Podcast Summary: Something You Should Know

Episode Title: The Rise of Psychobabble and the Brilliant History of Photography
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guests: Joe Nucci (Psychotherapist, Author), Anika Burgess (Photo Editor, Author)
Date: September 29, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Something You Should Know explores two uniquely compelling topics: the normalization and overuse of mental health language (aka "psychobabble"), and the transformative, often hazardous history of photography. Host Mike Carruthers speaks with psychotherapist Joe Nucci about how clinical mental health terms have taken over everyday speech, the risks of this trend, and how to properly understand diagnoses. In the second half, author Anika Burgess recounts photography’s dramatic evolution—from its 19th-century beginnings and the dangerous inventions involved, to the ways it’s become central to modern life.

Segment 1: Psychobabble—The Expansion of Mental Health Language

Guest: Joe Nucci, Psychotherapist & Author of "Viral Mental Health Myths and the Truths to Set You Free"

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Psychobabble Defined, and Its Cultural Rise

  • Language around mental health has shifted from precise clinical uses to mainstream, hyperbolic labels for common experiences.
  • Quote:
    “It's not like people get sad or apathetic anymore. They get depressed… It's not like, oh, I'm self conscious. It's like, oh, I have social anxiety or I have an anxiety disorder.”
    — Joe Nucci (03:50)

• Why Did This Happen?

  • Expansion of diagnostic criteria, partly to accommodate insurance coverage, has blurred lines between clinical disorders and normal struggles.
    • “The line has started to get thinner and thinner, and the difference between what we might call a problem of living… has started to become blurred.” (05:22)
  • Therapists often "validate and normalize" feelings, but many seek therapy for life issues, not mental illness.
    • “They're going to therapy and they're not actually seeking help for mental illness. They're seeking help for just for support for things in life that we all struggle with…” (07:21)

• Therapy vs. Friendship; Support Resources

  • Context matters: seeking therapy for support may be reasonable, but friends and coaches can often fill this role, especially given the shortage of therapists.
    • “I think it's okay to look elsewhere for support… I don't necessarily think that we're the golden ticket.” (09:17–10:43)

• The Issue with Endless Therapy

  • Extended therapy or marriage counseling isn’t always helpful if symptoms persist without improvement.
    • “If what you're getting is years and years… of talking and processing, but your symptoms are either staying the same or you're not getting better, then I wonder, well, what are you really there for?” (11:05)

• Debunking Mental Health Myths

  • Depression vs. sadness: The definition of depression has expanded—"concept creep"—sometimes to the point of meaninglessness.
    • “If everything is depression, nothing is depression, right? … Sometimes people maybe elevate it to mental health language so that it gets taken seriously.” (12:48)
    • “We already have the terms for feeling sad, for feeling apathetic, for feeling unmotivated… I don't know that we should be labeling those [as depression].” (15:26)
  • Clinical depression involves pervasive symptoms (guilt, tearfulness, loss of pleasure, suicidal thoughts), not just feeling down or unmotivated.

• What About Anxiety?

  • The DSM draws a boundary: mental illness disrupts social, emotional, or occupational functioning.
    • “If it leads to social, emotional and occupational dysfunction…” that’s where clinical significance begins. (18:05)
    • Normal situational anxiety (e.g. approaching someone attractive at a party) is not the same as an anxiety disorder.
    • “If they can do it, you can do it for your normal emotions for sure.” (20:03)

• On ADHD and Self-Diagnosis

  • ADHD is over-diagnosed and over-claimed, especially online. Proper diagnosis involves thorough, professional evaluation and clear, effective treatment.
    • “The proof in the pudding that the diagnosis is helpful [is] if it leads to a successful treatment plan.” (21:38)
  • Trend of self-diagnosis using internet and social media leads to more confusion and mislabeling.
    • “People are coming into therapy, having some crash course with, you know, Dr. TikTok or Dr. Google…” (22:18)

• Using Clinical Labels for Attention

  • Elevating every complaint or misbehavior to a disorder makes real problems harder to identify and manage.
    • “If you say… my ex was a selfish jerk, it doesn't sting quite as hard as, well, my ex was a narcissist… It just brings it to this whole other level.” (24:08)

Memorable Quotes

• “Sometimes the answer is to not feel your feelings more deeply.” — Joe Nucci (07:55)
• “If everything is mental health, then mental health kind of ceases to have any significance as a category.” — Joe Nucci (12:55)
• “I don't know when we were expected to be the wise sages that know everything about love and dating… I find the journey of love just as confusing and exciting as everybody else.” — Joe Nucci (10:07)
• “We can create a culture in which feelings are respected and honored… without necessarily needing to be quite that serious.” — Joe Nucci (13:51)

Notable Timestamps

• 04:57: Start of interview with Joe Nucci
• 05:22: Broadening of diagnoses—insurance and DSM/ICD
• 07:21: Therapy as generalized support
• 09:17: Therapy vs. friends/coaches; therapist shortage
• 11:05: Long-term therapy—helpful or not?
• 12:48: Depression vs. sadness, "concept creep"
• 14:34: What is clinical depression?
• 15:26: What isn’t clinical depression?
• 18:05: Distinguishing normal anxiety from anxiety disorder
• 20:17: ADHD, overdiagnosis, and self-diagnosis trends
• 24:08: Appeal to authority with labels like “narcissist”

Segment 2: The Fascinating—and Perilous—History of Photography

Guest: Anika Burgess, Author of "Flashes of the Genius of Early Photography and How It Transformed Art, Science, and History"

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Photography: A Modern Marvel

  • Photography is as revolutionary as electricity, but so embedded in daily life we forget how miraculous it once seemed.
    • “Several journals… put photography right next to electricity in terms of the marvels of the age.” — Anika Burgess (27:34)

• The Origins: The Daguerreotype (1839)

  • Louis Daguerre announces photographic technology (the daguerreotype) in 1839 in France; instant international sensation.
    • “1839 was the time in which the world first saw photography and were utterly amazed, baffled, dumbfounded by it.” (28:08)

• Portrait Perils: Exposure Times and “Prunes”

  • Early photography required exposure times from 20–90 seconds depending on conditions; subjects had to remain absolutely still with head clamps.
    • On mouth position in photos: “You needed to say the word ‘prunes’. Not cheese. Prunes.” (31:28)
  • Blinking or moving caused blurred images.

• Was Early Photography “Good”?

  • Quality varied dramatically; some portraits were “clear and sharp and beautiful,” others “looked like fried fish stuck to a silver plate.” (32:57)

• Popularity, Innovation, and Spread

  • Daguerre wrote a bestselling pamphlet, and alternative photographic processes made it quicker, easier, and more widely adopted.
  • By the late 1800s, photography had gone from heavy apparatuses to portable Kodak cameras—transforming personal documentation.

• Photography as Art

  • As early as the 1850s, photographers staged imaginative scenes, causing controversy.
    • “There were many people that felt if you have those artistic inclinations, you should pick up a paintbrush… and leave photography to… documentation.” (37:00)

• Milestones: Flash Photography & Its Dangers

  • Early flash photography was hazardous:
    • “Flash photography was effectively pyrotechnics, it was combustible, it was incredibly risky to photographers, and many injured themselves or died trying to light a photograph with flash powder.” (39:03)
  • Even household flash bulbs were hot enough to burn.

• Chemicals & Hazards of the Darkroom

  • Photography involved dangerous substances: mercury, cyanide, poorly ventilated darkrooms, and common poisoning.
    • “The instances of photographers poisoning themselves or getting very serious health issues… goes on and on and on for most of the 19th century.” (40:06)

• Roll Film & Photography’s Democratization

  • Kodak’s roll film allowed “anyone” to take pictures casually and have them developed elsewhere, much like one-hour photo centers today. (41:00)

• Motion Pictures, Aerial Photography, and Color

  • Eadweard Muybridge and the Lumière brothers evolve moving images; first public film screening in Paris, 1896.
  • Early aerial photography employed balloons, kites, rockets, and even pigeons(!), long before airplanes.
  • Color in photographs didn’t emerge until the 1890s, but earlier, images were sometimes hand-painted for realism.

• Human Vanity Endures

  • Even in the 19th century, people fretted over portraits, sued photographers for unflattering images, and expected retouching.
    • “This… human vanity is consistent throughout time.” (45:42)

Memorable Quotes

• “A bad daguerreotype portrait looks like fried fish stuck to a silver plate.” — Anika Burgess (32:57)
• “Early, early on, photographers were keen to try to get the camera into the air because it is a perspective that we humans cannot have.” (43:57)
• “There is a deliberateness that must have come with reloading a slide… every time… That would have very much required a thoughtfulness.” (41:28)
• “The idea that people are concerned with how they look in pictures… is consistent throughout time.” (45:42)

Notable Timestamps

• 27:11: Interview with Anika Burgess begins
• 28:08: Origin of photography (daguerreotype)
• 30:03: Exposure times and posing challenges
• 31:28: "Prunes" for photo day smiles
• 32:57: Early images, quality, and criticism
• 34:22: When did photo printing reach newspapers/magazines?
• 35:05: Black and white photos, hand-coloring of images
• 35:52: Rise of amateur photography and the Kodak camera
• 36:53: Photography as an art form and related controversy
• 38:00: Flash photography’s dangers
• 40:06: Chemical dangers in early photography
• 41:28: Roll film and mass photography
• 41:38: Birth of motion pictures
• 43:57: Early aerial photography: kites, rockets & pigeons

Bonus: Everyday Wisdom

Towel & Laundry Bleach Stains Explained [47:20]

• Bleach stains can occur even without using bleach—culprits include whitening toothpaste, acne meds, hydrogen peroxide, and other “brightening” products.
• “So the trick is to treat those products as if they are bleach and wash your hands after using them.” (47:35)

Tone & Style

• Mike Carruthers maintains an inquisitive, practical, and friendly interviewing style throughout.
• Guests are engaging, use relatable examples, and inject humor into historical storytelling.

Episode Takeaways

• Mental health terms must be used carefully; overuse can dilute their meaning and misguide both the public and professionals.
• Normal life struggles aren’t disorders—reserve clinical language for persistent, dysfunctional problems.
• Photography’s story is one of constant innovation, accidental danger, and human creativity—a technology at the heart of how we experience and remember life.
• Our obsession with self-image is as old as photography itself; each era simply perfects its technique.