armchair psychologist

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑːm.t͡ʃɛə saɪkɒləd͡ʒɪst/

Noun

armchair psychologist (plural armchair psychologists)

1. (informal) One who gives psychological advice or speculates about a person's mental health without any qualification to do so.
   • 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^[1], page 41:

     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?

   • 2014, Ole Jacob Madsen, The Therapeutic Turn: How Psychology Altered Western Culture, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 166:

     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.

   • 2022, Blake Hounshell, “David Axelrod on Biden, Karl Rove and What He'd Ask Trump”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     Amid a two-hour conversation at Manny's, Axelrod veered from raconteur to philosopher to armchair psychologist to pundit.