Why are psychiatrists and psychologists called shrinks? It’s a jocular reference to the ritual practice in certain tribal societies of literally shrinking the heads of one’s vanquished enemies. The term shrink was adopted as a joking reference to psychotherapists in the 1960s. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Why Do We Call Psychiatrists and Psychologists Shrinks?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi there. This is Maria Schwiebert from San Diego.
Hi, Maria.
Hello, Maria.
Hi.
What’s up?
I wanted to know when and how and why physicians specializing in psychiatry have been labeled shrinks.
Where did that come from?
Yeah, I long wondered about that and just assumed that you called a psychotherapist a shrink because that person shrinks your problems.
Oh, interesting.
Oh.
But that’s not right.
Oh, it isn’t?
No, no, apparently it’s a right.
What’s that?
I said it sounds like a good idea.
Yeah, yeah, I thought it was a decent idea.
It’s a reference to the term head shrinker, which is the term that is sometimes applied to certain people in tribal societies who will literally shrink heads as some kind of ritual practice.
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah. Yeah. And head shrinker in English and the term shrink applied to people who provide psychological care is really relatively recent.
Late 20th century. Yeah. Yeah. Head shrinker meaning somebody who works in mental health.
Early 1950s and then shrink comes along in the mid 1960s.
The people I know who work in psychotherapy aren’t really crazy about that term.
I know a lot of. No, I imagine. Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of their clients who use that term all the time, but I tend not to use it just because I know so many friends who are in that field who are kind of offended by it.
Oh, well, I guess I would be too.
But thank you so much for that.
Sure.
Take care, Maria.
I love it when the first citation that we know of for a word is somebody that we’ve heard of.
Someone famous.
So 1966, Thomas Pension, crying of Lot 49 is the first use we know in print of shrink to mean somebody who works in mental health.
Yeah.
That’s cool, right?
And you got to wonder where he picked it up.
I did see in some notes here and there in a variety of publications that people believe the term was floating around Hollywood before he used it.
I could see that.
But I have not been able to find it in Variety or any of the other trade rags, which are where you might expect it to appear once in a while.
It might pop up.
There’s probably a term you’ve been wondering about, and maybe we can help you find out more about it.
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