18/08/2026
Gen Z may be one of the most emotionally literate generations we’ve seen.
Therapy language has entered everyday language in a way it hadn’t for previous generations.
People are talking about , styles, triggers, responses, nervous system regulation, emotional availability, people pleasing, and .
In many ways, that’s a really positive shift.
We’re getting better at putting language to our internal experiences 💙
But there’s an important distinction:
Emotional literacy does not equal emotional health ❗️
Knowing the language of emotions isn’t the same as knowing how to live with them.
You can identify your triggers, and gradually make your world smaller trying not to encounter them.
You can understand your attachment patterns and continue repeating them.
You can become incredibly skilled at analysing your emotions, while becoming less willing to actually FEEL them.
This is something I think we need to be thoughtful about as therapy language becomes more mainstream.
The purpose of psychological understanding isn’t to pathologise every uncomfortable internal experience, or to create a life in which we’re never triggered, anxious, overwhelmed or distressed.
Sometimes emotional health looks like understanding what’s happening.
Sometimes it looks like regulating ourselves.
Sometimes it looks like setting a boundary.
And sometimes it looks like recognising: “This is uncomfortable. And I can tolerate being uncomfortable.”
Emotional literacy gives us language for our experience.
But emotional health is about the relationship we develop with that experience.
