Psychology terms explained: a plain-English A to Z for India

By Sakshi Shah, Co-founder, GoodLives. Updated October 24, 2026.

We Indians have borrowed a lot of psychology vocabulary in the last five years. Gaslighting, situationship, attachment style, red flags, trauma dumping. These words show up in office DMs, cousin group chats, and dating-app bios. Some of us use them accurately. Many of us use them to win an argument. A few of us read one Instagram carousel and start wondering if we have a disorder.

GoodLives is India’s online therapy platform, trusted by 500K+ people. You might be worried that a word you Googled tonight now describes you forever. It does not. This hub of psychology terms explained in plain English is a place to look things up when a term is bothering you. Each entry is short. Each one links to a longer page if you want more. The one line to carry: these are useful starting points, not conclusions.

How to use this glossary of psychology terms explained

A psychology term can describe a feeling, a pattern, a bias, or a diagnosis. The four are not the same. A feeling is passing. A pattern is a feeling that keeps showing up. A bias is a shortcut your mind takes. A diagnosis is a clinical judgement a trained professional makes.

Reading one definition and matching yourself to it is not a diagnosis. It is a hypothesis. Hold it loosely. Notice if it helps you understand something that was confusing. If it does, carry it to someone who knows you well, or to a therapist who can test it with you. If it does not fit after a week, drop it. No label is worth carrying around just because an algorithm handed it to you.

In short: a glossary helps you name what is happening. A trained human helps you decide what to do with that name.

Attachment and relationship terms

Attachment is how we learn to be close to another person, from the earliest adults who looked after us. It shows up later in how we love, pick fights, and ask for reassurance. The next eight terms sit in that neighbourhood.

Attachment styles. The four styles researchers describe are secure, anxious, avoidant and disorganised. Secure feels safe asking and saying no. Anxious wants reassurance often. Avoidant pulls back when things get close. Disorganised flips between the two. Read a longer explainer on attachment issues and attachment styles.

Abandonment issues. A deep, often early-formed fear that the people you love will leave, which makes you cling or push them away first. It is not a disorder on its own, though it can be part of one. More on abandonment issues.

Codependency. A pattern where your sense of self is tied to another person’s needs, so you feel useful only when you are fixing their life. Common in Indian family systems where “selflessness” is prized. A therapist helps you figure out where help ends and self-erasure begins.

Insecurity in a relationship. The quiet background hum that your partner will leave, cheat or stop choosing you, even when nothing in the day says that. Read more on insecurity in relationships.

Love bombing. Early overwhelming attention, gifts and declarations that feel like love and are often a setup. It fades the moment you set a boundary. If you have felt dazzled and then confused in six weeks flat, this term may fit.

Over-possessiveness. Checking phones, deciding whose DMs you can reply to, calling many times when you have not replied for an hour. Care crossed a line into control. More on over-possessiveness in a relationship.

Trust issues. A reluctance to believe what someone is telling you, usually built from an earlier betrayal, not from today. It is painful for both people. A therapist helps you separate the past partner from the present one.

Boundaries. Not a wall. A line that tells people how to be with you. “I am happy to listen for ten minutes. I cannot be your 2 am call every night.” Boundaries are a skill, not a personality type.

In short: attachment language is useful when you can name a pattern you keep repeating. It becomes harmful the minute you use it to diagnose your partner in a fight.

Dating and modern love terms

The way we date in Indian cities has changed in ten years. Dating apps, long-distance work, open talk about mental health, family timelines. New shapes, so new vocabulary followed. These ten terms show up most on reels and matrimonial sites.

Breadcrumbing. Sending occasional “just thinking of you” texts to keep someone interested, with no intention of a relationship. It feels like hope and lands like nothing. More on breadcrumbing.

Situationship. A relationship with the feelings of one and the labels of none. You are more than friends and less than a couple, and you cannot ask the question. More on situationship meaning.

Ghosting. Vanishing from a chat or a dating conversation without a goodbye. Common on apps, uncommonly painful in close ones. If it keeps happening to you, that is worth exploring, not blaming yourself for.

Benching. Keeping someone on the sidelines of your life while you look for someone else. Breadcrumbing’s cousin, with slightly more cruelty.

Love bombing. Also lives here, see above.

Sapiosexual. Attracted primarily to intelligence rather than appearance. The word was coined in the mid-1990s and became common on dating apps. More on sapiosexual meaning.

Love languages. A popular framework for how people prefer to feel loved, including words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time and physical touch. Useful as a conversation starter, not as the only lens on a relationship. More on the five love languages.

Red flags and green flags. Red flags are early warning signs that a person is unsafe to invest in. Green flags are early signs of safety and respect. Both show up in small moments, not grand gestures. More on red flag and green flag meaning.

Gen Z dating terms. Benching, breadcrumbing, orbiting, cuffing season, soft launching, cancelling, zombieing, situationship. If a cousin uses one you have not heard, this is your shortcut: more on Gen Z dating terms decoded.

In short: these terms are helpful shorthand with a friend. They do not replace the conversation with the person you are actually dating.

Personality and identity terms

Personality words sell books. They also run as quick quizzes on Instagram, where you tap through screens and get a four-letter answer. Hold them lightly. A personality type is a set of preferences, not a destiny. You can be more than one thing in different rooms.

Introvert. Someone who recharges in quiet, usually prefers smaller gatherings and deeper conversations. Not the same as shyness, and not the same as social anxiety. More on introvert meaning in Hindi.

Extrovert. Someone who gets energy from being around people. Not louder, necessarily. Not better at talking, necessarily. Just topped up by company.

Ambivert. Someone who sits somewhere in the middle, pulled by context. Most people are closer to this than to either pure type. More on ambivert meaning and signs.

Asexual. A sexual orientation where a person experiences little or no sexual attraction to others. It is not a dysfunction, not a phase and not caused by trauma. More on asexual meaning.

Platonic. A close relationship without romance or sex. “Just friends” is not a lesser bond; many people’s steadiest adult relationships are platonic. More on platonic friendship meaning.

Emotional intelligence. The ability to notice what you feel, name it, manage it, and read it in others well enough to respond with care. It is a learnable skill, not a trait you are born with. For the softer side of this, see quotes on emotional intelligence.

Highly sensitive person. A term for people who process sensory and emotional information more deeply, so loud rooms, strong smells or sharp tones land harder. Not a disorder; more a nervous-system wiring. Describe it, do not fight it.

People pleaser. Someone whose first impulse in any room is to make everyone comfortable, often at the cost of themselves. Common in Indian daughters, elder siblings and new team members. More on people pleasing and how to stop.

In short: personality words describe how you are shaped. They do not sentence you to stay that way.

Emotions and self-perception terms

The language we use for how we feel about ourselves is the vocabulary that follows us around at 2 am. Precision here helps. These eight words name the small voices most of us know. Naming them makes them easier to answer back.

Inferiority complex. A deeply held belief that you are less than others, often shaped by childhood comparison or repeated failure. It bends decisions toward safety and apology. More on inferiority complex and self-worth.

Insecurity. A broader word for a shaky sense of self in a specific area, work, looks, intelligence, love. Everyone has some. Chronic, loud insecurity in several areas is worth sitting with a therapist for.

Self-sabotage. Doing the thing that undoes what you wanted, right before you were about to get it. Cancelling the interview. Picking the fight the night before the trip. More on self-sabotage.

FOMO. Fear of missing out, the restless sense that other people are having better evenings or careers while you scroll. Loud on Instagram. More on FOMO meaning and how to deal with it.

Imposter syndrome. The feeling that you do not deserve the role you are in and will be found out soon. Common in high performers; strongly linked to being the first in your family in a job.

Burnout. Not a bad week. A specific state of exhaustion, cynicism and lower output after a long period of unmanaged work stress, recognised by the WHO in its ICD-11 classification of burnout as an occupational phenomenon. Rest alone does not fix it.

Victim card. When someone frames themselves as the only wronged party in every conflict, so you cannot ever bring up what hurt you. Used sometimes as a defence, sometimes as a weapon. More on the victim card and how to respond.

Shame vs guilt. Guilt says “I did a bad thing”. Shame says “I am a bad person”. The first is fixable; the second needs more care. Therapists help you tell which one you are feeling.

In short: the sharper your word for a feeling, the easier it is to decide what to do about it.

Family-pattern terms

Indian families are warm, close, and loud, which is also where many of these words land hardest. Closeness here is woven into Sunday calls, shared bank accounts, and one unspoken rule nobody wrote down. These eight terms name shapes you may recognise. Read them gently.

Mommy issues. An over-used phrase for unresolved patterns from your relationship with your mother that show up in adult life. It is not a slur; everyone has some. More on mommy issues.

Daddy issues. The same thing for fathers. The pop-culture meaning is often reductive and sexist; the clinical idea is simply that early father relationships shape adult closeness and authority.

Guilt tripping. Getting someone to do what you want by making them feel bad for not doing it. “Fine, I will eat alone.” A love language in some Indian households. More on guilt tripping with examples.

Enmeshment. When family members’ feelings, decisions and identities are so merged that there is little room for a separate self. “My mother is upset, so I cannot go on the trip.”

Family systems. The idea that a family is one unit with rules, roles and loops; what one member does affects the others. Family therapy uses this lens.

Golden child and scapegoat. Two roles in some families: one child who can do no wrong, one who gets blamed for everything. Both roles are heavy, in different ways.

Toxic parents. A term used for parents whose behaviour, often not deliberate, keeps harming an adult child. It is a difficult word in India because of shraddha (reverence) toward parents. Therapy helps you hold both the love and the harm without choosing.

Intergenerational trauma. Patterns of pain, silence or fear passed down from one generation to the next, often without words. Partition, caste trauma, migration, sudden loss. Visible in us before we understand it.

In short: family language is helpful for understanding, not for the next family dinner. Taking a word home as a weapon rarely helps the person you want closer.

Cognitive biases and distortion terms

These are the shortcuts your mind takes, often unhelpfully, especially when you are tired or anxious. Each one is efficient. Our brains learned long ago to think fast, not fairly. These eight words name the most common ones. Spotting a bias in yourself in the moment is often enough to loosen its grip for the next decision.

Cognitive distortion. A biased way of thinking that feels like a fact. CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) names about ten common ones, including catastrophising, black-and-white thinking, mind-reading and personalisation. The American Psychological Association’s APA Dictionary has their formal definition.

Catastrophising. Jumping to the worst possible version of a situation. “She has not replied in two hours, something has happened.” Classic in anxiety.

Confirmation bias. Noticing the things that match what you already believe and missing the things that do not. We all do it; good evidence beats a strong feeling.

Projection. Attributing to someone else a feeling you are actually having. A partner who is being distant may accuse you of being distant.

First impressions and the halo effect. We judge in seconds, and that one impression colours much of what follows, including things it should not. More on the psychology of first impressions.

Planning fallacy. The repeated error of thinking a task will take less time than it does, even after years of evidence to the contrary. “Fifteen minutes” is often an hour. More on the planning fallacy and four fixes.

Conformity. The pull to agree with a group even when you privately disagree, documented since Solomon Asch’s classic 1950s experiments. More on factors that influence conformity.

Rumination. Thinking the same anxious thought in a loop without resolving it. Different from problem-solving; problem-solving ends, rumination does not.

If one of these feels like what your mind does to you most evenings, you can try the small CBT reframe in the box below. It is a thinking tool, not therapy. A single reframe will not solve a pattern that has been running for years. It only takes the edge off a bad hour. A therapist does with you what the tool alone cannot.

If you want, try one reframe before you read on.

In short: cognitive biases are not stupidity. They are efficient habits. Naming one in the moment is often enough to loosen it.

Mental-health terms that get misused

These are the words you will see thrown around a lot. Each has a specific clinical meaning that is more careful than the one your group chat is using. Precision here is kindness. Using these terms accurately protects the people who actually live with the condition from being stared at harder every time we fling the word casually.

Gaslighting. Making someone doubt their own memory or perception of reality, usually to protect yourself from being held accountable. It is a serious manipulation. “You disagree with me” is not gaslighting.

Narcissist. Casually, someone who is self-absorbed. Most people who annoy you are not NPD; some of them are just difficult.

OCD. Casually used for liking things neat. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a distressing cycle of intrusive thoughts and repeated behaviours that eat hours, not minutes. Not a personality quirk; a treatable disorder.

Bipolar. Casually used for someone whose mood shifted today. Bipolar disorder has episodes of mania and depression that each last days or weeks, not minutes.

Depression. Casually used for a bad day. Clinical depression is persistent, over at least two weeks, and reaches into sleep, appetite, interest and energy. The WHO’s World Mental Health Report, 2022 estimates roughly 280 million people live with depression globally.

Anxiety. Casually used for pre-exam nerves. Anxiety disorders are patterns that last for months, interfere with ordinary life, and often sit in the body. More on anxiety: symptoms and treatment.

Trauma. Casually used for a very bad day. Trauma is the ongoing effect of an event your nervous system could not fully process. Big-T and little-t trauma are both real; neither is a competition.

Stockholm syndrome. The disputed idea that a captive can bond with a captor as a survival response. The term is widely used, often loosely. More on Stockholm syndrome.

Subconscious. Everything your brain is handling below conscious awareness, from breathing to patterns to triggers. More on the subconscious mind and what therapy can and cannot do.

In short: calling every ex a “narcissist” says nothing about them and quite a lot about where we are collectively on mental-health vocabulary. Precision is kinder than it looks.

Trait vs disorder: a short cheat sheet

Most people reading a glossary at 11 pm are quietly wondering whether a trait they see in themselves is a disorder. Usually it is not. A trait becomes a disorder, roughly, when it has lasted a long time, causes real distress, and reaches across several parts of your life. Six rough tests, in plain words.

Shy is not social anxiety. Shyness is a preference. Social anxiety is a fear strong enough to make you skip work meetings, weddings, or new friendships.

Moody is not bipolar. Mood changes within a day are human. Bipolar disorder has mood episodes that last days or weeks and change how you function.

Neat is not OCD. Liking a tidy shelf is a preference. OCD is a loop of intrusive thoughts and compulsions that steal hours and cause real distress.

Self-centred is not NPD. A person who talks a lot about themselves is tiring. Narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnosable pattern that needs clinical assessment.

Low mood is not depression. A bad week is a bad week. Clinical depression is persistent, most of the day, and reaches into sleep, appetite, interest, and energy for at least two weeks.

Sad after a loss is not disorder. Grief has its own shape, including waves that come and go for a long time. It is painful. It is usually not pathological.

In short: a glossary helps you ask the question. A trained professional helps you answer it. The honest answer is almost always: you have some of this, and so does the person you are reading about, and both of you are doing your best with what you learned. Not every pattern needs therapy. Some of this is a season you walk through, with sleep and one honest conversation.

When a term you keep returning to may mean you need support

If one of the words in this glossary keeps describing your week, every week, that is worth telling someone about. Not because the word is a verdict. Because the pattern it describes is making your life smaller. You might be worried that reaching out means something is wrong with you. It does not. You do not have to be in crisis to see a therapist.

The gentler way to notice this is a three-question check in your head.

Has this been happening for at least two weeks, most days? Is it getting in the way of sleep, work, eating, or the people you love? Have the small fixes, better routines, more sleep, a friend to talk to, stopped moving the needle?

If two of three are yes, this is a soft signal to talk to a professional. Not a crisis signal. A care signal. The National Mental Health Survey of India 2015 to 2016 by NIMHANS found that roughly 10.6 percent of adults in India live with a mental-health condition, and the treatment gap sits between 70 and 92 percent across disorders. You would not be the first person at your office to reach out. You would be one of a quiet many who finally did.

In short: terms are useful starting points, not conclusions. Therapy is where the actual change happens.

Why we do not call ourselves a “narcissist” after one bad relationship

The last habit worth naming is the one many of us catch ourselves doing: pulling out a mental-health term to describe someone who hurt us. “He is a narcissist.” “She is bipolar.” “They were gaslighting me.”

Three gentle reasons to pause before you label someone.

First, a diagnosis takes a trained professional, hours, and specific criteria. A label after a fight is a feeling in a sharper outfit.

Second, many of the behaviours that feel like a disorder are just bad behaviour. We do not need a diagnosis to say that someone was cruel, dishonest, or avoidant. Those are enough.

Third, every careless label adds to the stigma for the people who actually live with the condition. Someone who truly has NPD, bipolar, or OCD gets stared at harder every time we fling the word.

In short: the right amount of care is to describe what the person did, not what we think they are. Save the clinical words for the clinical room.

This post is for information only and is not a substitute for professional care.