Dr. Garfinkle-Crowell’s new book Girlhood, Translated: Reclaiming the Inner Lives of Young Women in the Era of Therapy Speak, is forthcoming from Crown Publishing in Fall 2026.
In the book, Garfinkle-Crowell reveals how “therapy speak” and the culture of self-diagnosis is reshaping the inner lives of adolescent girls and young women—and what to do about it.
My name is Dr. Garfinkle-Crowell, and I’m a psychiatrist.
Hi! Thanks for visiting my website.
Every day in my office, I see girls and young women who believe there is something very wrong with them: It’s my ADHD, my depression, my anxiety. And every day, I talk to parents who struggle to understand what’s really going on. I have written a book—Girlhood, Translated—to tell the story of our “Therapy Speak” era: how we got here, why we feel so stuck, and how we can find a way out.
Today, many young women interpret their feelings and difficulties through the language of illness and diagnosis. In response, many parents, teachers, and caregivers either panic (She’s sick!) or dismiss today’s youth as weak and self-centered (She doesn’t have “anxiety,” she’s just worried about the test!). I agree that our over-reliance on diagnostic labels is not helping young people get better. In fact, given the long history of women and girls being called “hysterical” and “crazy,” it’s particularly tragic that, today, young women are applying these labels to themselves, self-pathologizing in the name of self-realization.
But in the rush to condemn today’s therapy culture, everyone skips over this: girls talk this way for a reason. Specifically, we—in medicine, in psychiatry—created this language, injected it into the broader culture, and encouraged young people to see human experience in medical terms. And, with an assist from insurance companies, big Pharma, and social media, they’ve gotten the message: your suffering only matters if it has a medical label. So, given how hard it is to be a young woman today—as it always has been, but with some modern twists—is it any surprise that girls are reaching for the language everyone is telling them will allow them to be heard?
I lived this history as an insider and, most importantly, I sit in the room with these girls every day, listening to how they talk about themselves and trying to find what’s beneath the labels. I help parents through the struggle to really hear what their daughters are trying to tell them.
And now I’ve written a book to bring you into that room with me—and, I hope, help us translate therapy speak into something that can actually help young women reclaim their authentic identities. It is a book for parents, for teachers, coaches, pastors—anyone who cares about young women. And of course, it’s for the young women themselves, who deserve to be seen not just in medical categories, but with true understanding, fuller respect, and a deeper kind of care.
From Girlhood,Translated