Why Therapy Speak Can’t Replace Virtue (or Good Manners)

There’s a certain irony in how, for all our talk of “growth” and “healing,” and even the obsession with “working on ourselves” we’ve become a culture that’s allergic to discomfort. We wrap ourselves in the soft fleece of therapy-speak, wielding phrases like “I need to set a boundary” or “I’m stepping away because I feel anxious” as if they’re talismans against the hard work of living and dealing with others. Psychology, once a tool for understanding the mind, has been crowned the queen of morality. But here’s the thing: psychology is not, and never was, a substitute for virtue or, for that matter, good manners.

The Rise of Therapy-Speak: When Self-Understanding Becomes Self-Excusing

Scroll through TikTok, tune into a celebrity interview, or even eavesdrop at your local coffee shop, and you’ll hear the new lingua franca of feelings. “I’m protecting my energy.” “I don’t owe anyone an explanation.” “My trauma response is valid.” These phrases, lifted from the lexicon of therapy, have become the new etiquette and even virtue signaling since even knowing those terms mean you are someone in a healing process, someone who wants the good. Except, instead of smoothing social friction, they often justify withdrawing from it altogether.

It’s not that psychology isn’t valuable. Far from it. The insights of Freud, Jung, and their intellectual descendants have helped millions untangle the knots of their inner lives. But somewhere along the way, we started treating psychological language as a moral framework. We swapped out the old guides such as virtue, etiquette, the sturdy wisdom of Miss Manners, for a system that was never meant to teach us how to live, only how to understand why we feel the way we do.

Even then, psychology drives us inward. Digs into our deepest thoughts, fears, feelings and drives them deeper inside us. I am not convinced that deep inside ourselves is a safe place. Personally, I’ve experienced the most growth facing outwards. When I give of myself to others, when I learn from others, even when I simply think of others. I can’t deny that more than once I’ve overcome my darkest moments by giving love and receiving love; and in the process I got out of my head, my pain, and everything I could not control.

Virtue: The Lost Art of Enduring (and Transforming) Discomfort

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: understanding your emotions isn’t the same as enduring them. And it certainly isn’t the same as transforming them into something beautiful, or useful, or even just tolerable for the people around you. That’s the work of virtue.

Virtue, in the classical sense, is about cultivating qualities: patience, courage, humility, charity—that help us rise above our baser instincts. It’s about doing the right thing, even when it’s hard, even when no one’s watching. And, crucially, it’s about learning to live with discomfort, not just naming it, accepting it, and running away.

The ancients understood this. Aristotle wrote that virtue is formed in the crucible of habit: we become brave by doing brave things, patient by practicing patience. There’s no shortcut, no hack, no amount of self-knowledge that can replace the slow, sometimes painful process of growing in virtue and consequently growing up. But I am afraid that our psychological practices can sometimes give us the tools to avoid these personal challenges; like setting a boundary, so you don’t have to cultivate the charity it takes to keep a relationship with your aging grandparents. Other times it can change our language to one driven by the self and not by virtue or simple kindness. Like calling a friend "toxic" for being emotionally needy, instead of simply recognizing they’re going through a hard time and need your love and patience a bit more at the moment. 

The Etiquette of Kindness: Why Manners Matter

It’s tempting to dismiss good manners as fussy or outdated, the relics of a more repressive age. But etiquette, at its best, is less about which fork to use and more about how to be gentle with other people’s feelings. It’s a set of guardrails that keep us from crashing into each other’s vulnerabilities.

Judith Martin, the legendary Miss Manners, put it best: “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.” Her “Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior” is full of rules that, far from being arbitrary, are designed to make life more enjoyable for everyone:

• Never answer a personal question you don’t want to. Instead, smile and say, “Why do you ask?”

• When someone is rude, don’t escalate. Respond with calm, or even with a gentle joke.

• Always write thank-you notes. Not because you “owe” someone, but because gratitude is a muscle that needs regular exercise.

• If you make a mistake, apologize simply and sincerely. No need for a TED Talk on your trauma, just say you’re sorry.

These are small things, but they add up. They create a world where people feel seen, respected, and safe. And, perhaps most importantly, they force us to practice virtues like patience, humility, and charity. Virtues that can’t be outsourced to a therapist or explained away with a diagnosis.

The Perils of Therapeutic Narcissism

Without a moral compass, therapeutic language easily tips into narcissism and victimhood. When every slight is a “boundary violation,” every disagreement a “toxic dynamic,” and every negative emotion a “trauma response,” we lose the ability to see ourselves as agents in our own stories. We become passive, waiting for the world to accommodate our sensitivities, rather than learning to accommodate others.

This isn’t just a personal problem; it’s a relational one. Friendships, marriages, families; they all require a certain amount of grit, forgiveness, and self-restraint. If we’re constantly excusing our bad behavior because of our “attachment style” or “anxiety triggers,” we never give ourselves the chance to grow. We never learn the art of repair, or the grace of letting go.

Here's a joke I love: How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?

*Thinks for a few seconds*

Just one, but the light bulb must want to change. 

This joke points to another important truth: we are the only agents of change in our lives. A therapist’s role isn’t to heal us or make us better; they're there to guide us, to help us understand ourselves and offer tools for growth. But the actual work of becoming better? That’s always on us.

The Case for Moral Storytelling

Our obsession with therapeutic language has reshaped the stories we tell. Where we once revered characters who overcame adversity through courage or sacrifice, we now celebrate those who are “authentic” about their wounds. The plot twist is no longer redemption, but revelation. The big secret, the hidden trauma, the moment when everything finally makes sense.

But understanding why someone is broken isn’t the same as watching them become whole. We need stories that show us how to change, not just why we hurt. We need heroines who are strong not because they’re invulnerable, but because they choose virtue over self-justification.

We should praise those who have overcome their psychological struggles, not merely the act of oversharing or surviving. Ultimately, it’s what we do with our suffering or in spite of it that reveals true greatness. Men like Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt left behind biographies full of grand accomplishments; but look deeper, and you’ll see how both men battled grief and serious depressions. They lived in a time when there was no podcast to speak publicly about such things; yet they wrote prolifically, not about their wounds, but about heroes, wars, and resilience. Perhaps that, in itself, was their cure.

A Call to Revival: Restoring Virtue and Etiquette

So what’s the way forward? It’s not about abandoning psychology, it’s about putting it back in its proper place. Therapy can help us understand ourselves, but it can’t make us good. For that, we need virtue. We need etiquette. We need the old-school rules that taught us how to live together, even when it’s hard.

Practical Steps for a Virtue Revival:

1. Study Virtue: Read Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, or even Miss Manners. Make a habit of asking, “What would be the courageous, patient, or kind thing to do?”

2. Practice Etiquette: Bring back the thank-you notes. Learn how to apologize. Hold the door open, even when you’re in a hurry.

3. Choose Stories of Moral Transformation: Seek out books, films, and role models who embody growth. Not just self-awareness, but self-overcoming.

4. Embrace Discomfort: When you feel anxious or upset, resist the urge to retreat. Ask yourself: What virtue is being called for here? How can I grow, rather than shrink?

5. Be a Gentlewoman (or Gentleman): Let your manners be a gift to others, not a performance. Remember that kindness is never wasted.

The Strength and Beauty of Modern Womanhood

There’s a particular strength, and a particular beauty, in women who are both self-aware and virtuous. Who know their minds, but also know how to bear discomfort with grace. These are the women who can sit with pain, who can forgive, who can say “no” without drama and “yes” without fear. They are not doormats, nor are they divas. They are the quiet heroines of everyday life, holding the world together with invisible threads of patience, kindness, and courage.

Psychology can help us understand our wounds, but alone it can’t heal them. That’s the work of virtue. And virtue, like any art, requires practice. It requires a thousand small acts of self-restraint, generosity, and good humor. It’s not glamorous. It won’t go viral. But it will make you strong, and it will make you beautiful, in ways that no amount of therapy-speak ever could.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with therapy, or with using psychological language to describe our experience. But we must remember: self-understanding is not the end goal. The point is to become someone worth understanding, someone who can endure, transform, and transcend. Someone who knows that virtue and good manners are not relics of the past, but the keys to a life well lived.

So write the thank-you note. Apologize when you’re wrong. Hold the door. And when you’re tempted to retreat behind the shield of “boundaries” or “anxiety,” ask yourself: What would virtue do? The answer might just change your life.