LANGUAGE has been widely recognised as a powerful means of conveying the mind’s intangible experiences and emotional states. Therefore, emotions like tears, fears, sympathy, and joy find their way to the world through words and sentences.
In this sense, language serves as a bridge that allows our inner thoughts to walk through, understood, and felt by those we select to connect with.
Conversely, this relationship also works in reverse in that our mental well-being can be mirrored based on the language we use in our daily conversations.
Thus, spoken forms of language like conversations and dialogues or written language forms, including diaries, narratives, memoirs, posts on different social media platforms, etc, can all be used as valuable sources to recognise people’s mental and emotional well-being.
To put it differently, the way we speak and the words and phrases we select reveal a lot about who we are and how healthy our minds are.
Therefore, during consultation sessions, psychiatrists closely monitor the patients’ language, paying close attention to their choice of words, tone, and linguistic patterns to better understand their state of mental and emotional well-being.
To illustrate, let us consider this from a linguistic perspective by giving a very simple example involving the use of ‘Personal Pronouns’. For example, a narcissistic patient’s language will be marked by too much use of the first-person pronouns “I”, “me” and “my”.
This reliance on the first-person pronouns reflects unconscious attempts to boast about his abilities and achievements, belittling or undermining others’ opinions and contributions.
In contrast, a paranoid individual might avoid the use of “I” and frequently emphasise second-personal pronouns like “they” or “them”, which indicates the suspicious or accusatory language.
Similarly, someone with anxiety may rely on the use of the first-person singular pronoun “I” but with a tone of worry or fear dominating his speech.
On the other hand, a depressed patient might use “we” and “they” less frequently, which signals social withdrawal and a sense of disconnection from the world around him.
However, someone with a stable mental may naturally alternate between using “I” and “we”, reflecting a healthy balance between individual identity and collectiveness with others, such as family, friends, or a community.
Likewise, the change in the patients’ language over time can be an indicator of the progress in their therapy or treatment. That is, recovering from mental health issues can be tracked through the shifts in their word choice to express their identities.
For instance, a psychiatrist could observe signs of mental recovery in the narcissistic patient’s language through the decline in the egocentric language towards the use of inclusive pronouns such as “we,” “you,” and “us”.
This shift may positively reveal a gradual evolution in the awareness of others’ perspectives and opinions and a reduction in self-centered thinking.
In the case of a paranoid patient, progress in his mental health might be observed when his language becomes less accusatory, so a gradual reduction appears in the use of third-person pronouns like “they” or “them”.
Such a reduction might be seen as a positive decrease in his mistrust feeling of others. Similarly, an anxious or depressed patient may begin to reduce the use of “I” and “me” shifting to compose sentences with collaborative pronouns like “we,” and “us”.
This probably indicates positive progress in mental health treatment, reflected in the anxious patient’s improved emotional regulation and the depressed patient’s growing sense of connection and engagement.
Language, then, is more than just a tool for communication; it is rather a reflection of inner thoughts, mental states, and emotional conditions. In fact, it is a vital indicator of our mental health well-being, identity, and personality.
Therefore, subtle shifts in language use can reflect changes that offer valuable signs of psychological distress or improvement.
For therapists and psychiatrists, patients’ language is a mirror to assist them in not only diagnosing mental health issues but also tracking possible progress in their patients’ mental well-being.
As a result, we as human beings should pay attention to the way people express themselves and the words they select to use to better understand people’s inner thoughts and the reasoning behind their language use.
The more we grow and experience, the more our language evolves and the more identity expressions differ. – May 5, 2025
Dr Hanaa Samaha is a Lecturer at the Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main image: www.hcamag.com
