the two of you finally get to communicate and settle the issues between you, you both feel that relationship has reached a completion point and experience closure. Perverted definition: used to make you do something you don't want to even start, let alone finish!

Quality time is shorthand for time two people spend being with each other and enhoying each other's company, sharing thoughts and experiencing their mutual friendship. It is used in sharp distinction to helter-skelter business time, or having to get things done in a rush so all communications have to be chopped short. Perfectly legitimate distinction. Perverted use: Used as an excuse for very low-quality time by promising quality time later; used as a substitute for the actual article by taking about "quality time".

All relationships are meaningful -- the problem is some people give them very skimpy meanings! : D


A

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: autolycus - PM
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 03:02 AM

It also depends on how the words are heard....

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Janie
Date: 11 May 11 - 10:25 PM

Fwiw, I again say "Well said, Amos."

And well said, autolycus, wherever you may be.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 May 11 - 12:59 AM

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.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Ana
Date: 12 May 11 - 03:48 AM

Now let's all be adult about this - I can see that many of you have issues that, moving forward, I hope you resolve.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 May 11 - 07:00 AM

100 !!

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 12 May 11 - 07:24 AM

The problem about "quality time" is that nobody ever says if it is good quality or bad quality.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 12 May 11 - 07:36 AM

Mother and son 'bonding' really means to spend time with mother in exchange for dinner and a loan.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: EBarnacle
Date: 12 May 11 - 08:29 AM

George Orwell's "Doublethink"

How many people have been forced to sit through "Morning Meeting," where nothing meaningful gets discussed but the same old scabs get picked?

A secondary, more common, meaning of the carrot and stick approach comes from the following story:

A man went to a livestock sale and saw a rather handsome ass. He asked the seller how well the ass worked and the seller replied that the animal was a willing worker--Just feed him a carrot in the morning when taking him from his stall and he was ready to go all day. When the man got the ass home, he put him in a stall overnight and took him out, giving him a carrot and harnessing him. No matter what he did, the refused to work, so he unharnessed him and brought him back to the seller. After he described the problem, the seller picked up a heavy stick and struck the ass on the rump.

At that point, the ass became quite biddable. When asked why he did that, the seller responded "Well, first you have to get his attention."

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: frogprince
Date: 12 May 11 - 12:44 PM

I finished out my gainfully employed days with 5 years of inspecting automotive connectors. Went in every day and went through whatever version of the %#@*7 things I was asked to check. Sat down for an "evaluation" during the last few months, and was told that I needed to get out of my "comfort zone" and work with some stuff that nobody had ever asked me to mess with. I still don't think there was any reason for anyone to assume what my "comfort zone" was.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 May 11 - 12:00 AM

"Pushing the envelope" was very meaningful in its original context which was high-speed (faster than sound) flight.

The term predates the time when "faster than sound" was nowhere near the "envelope," although it does originate with "flight."

Every airplane has a specifically defined "flight envelope," that describes the range of flight conditions within which safe operation is reasonably certain. There are a wide number of "standard limits," such as Stall speed (V_stall), minimum Takeoff speed (V_TO, Maximum Flight Speed (V_NE also called V_come-apart, and for most planes Maximum Bank Angle (based on g-force limits and also fuel system limitations).

The "Envelope" has been a recognized set of parameters specific to each individual airplane since at least the early 1920s.

"Pushing the envelope" has been understood, by pilots at least, to mean "operating in an unapproved manner" since then. There was a (fairly brief) period when the "envelope" was close to Mach 1, so that in that brief time the envelope might have been said to have some relation with that speed, but that time was just a flickering instant.

It's an unfortunate "fact of life" (add that one to the list) that test pilots sometimes must push the envelope in order to explore just where the actual limits are before the customers get the plane. There are long lists of "heroic but dead pilots" who did their duty in this way.

As adopted by management, "pushing the envelope" just means "lets do something I never thought of before" (i.e perform a miracle that will save my ass) - an admission of ignorance, and expressing NO CONCEPT of risk, since the manager never dies - there's always some flunky who can "pay the consequences" (be blamed) if something goes wrong.

A similar phrase - "let's expand the envelope" - might in some cases have some meaning, but it's rarely heard since it might actually involve improving the product to make it do more (which might cost money).

John

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: HuwG
Date: 13 May 11 - 08:44 AM

On the same lines ...


"When it comes to testing new aircraft or determining maximum performance, pilots like to talk about 'pushing the envelope.' They're talking about a two dimensional model: the bottom is zero altitude, the ground; the left is zero speed; the top is max altitude; and the right, maximum velocity, of course. So, the pilots are pushing that upper-right-hand corner of the envelope. What everybody tries not to dwell on is that that's where the postage gets canceled, too."

— Admiral Rick Hunter, U.S. Navy

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: EBarnacle
Date: 13 May 11 - 08:19 PM

There is also "out of the box."

One meaning applies to kayaks and other unstable boats. A basic training skill is that the new kayaker has to learn to keep his center of gravity within the box no matter what they are doing in the boat unless they intend to roll or capsize the boat. Otherwise it is an unintended maneuver.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Donuel
Date: 13 May 11 - 10:20 PM

Having been in psychologist circles,the amount and degree of psychobabble is often amusing. There is one field that exceeds psychological psycho babble by a mile, and that is what I call "Curator Speak"...the kind of drivel delivered by museum officials, art thieves and gallery owners as well as some pretentious artists.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 May 11 - 11:25 AM

Good point, Donuel. The same kind of people produce the text in coffee-table art books, which I can hardly stand to read.

They can produce pages and pages of words without actually communicating anything.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: freda underhill
Date: 15 May 11 - 07:08 AM

The artist has a co-dependent relationship with the canvas, a delusion of symbiotic obsession. His/her denial of life external to the canvas exacerbates his / her dysfunction, while feeding the ego with a false sense of empowerment. A holistic solution would be for him/ her to develop a meaningful relationship with his/her/its neighbourhood, using verbal and social play to develop local human connections. Otherwise he/she/it is at risk of developing multiple personality disorder, or narcissism. Then again, he/she could wander down a path of psychosis,become an outsider, before living on adrenalin and creating synergy with/on the canvas, leading to as false sense of self-actualisation.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 May 11 - 09:53 AM

Realising that the protagonists to this seminar were having serious difficulties in establishing an appropriate rationale, largely due to their hard wired reluctance to think outside the box, I decided to parachute in somebody with the ratiocinatory expertise to achieve a speedy resolution of the dilemma upon whose horns they find themselves impaled.

And now the silly sod's stuck up on the roof.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 May 11 - 06:06 PM

ratiocinatory?

Don, you must have made that word up.

I salute you.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 May 11 - 04:59 PM

""ratiocinatory?

Don, you must have made that word up.

I salute you.""

Not guilty, I'm afraid Leeneia.

From the OED        

ratiocinate

Pronunciation:/ˌratɪˈɒsɪneɪt, ˌraʃɪ-/
verb
[no object] formal

    form judgements by a process of logic; reason.

Derivatives

ratiocination
Pronunciation:/-ˈneɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
ratiocinative
Pronunciation:/-nətɪv/
adjective
ratiocinator
noun

Origin:

mid 17th century: from Latin ratiocinat- 'deliberated, calculated', from the verb ratiocinari, from ratio (see ratio)

I'm just a mine of useless information, according to 'er indoors.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 May 11 - 05:02 PM

That adj. should have the y on the end.....ratiocinatory.

DT

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 May 11 - 07:21 PM

Surely, it is easy to recognise psychobabble. It appears on a mudcat thread about education, politics, religion or 'What is a folk song?'.

:D tG

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 May 11 - 10:54 AM

I have to disagree, Dave. Psychobabble deals with emotions, attitudes, and human relationships. Trouble is, it deals with them on a very superficial level and is often used to make excuses.

Like, when somebody asked why a 15-year-old was allowed to go to a party with drinking and drugs, the answer is that 'She needed some space' and 'Needs to learn to deal with the issues of modern life.'

Whereas the real answer is, "I'm her parent, biologically speaking, but I've never really grown up and never learned how to act like an adult."

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 May 11 - 11:30 AM

Trouble is, it deals with them on a very superficial level and is often used to make excuses.

Pretty much what I meant, leeneia. The type of thread I mentioned are usualy very superficial and often used to make excuses! They are also psychobabble of the worst kind. Sorry if I was unclear and seem to be trivialising the subject - That is not my intention.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 May 11 - 05:57 PM

Okay, Dave. No problem.

I feel bad. A 15-year old was shot to death a party here. Gangsters A and B were after gangster C and D, and they shot innocent bystanders X and Y at a party.

What was a 15 year old doing at such a party? Should have been home and in bed.

Subject: RE: Recognising Psychobabble
From: Janie
Date: 17 May 11 - 07:24 PM

Excellent Freda! Now that is psychobabble!