Words can have negative effects upon individuals and groups if the link between the name of the thing and the thing itself is broken or corrupted. Ignorance, carelessness, vanity and deceptiveness can result in words drastically changing meaning. Separate and distinct words can come to have the same or similar meanings. Destabilization takes place and the sacred trust is broken. True understanding becomes difficult.
Communication becomes an illusion.
Directive power and spiritual effervescence are lost. And, security and the sense of community fade. The door is open to misinterpretation, misunderstandings, fraud, breaks in the communication lines, and rips in the fabric of society. Anxiety, fear and the terror of alienation can result. Our profession is experencing destabilization of many of its foundational words.