There's a lot of talk about “There is a mental health crisis amongst the young people in the world”, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. And this is not to denounce or to minimize what people are going through. But I wondered, are these folks indeed meeting clinical criteria for mental health disorders or are they responding to, frankly, the the hellhole that the world is? Welcome to Awake at the Wheel. So in our episode today, we're going to be discussing the fact that words have meaning. I know this is a topic that is important to both Oren and I. And I'll say this because one of my earliest interactions with Oren was at work, and I received an email from him with a correction as far as grammar and punctuation. And rather than being offended, I was like, this is this is my kind of person because clearly language is important to him as it is to me. And that was one of our, I think, first chuckles that we shared. So within the context of our podcast, we've been discussing a lot about weaponization and divisiveness and shutting down conversations and shutting down meaningful discussions and lack of critical thinking. And a huge piece of this is the fact that words are being misused, words are being weaponized, and essentially words are being thrown out there to shut down discussion. So some of these words that we're going to be discussing today are calling someone a racist, calling someone a fascist, calling somebody a sexist in the face of a meaningful discussion and a topic that should be discussed. And we'll also touch on in our profession sometimes social media tend to misuse clinical terms and clinical words, which can also lead to some problems. So, Oren, what are your thoughts on this? Well, speaking of words and having meaning, I am anal about language. And so I say that, yes, we are what we speak. So if we're being taught that either certain words have certain meanings or if we are programed to be vague, to be ambiguous in our language, we're not doing a service thing when we need to have we need to have a shared language. We need to make sure that we when I say one thing, you hear that word and you understand it to mean the same thing. Otherwise, how can we exist as social animals? We have to have the common ground. That common ground is language and what the words or the terms mean. Absolutely. So that being said, language certainly does change and evolve over time. And there's slang terms and hyperbole and so on and so forth. But these at the end of the day are still all nuances of language. But the misuse of language is a big problem. And again, back to words like calling someone a fascist or a racist, it's doing a few things. First of all, it's, you know, it's erroneous. It's it's it's awful to call somebody these things in the face of a desire to have a real discussion. But what it also does is the opposite of what I think such people are seeking to accomplish, which is remove the true power and charge and importance and complexity of those themes and words. Well, yeah, I mean, basically, when someone does use one of these words, there's only one purpose is to shut down the other person or to shut down the discussion that's control, that it's an abuse of control and abuse of power because nobody wants to be called that that word. Whether it's just simply that it feels so toxic to them and it's like anathema to them, or they understand the optics of that, that if I am, you know, considered to be a person like that, what is that going to do to me? So when people use these words recklessly, again, it well, first of all, it means that they don't have a good argument. It means they don't have a good handle on the situation. It means that they are not psychologically, emotionally or cognitively capable of having a nuanced, good faith, balanced, comprehensive discussion on the topic. That's what it really means. Now, you and I are trying to be positive in our podcast. We're trying to help promote change, positive change. And so if anything I say sounds harsh, condemnatory, you know, dismissive or something like that. I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm trying to be honest about what I have seen happen. As an instructor, as a psychologist, and as somebody who, until I was canceled, was pretty prominent in the media and social media. And so I've seen all this. I've I've had it happen to me numerous times. Yeah. So as far as couple of things, I want to talk about you being canceled. So I think that that's an important thing for us to to discuss. And the the consequences that come from that. But also as far as this use of language to shut down conversations, I wonder if it comes from ignorance and not having enough information or ability to carry the conversation on whatever the given topic is? Or is it fear or is the both? Yeah, I would say it's both. At least there's others as well. But the fear is huge. I always tell people if I ask them like, what's the most important emotion, people will often say love or something like they know, No, it's fear. Fear has more of an influence on people's behaviors or lack thereof than anything else. People are more driven to avoid that which they fear, that which makes them uncomfortable, which they don't feel prepared to handle. Then they feel driven to challenge, take on things to, you know, to go into the unknown. So to face the discomfort that comes with all these things. So, yes, a lot of it is fear. There is ignorance, there is a belief. Here's the problem. A belief that what they are doing is virtuous. It's just it's for a greater good. And this is where when we talk about words having meaning, it's they don't understand when people again use words like fascist, racist, whatever, recklessly and inappropriately, they are rationalizing. And I use this word in previous podcasts, but just in case anyone doesn't know to rationalize is to make a bad or cheap excuse for why you do or don't do something and it makes you sleep at night. But everybody else recognizes what you're doing. And so they rationalize their behaviors. They say, No, no, the person that I just called a fascist is dangerous. I need to shut them down. I cannot let them speak. I cannot let them hurt others. So I am actually protecting society or protecting this person or that group. And it's just they're lying to themselves because they're not doing that because you never do good when you prevent other people from talking. So if that person's a monster, then maybe you don't let them talk. The problem is words have meaning. And so now everyone's being called a monster. If their views, if their opinions, if their ideas, if their suggestions don't run in accord with what you want to believe or need to believe. Yeah. So I don't want to get into the details about the the why of being harmful. But I think what's really important here is, you know, they're the highlights of you said something that someone didn't like and you get canceled talk about being the recipient of that because I don't believe that you know people who are going around pointing fingers and using these really strong words understand that the recipient of it is a human being that has real consequences from it. Well, fortunately, just because I've lived a pretty diverse life and I am resilient, I have a very thick skin and I've been able to overcome a lot of adversity in my life, which is going to sound cheesy, but being a white, straight, non transgender male, people can't believe that I would have. Well, I do. And I did. And so fortunately, I was raised in a way that enables me to have a really thick skin and to be able to continue to move forward despite that. However, the vast majority of people that either who are canceled, whether it's publicly like I have been or at work or among their their group and so on, most people don't have that that perspective that I have. And it is devastating. They are real human beings and they've watched their friends disavow them. They've watched their job be taken away. They've watched, you know, their reputation be completely smeared so publicly. And it can it cause it's two things. Either it happens to the person and it can be devastating for many people or the fear of that happening. When you see some people, whether it's, let's say, a professional in a certain field who's a top of the field and they've been canceled, or someone at your work or a neighbor, when you see that happen, that's like a spike, That's like a head on the spike. You've just gone to village and you see all these heads on spikes. And that's a warning that people don't want to ever have. They don't want to have their head on that spike. So it causes a lot of anxiety. They're terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing and being labeled a certain way. And it's not hyperbole. It's not some myth, it's a fact. And many people I've had so many patients who've said that. And again, if it hasn't happened to them yet, the fear of it happening is all encompassing and it prevents them from either being able to speak their mind, from being able to do their job properly, from being able to parent properly, or from having good mental health, because constant anxiety and fear and hyper vigilance is not healthy. Absolutely. And that leads to the next piece of this. You know, you're mentioning that this causes anxiety and that is certainly the proper framing of it. But we're living in a world right now where, you know, TikTok and all kinds of different videos that are out there where people, laypeople are discussing things like anxiety, like ADHD, like OCD. And these are becoming pieces of and parts of regular colloquial language where people are misusing these words. So, for example, saying, you know, I'm very particular about something that's my OCD or I have a hard time focusing, therefore I have ADHD. So this is another bastardization of language where there's these seriously serious implications of these disorders and terms that are being thrown around. And I'm going to throw one more word just to shift gears, but I'm going to keep the theme that you just mentioned, which is rape, sexual assault. Yeah. Okay. Violent. So two things when you are accused of that, or were you afraid that you could be accused of that? Wait, we just had a great time last night. It was consensual. We were sober, whatever. And then knowing that I had young a lot of young men say this. And as someone who's taught human sexuality for the past 20 years, I've seen this happen. I've had patients, I've had students who've had this happen to them. Where you knowing that if the person regrets what happened or if you thought it was just a simple hookup and the person wanted more and you're not giving them more, knowing that they could turn around and say I was raped or sexually assaulted or coerced. Right. That those words do have consequence. It causes the anxiety before and after. It can cause someone to lose their freedom. Right. So so either it's having an actual practical implication that an impact that that is it's evil when it's a false allegation. Right. Or it's making the person who's making that allegation feel that they were actually subjected to something horrible. And so, you know, we know about the placebo effect. If someone is told. Right. If someone is told that even if it was consensual, I mean, I'm using sexual assault, but I just want to go there because that's one of the something I've seen happen many times. I see the impact on both sides. If I if someone is told that if again, you thought it went really well, everything seemed great. But then things subsequently don't turn out to the way that you want it. If you're told that equates with sexual assault psychologically, you are putting yourself in a victimized mentality and you are limiting yourself and you are carrying mental health impact that could actually may be equivalent or almost equivalent to somebody who truly was sexually assaulted. And then the final point of that is where people who actually have been sexually assaulted, when people have been the victims of racism, when people have been the victims of violence, when people do have OCD or ADHD or bipolar disorder or whatever, when they hear other people using language to co-opt their experience, it is a slap in the face. It's insulting. And it just it makes them it cheapens their own experience. And and that's what people have to recognize. There are so many consequences to using language recklessly. And I'm going to say narcissistic, and I'm using this properly because if someone believes that I and I can dictate everyone else's reality, I can use language that works for me. Idiosyncratically, you may not it may not accord with objective reality, but because it feels that way to me, I can say that without any consent, any consideration of the consequence or or the impact other people. What is that, if not narcissism? Yeah. Yeah. And one of the big challenges or consequences of, again, benefits of clinical terms is that it and you've alluded to that that it's refusing then to I think the masses in general, whether they're somebody who is suffering from that disorder or not, it removes the importance and power of that word and it gets diluted, I suppose is what I'm saying. When we look at society right now, there's a lot of talk about“There is a mental health crisis amongst the young people in the world”, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. And this is not to denounce or to minimize what people are going through. But I wondered, are these folks indeed meeting clinical criteria for mental health disorders, or are they responding to, frankly, the hellhole that the world is? And in some respects, it could even be a natural response to the challenges that are happening in the world around it. That's not disordered anxiety. That's a stress response. Right. And it's tricky because the fact is, if you put 100 people in the same situation, they're going to process it differently. And how do they process it? Well, hey, I'm going to tell you it's language in part. So there may be an actual crisis going on. There may be catastrophes on the horizon. There may be. But the word that we use to describe that, the words that we use to tell the truth, to describe our ability to deal with it, or our role in maybe making change or trying to withstand or whatever those words, again, do have impact. So regardless of what the reality is, if people are using the wrong language or the disempowering or harmful language to describe the situation, it's going to only make it worse. And that's what we have to be careful about. So you're absolutely right. It's hard to know how much of it is a disorder and how much of it is a stress reaction to a reality. But again, it's how you frame it. It's how you frame it that will help determine the outcome in your in yourself. And that's why with with trauma, for example, we know that, again, 100 people in the exact same traumatic, potentially traumatic incident or experience of that same incident, not everybody is going to suffer, not everyone's going to have post-traumatic stress disorder. Part of his biological part is genetic. Part of it's your history, but also part of it is how it was framed. Either by yourself or by other people around you. Okay. So if people are more mindful of the language that they use, if people are more mindful of how they frame their experiences and if they see that there's ways to use different words to reframe the experience in a more adaptive way, I'm not saying to rationalize. I'm not saying to yourself. I'm saying to try to find the most adaptive way to get to frame. I'm going to keep using the word frame in this case. And framing is through language, right? It's not true feelings, it's through language. How you describe it we choose to focus on that is going to help you get through whatever situation and people need to be because people need to be more focused on that because you have control over the language that you choose to use. So even if you know the Amazon is burning, even if war is breaking out over here or there, I have no control over that. But I do have control over the words that I choose to use or where I decide to focus my attention. I can say, you know what? I know that this is going on here. I have it. I'm going to try to compartmentalize and try to focus on something else that I can actually do something about in my own life, and that will help my mental health. And again, all of this, we need words to describe what I just mentioned. So really being mindful of the words, if I may just use one, if I may just point this out here, because this is going to resonate with some people. And so if I have a patient, all right, if I have a patient, I’m going to say two things, if you don't mind me going into instructor mode. Sorry. So if I have a patient and within the first 5 minutes I hear this word used several times, I know several things about them. And I point out to them and I say to them, I say from now on, your homework is I want you to just monitor how often you use this particular word. It's a set of three or four words, and I've never had someone not come back and say, Oh my God, I had no idea. And those words are, for example, stupid, silly, ridiculous. Right? When they're saying I'm silly or I have a stupid I know it sounds ridiculous, but if I didn't say over and over, I know that that's the narrative going on in the back of their mind. That's the language that they are using for themselves. They are denigrating themselves, they are dismissing their ideas, they're devaluing themselves. And if you do that constantly, first of all, you weren't born that way. You picked up something that you were hearing when you were younger. Your parents could be a teacher or whoever, but the fact that you've now conditioned yourself to think that way. So if you talk that way, you think that way, you feel that way, and someone who's stupid, silly, ridiculous, you can't have good mental health. If that's how you feel about yourself. You can't have a sense of self agency and say, I can make these changes, I can do this and that, right? So being mindful of that kind of language, it's amazing. And if you just make some changes, it can change. Like just changing your language. It changes how you think about things. It changes how you feel about yourself in one other language. Just before I forget in therapy, I tell my patients and this it's I tell them, I say it. Colloquially speaking, If you do this in a normal situation, it's perfectly fine because we all do it. But in therapy, it has a very different meaning, and that's using the pronoun you. So if I say, you know, if I said, you know, when you go to a bar and you meet your friends and then the bartender comes to you and they say, Right, you're using you, you, you, because you're trying to make it kind of a general experience. It's a universal you so that it draws the person in and is shared experience, whether they've actually had that experience or not. Right. But in therapy, I explain to people that using you is basically emotionally distancing yourself from the experiencing experience. You're making it abstract. It's some, you know, some concept. It's not your own experience. So I've had people say literally, you know, when you wake up this morning and brush your teeth at 835 and it's like that's the person who's not able to to own their experience and they have to use you to distance themself. It it shows that they're not they're not processing. Right. So the reason I bring this up is these are just two examples of of of tendencies that people have. And by the way, once I tell people at the you you can't not see it when other people talk once again when you talk about you can do like a fun situation that's fine but what you hear them talk about a very personal, direct situation that you can you you can see them that they really are trying to avoid the discomfort of owning their experience. So just want to throw out there as a tip for what people can do. Certainly. And if I can go back to what you were saying earlier, as far as the narrative that we tell ourselves, you know, if I keep saying in background, I'm stupid, I'm dumb and useless, whatever the case may be, we then begin to internalize and believe that to be true. But it's important for us to also look at what's happening with this misuse of language externally and how we then internalize it. So, for example, and again, I will speak generally here about this client because I don't want to reveal anything personal, but I've become aware of a situation where a child was suspended from school for using a previously harmless name of an animal, which was then inferred as this child being racist. So my task then was to work with this individual who came into the office literally thinking that he's racist. So having this discussion with a I’ll say eight year old child of I'm a racist person and then having to undo that narrative, or at least help inform what racism actually is, my gosh, difficult, harmful that that's happening. And I think a perfect example of the real consequences and what's going to be the long term consequences of this misuse of words. Exactly. And when you do this to a child, when you have a child who you know, and let's just assume that the child had no bad intention and you're telling them it doesn't matter what your intention was, you are a bad person. That's very different from saying we know you have good intentions, but you know, you use language in a certain way that can be harmful or hurtful. You said a bad word and. Yeah. Exactly. And it goes back to language. It's just like with children, you can say you were bad or you did a bad thing. Those are two very different things. One, a child recognizes, oh, my behavior was not acceptable. The other is I am a terrible person. They can develop into that. That's right. So, yes. So we are seeing so much language and we've talked about this in other podcasts, but I hate to say it, very many young children are being taught that just because of the color of their skin, they are bad, they are deficient, they are the source of problems in the world. And these these, you know, these distortions and bastardization, that are just evil Manipulation of language is having a lot of negative consequences. And for someone to say, well, now they know how other people feel, this is a child. This is a child who maybe did nothing wrong, why are you going to saddle them with the burden of your neuroses? That's like always in every episode. Let's look at what can we do about this, because I surmise that this isn't going anywhere. In fact, to be a little bit pessimistic here, I imagine it's going to get a little bit worse because we're seeing it right now where words are losing meaning, what can we as individuals do? What can we as a society do? So as an individual, we need to recognize again, we are what we speak. We need to be more mindful of the words that we use. We need to question when we see these changes. You can't see this word because wait a second, 5 seconds ago it was acceptable. Why are you suddenly saying it's not acceptable? So instead of just blindly going, Oh no, no, I don't want to offend somebody, so I'm not going to use this word. You can choose not to use the word because you're being told either A, it's hurtful or offensive or B, you don't want to lose your job or get sanctioned some way. So you can do that, but don't do it blindly. Question Why am I being asked to use this different language if necessary, number one. Number two, if you think it's wrong and if you, you know, principled enough to stand up to it and you feel that you're in a position where you can do that challenge, ask them why exactly? Ask someone to to Google it, tell them, look at the etymology of this word. You know, tell me how it came to be suddenly wrong. Tell me why you're accepting. You're saying, for example, it's just you use racism. I know that there are many people who are taking this definition, but this is a relatively new definition that someone cannot be racist unless they they have the position of power in the society, for example. And I challenge people. I say that's just a convenient excuse to allow people who don't happen to be in the majority, to be terrible people. Okay, Right. I can use prejudice, I can use bigot, but I'm also going to use racist or sexist or something else if you're acting that way, because I don't want you to feel that you can get away with, you know, being a bad person, for example. So it's it's truly doing your due diligence. We have social media, we have look for credible sources, okay, not not a biased source as much as you can look for credible sources, look for five different sources from different, different, different places to try to get in over a good view because maybe you'll realize, oh, wow, I thought this was a stupid change. But I just recognize I didn't know the history of this word. Now I realize why some people find it very hurtful. And you know what? Why would I continue to use it if I know that, like, so we need to recognize again that you and I were always this beer drinking game. We don't take a black and white approach. We take a critical thinking approach and a critical thinking process that in some cases these language changes are ridiculous. In other cases, they're evil and manipulative. But in other cases they are fair, they're rational, they make sense. And if I if I you know, if I consider it, I can become a better person. I contribute I could contribute to a better society. So again, it's don't blindly accept something and don't blindly reject it. Do a deep dive. And I will add. Yeah, absolutely. And again, like you said, critical thinking, looking at both sides, because there absolutely are examples of words that we shouldn't be using and have been removed from regular vocabulary and rightfully so. Right. It's simple tool or technique that folks can use as well is just ask if somebody calls you a racist or someone calls you a bigot and you know that this is not the case in the spirit of meaningful discourse, say “Well, what is it that you mean?” And I think you'd be surprised, as are folks would be surprised that I'm doing your thing. You I think one would be surprised in saying and seeing what response someone will come up with. I think it would be one of many things they either freeze because they likely aren’t often challenged and my optimistic hope would be that it could lead to them perhaps realizing that that isn't the case and that the narrative that they've been fed and that they're feeding back in the feedback loop. The second thing I think that we can do about this from the parenting perspective is modeling proper use of language and modeling proper behavior and of course, doing so in a respectful manner. But correcting children, when you see that they're misusing such words. And again, whether it's the group of words we used earlier, you're talking within the clinical context because a lot of younger people are starting to use those words erroneously or when it comes to these social issues like racism, sexism and so on, having a conversation with their kids because they're the next generation that are going to continue on or break the cycle of language misuse. Exactly. And that's so important. So many parents have abdicated their responsibility. They're like, what can I do? They have social media and well, yes, they do, but you are the filter. You're the person who can help the child process what they're seeing so that they don't use language improperly. They or they don't absorb and internalize the language that's being used improperly against them. Don't just give it your head, throw up your hands and give up. You are the parent. You you're the one who you know, Don't give up that don't don't abdicate your responsibility to teachers or to social media, or to peers, you have a role. And if you don't know what's going on, if you don't know the language your child's using, find out. Speak to the child, See what you know, what kind of videos for watching, see what sort of social media platforms they're using. Invest the time into recognizing what is my child being exposed to have those conversations. By the way, a little sign of what I used to do with my children when we used to watch TV. These days, noone sits down to watch TV, right? But when we did do that, I would sit with them and in the commercials I would have discussions with my children about the commercials because that for a period of time, I don't know that kids don't watch commercials. Okay. But there were so many mean spirited, nasty commercials, like, you know, if you're selling a Subway sandwich or something or like or tires, somehow the theme of that commercial, it was mean spirited. It was harmful. It was ugly. Yeah, it was it was a for a period of time. They just they just so unnecessarily harsh or they get ugly. And so I would watch that with my children and ask them what they think about that. And I'd tell them, you know, like I explained through the psychology behind it and so on from a young age, because I just didn't want them also just blindly accepting what they're seeing, whether it's from TV, from their friends, from their teacher. So yes, whether it's language, whether it's an idea, whether it's constructs, we want to help either our children or the people that we work with or peers or whoever else to be more mindful of this. And as you said a few minutes ago, asking questions. And by the way, if you find that here's the thing. I hope that people are not just going to dismiss somebody because they happen to be woke or they happen to be a social justice warrior or something like that. Okay, maybe they have some value to bring. Maybe they have good ideas, maybe they're executing it poorly, but they have a good heart and they have good intentions. So hear them out and don't just dismiss them. Have that discussion. Like you said, ask questions in good faith. And if you find that this person doesn't have the intention or the capacity to have a good faith, rational discussion with you, then you can respectfully, you know, just disconnect from them. But you can also say, I'm not going to let that person's words have any impact on me. They have no credibility if they're going to call me a racist. And I know I have not done anything racist. And whether this is a child or an adult saying this, like if they're able to say, wait a second, that's not what I did, they can't read my mind, they can't ascribe to me motives. And I did not have they don't know. This is a projection of their own neurosis or own racism and sexism and so on. If you're able to do that again in good faith is if you're acting inappropriately, you say, Well, that's just their projection. Well, now you're rationalizing. Now you're lying to yourself. If you're doing it honestly and again with good intention and good faith, then you will not allow the stench of people's misuse of language to to cover you. And, you know, and you can continue to try your best to have a positive influence or positive impact on other people model for that. And the type of behavior that we're trying to talk about right now. Yeah, developing that thick skin, as you mentioned in the context of your situation. Exactly right. The thick skin and also, again, goodwill and trying to again enter in and trying to see whether you can have a positive impact. And by the way, if you're using language properly, if you're trying to help somebody see a different things differently, maybe to abandon their wokeism or whatever else it might be, maybe you're not going to have an impact on them. And by the way, probably talking to social media more so than face to face, but maybe you're not going to have an impact on them, but you can have an impact on everyone else who's watching. Conduct yourself with decorum, take the high road, don't cheap shots and let other people compare you versus the other person. The person who's trying to language police your language tone you. We're trying to try to gaslight you into believing that, you know, let them see how irrational and hateful they're being and conduct yourself properly and you're going to win somebody over who is maybe on the fence or who didn't realize, Oh my gosh, I thought these people were virtuous. I thought they were doing good for society. No, they're not. Right. And let them figure that out. So anyway, that's and that's how you can use language to your advantage. Sure. Okay. So like everything we talk about, this is going to pop up again throughout other podcasts. But I think it's so important that we spent the time identifying what the problem looks like and what we can do about it. Exactly. And I hope other people again, we've given you some ideas. I hope people will look further into it and I hope people will find the courage and the honesty within themselves to reflect on how you speak, how you think, and what changes can you make that are in your best interest. And therefore, if it's in your best interest, we hope that you can also then translate that into the best interest of the people around you or society. You know, the broader society. So until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. As much as we love listening to ourselves speak, especially me, we would love to hear from you as well. So our emails are in the description below. If you would, please write to us with your questions, feedback, comments, topics that you'd like us to cover. We can do this together, the two of us, but it's much better if we do it together. So we look forward to hearing from you and we are going to have a segment called Roundtable where we're going to discuss the the feedback and the questions and so on from our audience. And we will we will take it to the next level. We're going to help you be able to deal with some of these issues that you might be bringing us or it's going to be a topic for us to explore together and we really look forward to building a community, a community of like minded people who want to do right by others, not just for themselves.