Dictionary

armchair psychologist en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈɑːm.t͡ʃɛə saɪkɒləd͡ʒɪst/

Etymology

From armchair (“unqualified or uninformed yet giving advice”, adjective) + psychologist.

Meanings

1. (informal) One who gives psychological advice or speculates about a person's mental health without any qualification to do so.
   • This was in 1895. The armchair psychologist thereby acquired a stain of taboo early on, in the childhood of psychology, while laboratory research was the totem it was hoped that psychologists would dance around in the twentieth century. 2014, Ole Jacob Madsen, The Therapeutic Turn: How Psychology Altered Western Culture, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 166:
   • Alcohol education has turned our son into another armchair psychologist. All my wife and I hear about is how we must strive for open communication. Can't anyone just give him the facts about what alcohol can do to you and leave psychology to the experts? 1977, National Center for Alcohol Education, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Planning a Prevention Program: A Handbook for the Youth Worker in an Alcohol Service Agency, page 41:
   • Amid a two-hour conversation at Manny's, Axelrod veered from raconteur to philosopher to armchair psychologist to pundit. 2022, Blake Hounshell, “David Axelrod on Biden, Karl Rove and What He'd Ask Trump”, in The New York Times:

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