The Outsourcing of Intimacy: Why Borrowed Words Can’t Replace Real Connection
Therapy-speak may give us the words to name our feelings, but real connection requires the messy, vulnerable truth behind them. We discuss it here!
Borrowed Words Can’t Replace Real Connection
Credit: Yuri A. Via Shutterstock
By: Jamila Gomez
We live in an era where therapy-speak and self-help language are everywhere. Scroll through your feed and you’ll see it: people talking about “protecting their peace,” “not having capacity,” or “establishing boundaries.” Podcasts, TikToks, and Instagram reels have given us a whole new vocabulary for how we approach relationships. And while this language has helped many of us name things we didn’t have words for growing up, there’s a danger in leaning on it too heavily. When we start outsourcing our words, we risk outsourcing our intimacy too.
For Black folks especially, therapy and open conversations about mental health weren’t always accessible or encouraged. Having the language of “trauma,” “attachment styles,” or “emotional labor” can feel liberating because it validates what we’ve always felt but couldn’t explain. That’s the upside: these borrowed words can give us clarity and tools. They help us talk about boundaries without guilt, about self-worth without shame. They’ve given us permission to name what once was only swallowed silence.
But the downside is subtle. Sometimes we use therapy-speak as a shield instead of a bridge. It’s easier to say, “I don’t have capacity right now,” than to admit, “I don’t feel like talking because I’m hurt.” The first sounds polished, like you’ve been through a workshop. The second is vulnerable, messy, and real. And intimacy—the real kind—requires mess.
Relationships suffer when everything is filtered through buzzwords. Instead of raw honesty, we give each other curated scripts. Instead of risking being misunderstood, we hide behind universal phrases that sound wise but aren’t personal. A partner, a friend, or even a sibling doesn’t always need the perfect therapeutic phrase. They need you. Your unpolished words, your stumbles, your actual feelings in their raw form.
This is where intimacy lives: in the shaky “I don’t know how to say this, but…” or the fumbling, “I’m scared you’ll leave if I tell you the truth.” Borrowed language can open the door, but it can’t walk us through it. At some point, we have to put down the script and risk sounding human.
It’s important to remember: vulnerability is not supposed to sound perfect. Love isn’t an essay, it’s an exchange. Healing isn’t a caption, it’s a practice. The point isn’t to be fluent in therapy-speak; the point is to be fluent in yourself.
We can’t afford to let our intimacy become outsourced. The people closest to us deserve more than a vocabulary—they deserve our voices. Not the podcast version, not the Instagram-ready one, but the shaky, complicated, deeply personal truth. That’s what real connection is made of.
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