Every January, Americans swear this will be the year they finally change.
Lose weight. Fix a relationship. Stop procrastinating. Drink less. Show up more.
And every February, most of those resolutions are quietly abandoned.
The problem isn’t a lack of insight. People usually know exactly what they want to change. The problem is accountability. Increasingly, the language borrowed from therapy culture makes it easier to stop trying and justify staying stuck instead of pushing people to tolerate discomfort and do the hard work change requires.
This isn’t just a self-help problem. The same language has crept into how we talk about behavior in public life, with serious consequences.
After the killing of Charlie Kirk, Montel Williams on CNN described the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, as a “love-torn child.” ABC News referred to Robinson’s farewell texts as “touching.”
When Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, the violence was framed as an expression of grievance. In each case, language that should have clarified wrongdoing instead softened it, turning brutality into a story of misunderstood pain.
These words shape who people feel for. Call a murderer “love-torn,” and the victim all but disappears.
These are extreme examples, but they reveal a familiar pattern.
The same softening of responsibility plays out more quietly every January when people abandon their New Year’s resolutions.
“Grievance” is the language of politics, where blame points upward.
Applied to individual behavior, accountability gets lost.
Not every gentle phrase is therapy-speak. “Love-torn” is sentimental, not clinical.
But what gives these words their power is how easily they slide into a therapeutic way of thinking, explaining destructive behavior as pain rather than choice.
Once behavior is framed that way, whether it’s violence in public life or failing to follow through on a goal, responsibility fades.
As a psychotherapist, I see this pattern daily.
I explore this drift in more depth in my forthcoming book “Therapy Nation,” which looks at how therapy culture has reshaped responsibility, often in ways that leave people stuck.
Words once reserved for serious psychological conditions — narcissist, borderline, psychopath, trauma, PTSD — have escaped the therapy office and become casual shorthand.
A friend who disagrees is now “toxic.” A date who ghosts is a “narcissist.” A tough week at work becomes “trauma.”
Miss the gym? You were “burned out.”
Blow up a relationship? You were “triggered.”
Don’t follow through? That expectation was “toxic.”
The language excused failure. And that dilution cheapens words and distorts judgment.
If every setback is trauma and every conflict is abuse, failure no longer requires effort or reflection. It requires a diagnosis.
Once people learn to narrate their setbacks as injuries rather than choices, progress stalls.
My own profession bears some responsibility.
Therapy rightly emphasizes empathy and validation.
But somewhere along the way, accountability became optional.
Media and politics adopted the same script, stripped it of nuance and turned it into cover.
Words meant to clarify behavior now blur it.
I’ve seen the consequences up close.
One patient insisted her boss was “gaslighting” her because he gave blunt but fair criticism.
The term originally described deliberate psychological manipulation meant to make someone doubt their sanity. Today it’s applied to ordinary discomfort.
Another patient excused standing over his wife and shouting until she cried by blaming a difficult childhood.
His previous therapists nodded along. I did not.
Trauma can explain behavior, but it cannot excuse it.
Maintaining that distinction is therapy’s responsibility. When we fail to do so, people stay stuck.
The same drift shapes public policy.
When Cynthia Nixon and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described shoplifting as an act of “need,” the message was unmistakable: Stealing isn’t a crime but desperation.
From there, the logic unravels. Shoplifting becomes need. Looting becomes grievance. And violence becomes pain.
The problem isn’t compassion. Real compassion recognizes suffering while still insisting on responsibility. Therapy-speak increasingly substitutes indulgence instead.
If hardship automatically erases accountability, the more someone hurts, the less responsible they become.
That is one reason New Year’s resolutions fail.
Change is uncomfortable by definition.
It requires restraint, consistency and tolerating frustration without pathologizing it.
Therapy was never meant to turn every bad habit into an identity or a diagnosis. It was meant to help people confront reality and act differently.
As the new year begins, Americans don’t need more language to excuse themselves.
They need language that restores agency.
You didn’t fail because effort was “triggering.” You failed because change is hard.
Discipline is uncomfortable.
Compassion matters.
But compassion without accountability doesn’t improve lives.
And a culture that teaches people to explain their behavior instead of owning it will keep mistaking excuses for progress, every January, year after year.
Jonathan Alpert is a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, DC.
The post New year, new excuses: How therapy-speak sabotages January resolutions appeared first on New York Post.
