What is a loaded term?
When addressing the root cause of anxiety, you will likely find that there are words or phrases you assume have universal definitions, but they don’t. For example, how you define ‘intelligence’ will likely differ from how someone else defines ‘intelligence.’
We call these words/phrases “loaded terms.” To be precise, a “loaded term” is a word that can mean different things to different people. People use loaded words and often don’t know what they mean to them. You may sometimes fall into this boat.
This lack of clarity is often the root cause of one or more of your anxiety triggers. Solutions on Clarity will help you uncover loaded words and understand what these words mean to you. In doing this work, you’ll likely reveal that you use definitions you don’t agree with or want to live by. These realizations alone can help eliminate one or more of your triggers.
Loaded term examples:
Good person, healthy, stupid, smart, competent, attractive, ugly, inadequate, bad, good, intelligent.
Tips for identifying a loaded word or phrase
Ask yourself, would every single person in the universe define this the same way? If the answer is no, take time and figure out what that word currently means to you. Not what you think it should mean or what others think it means, but what it means to you.
The definition of the word and how it impacts your everyday life is uniquely in your brain and has to be pulled out for you to evaluate.
Examples of a loaded term used in everyday life:
- “What if I lose control and it happens?”
There is room to clarify what this person means by “lose control”
For more on this, you can read this, which is an academic write-up of the theory of Personal construct psychology. That theory aligns with what’s in this article and our clinical results.
