Lost in Translation: Who would have thought it?
How “Neuro-” Became the Most Overused Prefix in Psychology—and Why It Matters
Wittgenstein
Do We Know Our Way About?
We gather in rooms thick with shared concern.
Words echo off the walls — executive function, regulation, burnout.
Spoken with conviction.
Received with nods.
But what if we’ve all stopped knowing what we’re saying?
As minds passionately explore cognition,
Someone asks.
“But what do these words actually mean?”
Dare we ask about someone's background?
Or identity?
Are we seen as rude?
Or overly technical?
After all, the goal is to promote understanding.
Fairness, or support.
It remains a crucial question.
In fact, it might be the most important one we can ask.
A philosophical problem has the form:
‘I don’t know my way about.’ — Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein said that a philosophical problem begins.
When we don’t know our way about.
That’s where we are now with cognition.
We use words.
Neurodivergent, executive function, or masking.
However, they no longer accurately reflect their underlying mechanisms.
They’re loose, moralised, and saturated with meaning.
And once we stop knowing what we mean.
We stop knowing how to help.
That’s where we are now.
We’ve lost our way.
The very terms meant to support, protect, and include .
Have become so fluid that they obscure as much as they illuminate.
We think we’re describing cognition
But often we’re narrating emotion.
We think we’re identifying causes, but we’re repeating consequences.
We think we’re building systems of care.
But we disagree on the meanings.
Disagree with the words those systems are built on.
I include myself in this.
I’ve used evocative words.
Reclaiming Childhood,
Interostate,
Willowsway.
Because a metaphor can move people to feel and act.
However, I now believe it’s time to pause.
Not to abandon compassion.
But to clarify the language through which compassion becomes tangible action.
Because if we don’t truly understand our path.
The efforts we craft.
Whether in medicine, education, or politics.
Risk being eloquent in words but flawed in purpose.
Our lack of clarity can turn beauty into brokenness.
Ultimately undermining what we seek to build.
This isn’t just a semantic issue.
It’s a deeply human, cognitive struggle.
It’s time we refocus and truly understand what’s at stake.
The Language Trap in Cognition
neurodivergent,
executive function,
burnout,
emotional
regulation, and
dysregulation
These words are everywhere—
threaded through media,
clinical reports,
school policies,
parenting books,
and advocacy spaces.
They offer a sense of clarity.
Even authority.
But look closer.
As you read them.
Do you really understand them?
No! And you’re not alone.
These terms are polysemantic.
They mean different things to different people.
They depend on the context, ideology, or discipline.
This is the fallacious sleight of hand.
This ambiguity creates friction where precision is needed.
One child.
Two professionals.
One says: “Executive dysfunction.”
The other: “Low dopamine threshold.”
A parent calls it: “Just sensitive.”
A teacher: “Disruptive.”
Same child.
Different worlds.
And so, different interventions.
What starts as support quickly becomes confusion.
And confusion has consequences.
Parents are left guessing.
Should they seek therapy?
Neuroimaging, medication, or mindfulness?
Schools hesitate.
Intervene, refer, or accommodate?
Policymakers fund initiatives without knowing what outcomes they’re even targeting.
Beneath all this live our children.
Being labelled.
With seemingly objective terms.
That, in reality, are open to interpretation.
Which can evoke emotional responses and shape perceptions.
Take “executive dysfunction.”
What does it actually describe?
Poor impulse control?
Underdeveloped planning?
Slow processing speed?
Or simply a mismatch between expectation and readiness?
Wittgenstein warned us:
When the map no longer corresponds to the territory, we are no longer navigating—we are wandering.
And now.
The language of modern psychology is Wittgensteinianism.
Less like a map.
More like a mood board.
It employs persuasive emotional language.
Evoking a vivid mental image that resonates on an emotional level.
This mood board suggests a shift.
From clarity and direction.
To focus on feelings and impressions.
The mood board trades definitions for impressions.
It appeals not to precision but to empathy.
It prioritises resonance over rigour.
And in doing so, turns psychology into persuasion.
Until our definitions reclaim discipline,
Our systems.
In education.
In policy.
In care.
Will remain beautifully intentioned and fundamentally unstable.
The words we use shape the world we build.
Currently, we are not building on the ground.
We are building on fog.
Wittgenstein’s Warning
Wittgenstein’s philosophy doesn’t try to solve problems.
It tries to dissolve them.
He shows that the problem itself arises from a misuse of language.
He wasn’t just arguing that meaning itself is impossible.
He was emphasising that confusion happens.
When we use words outside their original context.
Like trying to fit a key into the wrong lock.
When we shift a word from one language game to another.
Such as from neurology to identity politics.
We risk misinterpreting gestures for genuine explanations.
This is not just a linguistic issue.
It's a call for us to be more mindful.
About how we communicate and understand each other.
Take the word spectrum.
In science, it represents a clear, measurable range.
Something concrete and precise.
However, in autism discourse.
It once signified a continuum of clinical features.
A spectrum that acknowledged diversity.
And the complexity of individual experiences.
Today, however, it has become a floating signifier.
An open-ended term.
Embraced in advocacy and self-identification.
Resonating emotionally with many.
Everyone is on a spectrum, after all.
Part of a shared journey toward understanding and acceptance.
Part of being human.
It feels inclusive.
But it’s also conceptually empty.
If everyone is on the spectrum.
Then who isn’t?
And what are we even measuring?
Wittgenstein would say.
You’re no longer using language to clarify, but to comfort.
You’ve replaced the problem of definition with a gesture of belonging.
Language doesn’t just describe the world.
It creates possibilities.
And forecloses others.
If we label something as trauma-informed.
Or neurodivergent.
It might make us feel like we're being progressive.
However, without understanding what these terms exclude.
As well as what they include.
Our thinking isn't clear.
Instead, we're simply disguising confusion.
That’s why returning to language matters.
Because language is the foundation of genuine care.
If we cannot agree on what words truly mean.
How can we be certain that the care we provide
Is addressing the needs we aim to serve?
Clarity in words is not just semantics.
It’s the essence of meaningful, compassionate care.
And worse.
We may stop asking.
A Shortcut Becomes a Trap: Darwin and the Drift of Meaning
Wittgenstein warned us:
“A philosophical problem has the form: ‘I don’t know my way about.’”
But he might just as well have said:
“A scientific error begins as a linguistic shortcut.”
We’ve seen it before.
Darwin’s observations revealed not how life adapts.
But how life is selected.
He saw that variation arises blindly.
Through mutation.
It is the environment that determines which traits persist.
Even without genetics.
Darwin grasped a deeper truth.
That the beauty and complexity of life emerge.
Not from intention, but from selection.
Nature does not respond to pressure by adapting.
It filters.
It edits.
And what remains is what worked.
This is not a story of resilience through will.
But of resilience through culling.
Traits do not emerge because they are needed.
They emerge because they can.
And they remain because they fit
Then came Mendel.
Then Watson and Crick.
Suddenly, we had genes.
And soon after, genetic determinism.
The belief that identity.
Behaviour.
Even cognition.
Were fixed codes written into DNA.
The word “gene” originated as a mechanism.
It ultimately became an explanation for everything.
We moved from.
This bird has a different beak
to
This child is born this way.
The gene became a picture that held us captive.
And now we’re doing it again.
Words like neurodivergent.
sensitive nervous system,
executive dysfunction,
and the autistic brain
carry similar weight.
They sound scientific.
They feel explanatory.
But they rarely describe mechanisms.
They describe identities.
Judy Singer’s neurodiversity movement advanced this shift.
Cognitive differences like autism were natural.
Genetically encoded.
Normal variations,
Dished out by an amoral nature.
Like eye colour or height.
But that’s not how brains work.
Cognition is not a static trait.
It is dynamic and adaptable.
It is who we are.
Every experience.
Every bit of nutrition.
Each moment of stress or inflammation.
And the overload of sensory input.
These factors profoundly shape and influence our minds.
Understanding this empowers us to take control.
To nurture and protect our cognitive health.
For a brighter, more resilient future.
What we call a neurotype is not a blueprint.
It’s a trajectory.
Singer’s framing wasn’t merely the victim of conceptual drift.
It was built on flawed science.
Misread through a moral lens.
A linguistic shortcut became a belief system.
And that belief now underwrites entire clinical, educational, and cultural architectures.
But nature is not kind.
It is not generous.
It does not bestow.
It selects.
It filters without intent.
When we mistake selection for celebration.
Or a difference for design
We confuse resilience with purpose.
This is precisely what Wittgenstein warned us about.
When our concepts no longer clarify but conceal.
We don’t just lose precision.
We lose direction.
And for the past 26 years.
The neurodiversity movement has stumbled forward.
With good intentions, but weak foundations.
The result?
A cognitive landscape shift is happening in real time.
Unexamined.
Without interrogation.
Celebrated.
Applause where there should have been inquiry.
Neurodivergence as a Case Study
Of all the terms that are today shaping education.
Shaping mental health and social identity.
'neurodivergent'
Stands out as perhaps the most compelling.
Yet it remains the least clearly defined.
From a text to effectively reframe differences.
Not as deficits, but as variations.
To its current broad and somewhat vague usage.
It evokes an emotional response.
By emphasising the lack of a clear definition.
And the widespread adoption by various groups.
It has led to confusion and misinterpretation.
There’s no biomarker.
No diagnostic threshold.
No unifying mechanism linking these diverse traits.
It’s not a category.
It’s a cultural mood.
But before we go further, we must ask.
Are these traits even that divergent?
Emotional dysregulation.
Sensory overload.
Difficulty focusing.
These aren’t unique to some biologically othered group.
They exist along a continuum.
Present in so-called neurotypicals as well.
So, who decided?
That what was once seen as part of the human condition.
Messy, emotional, reactive, overstimulated.
Should now be coded as pathology?
Or celebrated as a superpower.
This isn’t just a diagnostic issue.
It’s a philosophical one.
By branding common traits as divergent.
We’ve drawn artificial boundaries.
Between those who qualify for care.
And those who must simply "cope."
So, what divides neurodivergence and neurotypicality?
It is language, not biology.
And yet from this blurred boundary.
We’ve built a billion-dollar industry.
Diagnostics.
Interventions.
Accommodations.
Curricula.
Identities.
Influencers.
What natural selection spent hundreds of thousands of years unifying.
We have re-divided.
Into two modern tribes:
The Neurotypicals
and
The Neurodivergents
One, presumed to be the default.
The other, pathologised, or valorised, depending on the framing.
This isn’t just semantics.
It’s structure.
And now, the tension is rising.
An unspoken resentment brews in both directions:
From those who feel misunderstood and unseen,
And from those made to carry labels they never asked for.
This binary was never biological.
It was built.
And the scaffolding was language.
Sold wholesale and ethically unexamined.
What started as a lens of inclusion has become a substitute for explanation.
Traits resulting from inflammation.
From stress.
Symbolic overload.
Or autonomic dysregulation,
They are now often mistaken for innate qualities.
If you find it hard to regulate your emotions.
Or shut down under sensory input.
The narrative isn’t that your system was overwhelmed.
It’s that you were born different.
Recognise the strength in your unique responses and embrace your identity.
This has social utility.
But scientific cost.
When we replace understanding.
With simply accepting identity.
We lose the focus on prevention.
If something is truly intrinsic.
Why do we bother asking how it developed?
Why investigate early-life stress?
Nutrition, sleep, trauma, or neuroplasticity?
We ask precisely because we know.
That which appears natural.
May, in fact, be conditional.
But here’s the trap.
Once something is labelled “natural,”
The conversation often shifts.
Not toward understanding.
But toward celebration.
As if nature confers virtue.
But cancer is natural.
So is dementia.
So is obesity.
So is death.
Nature isn’t a moral compass.
It’s a context.
The fundamental mistake isn’t scientific.
It’s philosophical.
We’ve committed a category error.
Mistaking the presence of a trait for its desirability.
And from that error.
We’ve built an ethic.
Not of prevention or support.
But of uncritical affirmation.
It feels inclusive.
But it’s lazy thinking.
And it comes at a cost.
This isn’t Wittgenstein’s paradox.
It’s ours.
We’ve replaced logic with sentiment.
And called it progress.
neurodivergent has become a picture that holds us captive.
It creates the illusion of explanation.
When what we need is inquiry.
It makes compassion easier, stirring deep emotions.
But clarity becomes more difficult.
Making it more challenging to see the full picture.
If we want to serve the children behind the label.
We have to look past the label.
We have to ask not just.
Who are you?
But
What happened to you?
What shaped the path that brought you here?
Until we do, neurodivergence will remain a gesture.
Not a diagnosis.
Not a mechanism.
Not a map.
Reclaiming Meaning Through Biology
If language has led us astray.
Biology might be what brings us back.
To truly inspire and connect with others.
We need to change the way we talk about cognition.
Instead of throwing around labels like identity or symptoms.
Let’s delve into the very core.
The birth of thought itself.
This new perspective not only clears the fog.
But also ignites a powerful emotional spark.
Compelling us to evolve and grow.
That’s why I developed the TGTS model:
Thought Generator – Thought Selector.
This reframing of cognition as biologically gated.
A process that makes it more relatable and compelling.
Our thoughts are not always directly within our control.
But we are influenced by our internal state.
Illustrating a profound connection between mind and body.
This perspective reveals an intricate biological dance.
That shapes our mental worlds.
It inspires deep empathy.
A compelling understanding.
Inviting us to see ourselves through a lens of unity and wonder.
That internal state.
The interostate.
It is your moment-to-moment physiological reality.
It’s shaped.
By sleep, stress, inflammation, and nutrition.
Hormonal rhythms and environmental predictability.
The interostate determines whether cognition is reflective or reactive.
Whether we choose our responses.
Or simply enact them.
In this perspective.
All neurotypes.
Including ADHD, autism, and anxiety.
Are not fixed blueprints.
Instead, they are the outcomes of developmental gating.
An intricate process that shapes who we become.
When the interostate equilibrium shifts.
The neurotype will express.
Our cognitive landscape becomes increasingly constrained.
Reflection diminishes.
Flexibility fades.
And although thought generation may persist.
The ability to select and focus collapses.
This understanding evokes a sense of empathy and hope.
These conditions are not destined but shaped.
By developmental processes.
Urging us to foster environments.
That supports healthier brain development.
This isn’t reductionism.
It’s re-grounding.
It doesn’t dismiss difference.
But it refuses to ignore origin.
If we understand how biology gates access to thought.
We can design better environments.
Earlier interventions.
And a more honest language of care.
In a world obsessed with labels and diagnoses.
TGTS invites you to a deeper journey.
Discover the story behind your identity.
More than a label.
It's a reflection of your growth.
Your experiences.
The Ethical Stakes of Language
When we lose control of our vocabulary.
We don’t just confuse ourselves.
We reshape the systems that govern real lives.
Language isn’t neutral.
It directs funding.
It frames clinical decisions.
It determines which children get support.
Which adults get medication.
And which schools get resources.
It tells us who needs help.
And who we quietly assume is beyond it.
If we collapse causes into labels and differences into destiny.
We close off entire avenues of prevention and care.
A child described as neurodivergent might receive accommodations.
But not an investigation into early-life stressors.
Dietary deficiencies.
Environmental mismatches.
An adult described as burned out might seek therapy for relief.
Yet often, there's little recognition.
That persistent inflammation or cortisol imbalance.
Is silently fueling their breakdown.
Understanding this deeper cause could be the key to genuine healing.
The ethical failure here isn’t one of intent.
It’s one of framing.
By treating metaphors as mechanisms, we let systems off the hook.
We accept outcomes as identities.
And worst of all, we stop asking how we got here.
Clarity in language doesn’t just sharpen thought.
It sharpens care.
It helps us intervene earlier.
More precisely.
More justly.
Children deserve more than just sympathy.
They deserve a genuine inquiry into their needs and experiences.
Adults, too, deserve more than labels.
They deserve to understand the causes behind their actions and emotions.
Let's seek understanding over judgment.
And compassion over superficiality.
To reclaim thought, we must first reclaim the words that hold it together.
Language as a Design Problem
Language isn’t just how we describe the world.
It’s how we build within it.
If our cognitive vocabulary is imprecise.
Our interventions will be misaligned.
If our definitions drift into metaphor.
Our care will drift with them.
We must stop treating language as an afterthought.
And start treating it as architecture.
Words are scaffolding.
They hold up clinical systems.
Educational policies and political decisions.
If we want systems that serve children.
Not just describe them.
We have to ensure the words we build with.
Can bear the weight of what they carry.
Wittgenstein wasn’t trying to reduce the world.
He was trying to bring us back to clarity.
He wanted us to see when language stops showing us something.
And starts hiding it.
If we follow that lead.
Not just in philosophy.
But in psychology and child development.
We might find our way about again.
Because clarity is not cold.
Precision is not unkind.
Discipline in language is not a threat to care.
It is its foundation.
If language shapes care, then let’s shape language together. What words do you think we've stopped understanding, but still keep using? Reply in the comments or share this with someone who's wrestling with the same fog.