No closure

Let's agree to refrain from using the word "closure" in the emotional sense. "He needs to heal and get some closure." It's a cliche, of course, but more importantly it doesn't mean anything and never did. It's not just tired from overuse, it's nonsensical. "Closure" is not a psychological description of anything real. No one ever "gets closure" in the way the word is used. It assumes life is a series of unconnected, discrete experiences and suggests that particular ones (traumatic, unexpected, or troubling ones) can be emotionally "laid to rest" so that one can "move on". These are bad metaphors and don't describe life the way it's actually lived. Recovering the body of the plane crash victim might or might not be helpful for the family's emotional healing, but it's not going to mean "closure". I suspect this and similar words have an effect on how people think they ought to be feeling. Words like closure get bandied about so much that people begin to think they should be aspiring to it, they think they're missing out on this closure business. There is no closure.

I'd call it psychobabble but that's a cliche too.

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