I have spent a lot of my life trying to understand things.

Why people behave the way they do. Why relationships work and why they fail. Why I react the way I do. Why someone else reacted the way they did. Why something hurt. Why I hurt someone. Why we repeat patterns even after we can see them.

Over the years, I have acquired an increasingly sophisticated vocabulary for doing that.

Attachment. Trauma. Triggers. Boundaries. Dysregulation. Neurodivergence. Rejection sensitivity. Projection. People-pleasing. Conflict avoidance. Emotional safety. Consent. Accountability.

Some of that language has genuinely changed my life.

It has given names to experiences I couldn’t previously explain. It has helped me recognize my own patterns. It has helped me understand other people with considerably more compassion. It has made me a better communicator. It has helped me recognize things I needed to change about myself.

It is part of why Consent Culture exists.

But I have also begun wondering whether there is a point at which our relentless desire to understand ourselves and one another becomes something else.

When does an explanation stop helping us understand an experience and start overruling it?

When does “Maybe this is what is happening” become “I know what is happening to you”?

When does psychological insight become authority?

And perhaps the most uncomfortable question for someone like me:

When does understanding become another way of avoiding what is actually right in front of us?

Sometimes I don’t need to understand exactly why something hurt me before I am allowed to say that it hurt.

Sometimes I don’t need to diagnose someone’s motivations before deciding that I don’t want to be treated that way.

Sometimes another person’s history can explain their behavior without making that behavior acceptable.

And sometimes my understanding of my own history can explain my behavior without absolving me of responsibility for it.

There is a much larger question underneath all of this.

Who gets to tell us what our experiences mean?

The Right to Be a Knower of Your Own Life

Philosopher Miranda Fricker introduced the influential concept of epistemic injustice, broadly concerned with the ways people can be wronged in their capacity as knowers.

One form, testimonial injustice, occurs when someone’s account is given less credibility than it deserves because of prejudice. Another, hermeneutical injustice, concerns situations where people lack adequate shared concepts through which to understand or communicate their experiences. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

These aren’t simply abstract philosophical problems.

Researchers have examined epistemic injustice in mental healthcare, where patients can find their testimony or interpretation discounted because the professional is presumed to possess superior knowledge. The clinician genuinely does possess expertise, but expertise does not make the patient’s knowledge of their own lived experience irrelevant. (PubMed Central (PMC))

That distinction matters far beyond healthcare.

We are constantly interpreting each other.

Partners do it.

Parents do it to children.

Friends do it.

Therapists do it.

Coaches do it.

Teachers do it.

People with more experience do it to people with less.

Dominants can do it to submissives.

And increasingly, millions of us consume psychological content online that offers ready-made interpretations of almost every conceivable human experience.

Sometimes those interpretations are illuminating.

Sometimes they become another form of power.

Psychological Language Can Give Us Back Our Reality

I don’t want to make the fashionable argument that “therapy-speak” is inherently bad.

It isn’t.

Sometimes finding the right word changes everything.

There is an enormous difference between experiencing something confusing and being able to say:

There is a name for this.

Language can give structure to experiences that previously felt chaotic.

The history of epistemic injustice actually demonstrates why this matters. One of the classic examples concerns experiences for which marginalized people historically lacked adequate shared terminology. Once concepts become available, experiences that previously seemed private, inexplicable or unspeakable can become intelligible. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Think about what words such as sexual harassment, gaslighting, coercive control, asexuality, non-monogamy, consent violation, or even boundary can provide when someone finally encounters the concept that describes something they have been living.

There can be extraordinary relief in discovering:

Oh. Other people experience this.

There is language for it.

I can explain this.

That is one of the reasons this site contains thousands of definitions, FAQs and articles.

Words can create agency.

But the same language that gives someone agency can also be used to take it away.

When “Could It Be?” Becomes “This Is What You Are”

There is an important difference between saying:

“I wonder whether this might be connected to your attachment history.”

and:

“You’re doing this because you’re avoidantly attached.”

There is a difference between:

“Could something about this situation be triggering you?”

and:

“You’re triggered.”

Between:

“I experienced that very differently.”

and:

“You’re projecting.”

Between:

“I think there might be another interpretation.”

and:

“You’re rewriting what happened because you can’t face the truth.”

The first version leaves room for another human being.

The second claims authority over them.

And there is a particularly dangerous version of this reasoning in which disagreement itself becomes evidence that the interpretation is correct.

You say I’m avoidant.

I say I don’t think I am.

My refusal to accept the label becomes evidence of my avoidance.

You say I am acting from trauma.

I disagree.

My inability to recognize my trauma response proves how deeply embedded it is.

You say I’m afraid of intimacy.

I say I simply don’t want this relationship.

My decision to leave becomes proof that I am afraid of intimacy.

There is no longer any answer I can give that would demonstrate that your interpretation might be wrong.

The theory has become unfalsifiable.

And my own account of my experience has effectively ceased to matter.

“I Know You Better Than You Know Yourself”

This doesn’t require a therapist.

It doesn’t even require malicious intent.

It can happen frighteningly easily between people who know each other intimately.

In fact, intimacy can make the claim feel more credible.

“I know you.”

“I know what you’re like.”

“You always do this.”

“I can tell when you’re shutting down.”

“You don’t really mean that.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re angry.”

“That’s not what you’re actually upset about.”

Perhaps sometimes they’re right.

People who love us can see things we cannot.

My closest relationships have taught me things about myself that I genuinely couldn’t see alone. There are times someone has challenged my interpretation of my own behavior and, eventually, I have realized they were right.

That is part of intimacy too.

So I don’t want a version of self-trust that means nobody gets to challenge us.

That would be equally dangerous.

“I know my truth” cannot become immunity from accountability.

The answer isn’t that I possess perfect knowledge of myself and everybody else must accept whatever account I give.

I don’t.

None of us do.

The distinction is subtler.

You are allowed to challenge my interpretation without claiming ownership of it.

You can tell me what you observed.

You can tell me how my behavior affected you.

You can tell me what pattern you think you see.

You can disagree with my recollection.

You can point out contradictions.

You can ask uncomfortable questions.

You can even tell me that you think I’m lying to myself.

What you cannot legitimately do is construct a system in which your interpretation is automatically correct and every response I make is simply further evidence for it.

That isn’t inquiry anymore.

It is a verdict.

Consent Is Also About Meaning

We usually discuss consent in relation to actions.

May I touch you?

May I kiss you?

Can I share this photograph?

Can I tell someone what happened between us?

Do you want to continue?

Those questions matter enormously.

But working on Consent Culture has increasingly made me think about consent as part of something larger: agency.

Consent matters because people are entitled to participate in determining what happens to them.

And I think there is an intellectual and emotional counterpart to that physical agency.

We should retain meaningful authority over the interpretation of our own interior lives.

I have been thinking of this as epistemic consent.

I am not using that as a clinical diagnosis or claiming it as an established psychological model. I mean it as a useful consent principle:

Other people may help us understand our experiences, challenge our interpretations and offer perspectives we cannot see. They should not simply seize authority over what our experiences mean.

Consent does not require everyone to agree with us.

But respecting someone’s agency means leaving space for them to remain a participant in understanding their own life.

This Becomes More Important When Power Is Unequal

The more authority someone has, the more careful they need to be.

Consider a new submissive playing with a highly experienced Dominant.

The submissive becomes uncomfortable after a scene.

The Dominant says:

“That’s probably subdrop.”

Possibly.

They might be completely correct.

Experience can be extraordinarily valuable in helping someone recognize physiological and emotional responses they have never encountered before.

But imagine something slightly different.

The submissive says they didn’t like something.

The Dominant responds:

“You’re frightened because you’ve never surrendered control like that before.”

The submissive says no, they genuinely didn’t enjoy it.

“That’s your resistance talking.”

They say they don’t want to do it again.

“You wanted it during the scene. You’re just struggling with the vulnerability afterward.”

Something important has changed.

Expertise has become interpretive authority.

And there is an obvious consent problem if “I don’t want that” can be transformed into evidence that someone secretly does.

No amount of experience gives another person privileged access to your desire.

Power that has been consensually granted over a scene does not automatically include authority over the meaning of your experience.

Therapy Language Can Do the Same Thing

There is now emerging academic criticism of what researchers call therapy-speak, particularly when psychological terminology moves into ordinary conversation stripped of its clinical context.

A 2025 paper examining the phenomenon argues that therapy-speak can have genuine benefits, including increasing mental-health awareness and helping resist epistemic injustice. But the authors also identify risks including pathologizing, self-diagnosis, discrediting other people, evading responsibility, and using the apparent authority of psychological terminology to impose interpretations on emotional experiences. (PubMed Central (PMC))

That last part matters.

Clinical-sounding language carries authority.

Compare:

“You’re being an asshole.”

with:

“You’re displaying narcissistic behavior.”

The second statement sounds more objective.

It might not be.

Compare:

“I don’t want to have this conversation right now.”

with:

“I’m enforcing my boundary and you’re violating it.”

Again, there may genuinely be a boundary violation.

But the terminology itself doesn’t prove it.

Sometimes we attach psychological vocabulary to our position because it transforms something subjective into something that sounds clinically established.

And that can quietly change the power dynamic.

Instead of two people trying to understand what happened, one becomes the diagnostician and the other becomes the patient.

Sometimes Anger Means Something Made You Angry

We should also resist the temptation to pathologize every uncomfortable emotion.

Sometimes jealousy tells us something important.

Sometimes anger is proportionate.

Sometimes anxiety is responding to genuine uncertainty.

Sometimes sadness is grief.

Sometimes discomfort means we don’t want something.

Sometimes a relationship actually isn’t working.

Sometimes the situation is the problem.

Not every difficult emotion represents an unresolved wound requiring excavation.

This distinction matters because otherwise the search for internal explanations can make us extraordinarily tolerant of external circumstances that deserve scrutiny.

If every painful reaction is understood primarily as evidence of something inside me that needs healing, I may stop asking whether something outside me needs changing.

Perhaps I’m not dysregulated.

Perhaps I’m angry.

Perhaps I’m not being avoidant.

Perhaps I don’t want to be here.

Perhaps this isn’t an attachment wound.

Perhaps I’m being treated badly.

Perhaps I do have an old wound and I’m being treated badly.

Those possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

Understanding Why Someone Hurt You Doesn’t Make the Hurt Disappear

This is probably the part I have had to learn most personally.

I am very good at looking for the why.

Sometimes too good.

If somebody hurts me, I can often find my way toward an explanation.

I can understand their history.

Their fear.

Their insecurity.

Their stress.

Their attachment patterns.

Their experiences before me.

The things they were protecting themselves from.

The ways my own behavior contributed to the situation.

And compassion often follows understanding.

That is generally something I value about myself.

But there is a trap hidden inside it.

If I can explain someone’s behavior well enough, I can sometimes start arguing against my own pain.

They didn’t mean it like that.

They were frightened.

They’ve been through a lot.

I understand why they reacted that way.

I could have handled that differently too.

All of those statements may be true.

And:

They hurt me.

may also be true.

There is no contradiction.

I can understand why someone did something and still believe they should not have done it.

I can have compassion for the circumstances that shaped somebody and still hold them responsible for what they do with those circumstances.

I can love somebody and require something to change.

I can forgive somebody and decide not to continue a relationship with them.

I can understand somebody completely and still say no.

Understanding does not create consent.

The Same Standard Has to Apply to Me

This becomes meaningless if I only use it to analyze what other people have done.

Because I can explain myself too.

Probably even more convincingly.

I can identify the stress I was under.

I can talk about my history.

I can identify the thing that triggered me.

I can explain the fear underneath my behavior.

I can recognize the pattern.

I can understand precisely why I reacted the way I did.

And sometimes all of that is genuinely important.

But none of it changes the fundamental accountability question:

What did I actually do?

And then:

What am I going to do differently?

There is a difference between self-understanding and self-exoneration.

“I understand why I did that” is the beginning of accountability, not the end of it.

Otherwise psychological insight can become remarkably sophisticated armor.

We learn better words for our behavior without changing the behavior.

We become extraordinarily articulate about our wounds while continuing to wound other people.

We can explain our patterns in exquisite detail and continue repeating them.

At some point, healing has to become visible in how we live.

You Are Allowed Not to Know

Perhaps the most liberating thing I have learned is considerably less sophisticated than all of this:

I don’t know.

I don’t always know why something affected me.

I don’t always know whether my interpretation is correct.

I don’t always know whether something belongs to my past or my present.

I don’t always know whether I’m responding to an old wound, a current problem, or both.

I don’t always know why somebody behaved the way they did.

And I don’t necessarily need to know immediately.

There can be tremendous pressure in contemporary psychological culture to excavate an explanation for everything.

But uncertainty is not failure.

Sometimes “I don’t know why, but this doesn’t feel right” is useful information.

Not proof.

Not a diagnosis.

Not an accusation.

Information.

We can become curious about it without immediately overruling it.

Self-Trust Is Not the Same as Always Believing Yourself

There is a risk of taking all of this too far.

People misremember.

We rationalize.

We minimize our behavior.

We misunderstand our motivations.

We protect our self-image.

We sometimes need somebody else to tell us something we absolutely do not want to hear.

So “trust yourself” cannot mean “assume your interpretation is always correct.”

I think healthy self-trust is something harder.

It means trusting yourself enough to examine your own interpretation without immediately surrendering it.

It means being able to say:

This is how I currently understand what happened. I might be wrong. Tell me what you see.

And offering other people the same dignity.

That turns meaning-making into collaboration rather than conquest.

A Better Way to Talk About Each Other

Perhaps we need fewer declarations and more invitations.

Instead of:

“You’re triggered.”

Try:

“That seemed to hit something really hard. Do you know what happened?”

Instead of:

“You’re avoidant.”

Try:

“I notice that when we get close to this subject, you seem to pull away. Do you see that too?”

Instead of:

“You’re projecting.”

Try:

“I don’t recognize myself in what you’re describing. Could we work out why we’re seeing this so differently?”

Instead of:

“You’re dysregulated.”

Try:

“You seem overwhelmed. Do you want to stop?”

Instead of:

“That’s just your trauma.”

Try:

“I wonder whether something from before is getting mixed up with what is happening now. But there may also be something happening now that we need to look at.”

The difference isn’t politeness.

It is epistemic humility.

I have information about you.

You have information about you.

Neither of us possesses the entire dataset.

The Question I Keep Coming Back To

The more I learn about consent, the less I think it can be confined to saying yes or no.

Consent sits inside a much larger idea about human beings having agency over their bodies, relationships, identities, information, choices and lives.

That should include some agency over meaning.

Not absolute authority.

Not immunity from challenge.

Not the right to rewrite our behavior or demand that everyone accept our version of events.

But the right to remain a participant in interpreting our own experience.

A good therapist can help us discover meaning without dictating it.

A good partner can challenge us without defining us.

A good friend can tell us an uncomfortable truth while remaining curious about our perspective.

A good Dominant can bring experience and authority into a power exchange without claiming ownership over the submissive’s interior reality.

And we can offer the same respect to the people around us.

Maybe the question isn’t:

Who is right about what this means?

Maybe we start somewhere else.

What did you experience?

What did I experience?

What can we actually observe?

Where do our accounts differ?

What don’t we know?

What happened as a result?

What needs to change now?

There may not always be a neat psychological explanation waiting at the end.

I am increasingly okay with that.

Because understanding can be incredibly valuable.

But understanding isn’t the same thing as healing.

Explanation isn’t accountability.

Compassion isn’t absolution.

Expertise isn’t ownership.

And nobody, however much they love us, know us, study us, diagnose us or understand us, should automatically become the final authority on what it means to be us.

Sometimes the most respectful thing we can say to another person is:

“This is what I see. But you tell me what it’s like from where you are.”

Sources and Further Reading

This article was partly prompted by Ser Davtian’s essay, Maybe It’s Time to Unfollow @the.holistic.psychologist, particularly its discussion of epistemic control, psychological frameworks and retaining authority over our own meaning-making. (seekwithser.substack.com)

For background on epistemic injustice, including Miranda Fricker’s concepts of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, see the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy overview of epistemic injustice. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Research has also examined epistemic injustice specifically within psychiatry and mental healthcare, including how professional authority and stereotypes can undermine patients’ credibility as knowers of their own experiences. (PubMed Central (PMC))

For a recent academic examination of “therapy-speak,” its potential benefits, and the ways psychological terminology can be used to pathologize, discredit, evade responsibility or impose interpretations on other people’s emotional experiences, see Unmasking Therapy-Speak. (PubMed Central (PMC))