Learn English – name for an argument that is also a counter-argument

I would say those are near-tautologies, and certainly truisms.

Oh, the old 'time of the month' card. Yes, been on the receiving end of that!

Words such as 'scheming', 'stratagem' and 'wily' come to mind when reading through your question. I'm not sure there's a particular term for what your psychologist friend is doing, but you can certainly use those words I mentioned for describing her actions.

• scheming to get you to admit an inner pain you may or may not have to hopefully keep you distracted from the pain point you were discussing

• she could be using this distraction as her main stratagem so she doesn't have the embarrassment of admitting she's wrong

• the way in which she uses your 'inner pain' and continues to come back to it is a wily way to gain an advantage

A friend of mine wanted to be psychologist and spent his lunch-times at school trying to get us to admit to tragic events in our past that brought with them emotional baggage to our present day lives. It wasn't fun.

If you want to stop her from using this tactic against you, just tell her she's 'resorting to her profession to question your sanity/beliefs in a way that seeks to demean your point of view rather than discussing the topic itself' or something like that.

However, if you yourself go off-track and wish to bring yourself back to the topic, you can say 'but I digress' and continue.