We all use labels to make sense of ourselves.
We might describe ourselves as anxious, introverted, perfectionistic, sensitive, successful, difficult, traumatised or bad at relationships. Sometimes these descriptions are useful. They can help us recognise patterns, communicate our experiences and understand why certain situations affect us as they do.
But there is an important difference between saying, “This is something I experience” and saying, “This is who I am.”
Over time, a description can become an identity.
Someone who has experienced anxiety for several years may begin to think of themselves simply as an anxious person. Someone who struggled academically as a child may continue to carry the belief that they are “not clever”, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. A person who has repeatedly been described as difficult, emotional or overly sensitive may gradually begin to see themselves through the same lens.
The label may have begun as somebody else's observation. Eventually, it can start to sound like our own voice.
How labels shape our sense of self
Our understanding of ourselves does not develop in isolation.
From childhood onwards, we learn something about who we are through the responses of other people. Parents, teachers, siblings, friends, partners and colleagues all reflect versions of us back to ourselves.
Some of those reflections can be helpful. Others can be limiting.
A child repeatedly described as “the responsible one” may grow into an adult who feel disproportionately threatened by failure. Someone known as “the clever one” might find it extremely difficult to ask for help. A person who has always been considered independent may struggle to admit when they feel lonely or vulnerable.
Even apparently positive labels can become restrictive when we feel obliged to live up to them.
The difficulty arises when one description becomes so dominant that it leaves little room for contradiction, change or complexity.
Human beings are rarely one thing.
We can be confident in one situation and uncertain in another. Independent and deeply in need of connection. Resilient and exhausted. Generous and occasionally selfish. Successful in some areas of life while feeling lost in others.
Psychological wellbeing often depends partly on our ability to tolerate this complexity.
When a description becomes a conclusion
There is a subtle shift that often happens in our internal language.
“I made a mistake” becomes “I am a failure.”
“I feel anxious” becomes “I am an anxious person.”
“This relationship ended” becomes “I am unlovable.”
“I find conflict difficult” becomes “I am weak.”
Once a conclusion about ourselves becomes established, we often begin collecting evidence that supports it.
Someone who believes they are unlikeable may notice every awkward conversation while overlooking moments of warmth and connection. Someone who believes they always fail may dismiss their successes as luck while treating every setback as confirmation.
In psychology, our expectations can powerfully influence what we notice, remember and anticipate.
The story becomes self-reinforcing.
What happens when a diagnosis becomes an identity?
The same issue can arise around psychological and psychiatric diagnoses.
For many people, receiving a diagnosis can be enormously helpful. It may provide language for experiences that previously felt confusing, validate genuine difficulties and make treatment or support easier to access.
But a diagnosis describes a pattern of experiences. It does not describe the whole person.
There can be a significant psychological difference between thinking:
“I have ADHD”
and
“Everything about me is because I have ADHD.”
Or between:
“I have experienced depression”
and
“I am a depressed person.”
The distinction may seem small, but it leaves room for other aspects of identity: relationships, values, humour, abilities, ambitions, contradictions and possibilities that have nothing to do with a diagnosis.
No single psychological description can contain an entire human being.
How therapy can help us question the stories we carry
Psychotherapy is partly a place where our assumptions about ourselves can become visible.
Often, we do not experience our deepest beliefs as beliefs at all. They feel like facts.
“I've always been difficult.”
“I'm just not a confident person.”
“I have to keep everyone happy.”
“I'm too damaged for relationships.”
“I'll never change.”
Therapy can create enough distance to become curious about these conclusions.
Where did this idea about me come from?
Who first described me this way?
Was it ever entirely true?
Is it still true now?
What happens when I behave in a way that contradicts it?
Perhaps most importantly:
Does this story still help me live the life I want to live?
The aim is not simply to replace every uncomfortable description with a positive one. Other people can sometimes see things about us that we struggle to recognise ourselves, and genuine self-understanding requires a willingness to encounter uncomfortable truths.
But reflection is different from surrendering our identity entirely to somebody else's interpretation.
Therapy can help us hold different perspectives together: how we understand ourselves, how others experience us, what has happened to us, and who we might still become.
Holding labels more lightly
Perhaps the healthiest relationship with labels is not to reject them altogether, but to hold them lightly.
A label may tell us something important without telling us everything.
You may experience anxiety without anxiety being the defining fact of your identity.
You may have patterns you want to change without those patterns representing your character.
You may have been shaped profoundly by your past without your past determining everything that comes next.
One useful question to ask ourselves is:
Am I describing something about myself, or have I turned that description into a definition of myself?
That small distinction can create considerably more room for change.
Our identities are not completely self-created. We are shaped by relationships, culture, experiences and the ways other people have seen us.
But neither are we passive recipients of those definitions.
Part of psychological growth involves continuing to participate in the story of who we are becoming.
This article develops one theme from Dr Moa Lundstrom's recent Brainz Magazine article, “Who Gets to Decide Who You Are?”, which explores identity, diagnosis, belonging and our need to remain participants in the stories told about our lives.
Read the full article in Brainz Magazine: Who Gets to Decide Who You Are?
If some of the beliefs you hold about yourself feel difficult to question or change, psychotherapy can provide a space to explore where those beliefs came from and whether they still reflect the person you are today.