Do you know what trauma bonding actually means?
Summary
Therapyspeak, or the casual and incorrect use of psychology terms in everyday conversations, has turned real issues into mere buzzwords
At a recent gathering, someone said they had “trauma bonded" with another person over the challenges of working in similar roles—not an accurate use of the word. In casual conversations, trauma bonding is often used to describe forming a close relationship with someone who has experienced similar problems. However, in psychological terms, trauma bonding refers to a connection that forms between an individual and their abuser due to a cycle of abuse interspersed with moments of kindness and affection. This emotional confusion makes it difficult for the victim to leave the relationship.
The rise of therapyspeak—using psychology jargon in everyday conversation—has reduced complex concepts to oversimplified buzzwords, fuelling their widespread misuse. This trend not only trivialises serious mental health issues but also gives people the licence to use terms like “bipolar," “schizo" and “retard" to label others callously.
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Trauma bonding is another addition to a growing list of mental health terms that are often used out of context or with little understanding. If “trauma bonding" is so easily misinterpreted, perhaps we need a new term to clarify its meaning. Language should evolve, after all. I asked a few mental health professionals if they could hypothetically replace “trauma bonding" with a clearer term, what would it be?
Anindita Chatterjee, a Delhi-based counselling psychologist, offers the term “abuse-driven attachment". “Trauma bonding in adult relationships often stems from attachment injury experienced in childhood within the parent-child connection," she says.
In romantic relationships, these attachment injuries can get exacerbated to create a cycle of “toxic loyalty". “Even when you know the relationship is harmful, you choose to stay in it and often start to build narratives around the abusive partner’s goodness to continue to feed into the cyclic loop of dysfunction and hope." But she is against the idea of normalising the term “toxic loyalty" as it “puts the onus on the person who can’t leave". She chooses “abuse-driven attachment," as it comes closest to describing the phenomenon.
But even “abuse-driven attachment" can be misleading for someone unfamiliar with trauma bonding theory, argues Ishita Pateria, a counselling psychologist from Mumbai. She suggests moving beyond short labels and embracing more descriptive language. “Let’s just call it an ‘emotional attachment in an abusive relationship,’" she proposes.
“In therapy, we often avoid telling a client outright that they are in a trauma bond because they may not have the background to grasp its full complexity. Sometimes, we introduce the term only after they’ve processed their emotions around the relationship," she explains.
During the pandemic, Pateria noticed many clients using “trauma bonding" loosely to describe the connections they formed with others navigating the collective trauma of covid-19.
Is changing an existing term the solution, though, asks Avneet Kaur, a psychotherapist from Bengaluru. Since the term is academically established and well-understood within the field, she argues that the real issue lies in misinformation. “What could help is raising awareness about its actual meaning and promoting clearer terms to describe bonding over shared trauma," she says.
Kaur suggests alternatives like “adversity-driven bonding" to capture that experience more accurately. It’s an idea worth considering. Rather than replacing established terminology, perhaps we can focus on better education. Either way, they all make a solid case for expanding the language we use to discuss trauma and bonding.
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