The need for self-understanding has haunted human beings since they escaped from the monkey, and psychological labels offer a method for this: "I am obsessive", "I am narcissistic", "I am an avoidant attachment", "I am a highly sensitive person"... The attempt to answer the “who am I?” and giving meaning to our being with qualifiers typical of the psychological discipline is increasingly present in our daily discourse. A long list of qualifiers have mutated mundane conversations to those of a psychology room.
Now, a battery of doubts arises with such a tool: are these labels useful? Are they used to explain behaviors? Is there truth in them? Are they abused? Do they obscure other realities? Is it even worth labeling?
Silvia Rico Pérez, a 27-year-old girl, found in the Enneagram the way to better understand herself. It is a personality classification system that seeks to understand and describe people's behavior patterns and underlying motivations. This system establishes the existence of nine basic personality types, called enneatypes, each with distinctive characteristics and particular approaches to life.
Why does it sadden me and not others? Why do I and they don't?" asked Rico, who says that, just at this moment of self-exploration, someone told him about the Enneagram. “It helps me manage my neuras. It is a way of self-observing from the outside and avoiding setting up toxic narratives against yourself”, he explains.
In addition to his own understanding, this form of classification has allowed him to better understand other people. “Even though I can't agree with other people's behavior, I can understand it,” she says, which for her “broadens the capacity for empathy” while “affecting how we communicate,” something she has observed as a communication consultant.
Patricia Caso Laviana also came to the Enneagram to get closer to others, but from a somewhat different perspective. “I was in a vital moment as very boring. I was a little tired of the scientific, of the rational explanations, and I was beginning to be interested in the horoscope, ”she says. In this context, a friend recommended a book that explained the enneatypes reacting with the deadly sins.
The simile with something she knew, together with the simplicity of the explanation – “a bit like the horoscope” – made this personality classification make sense to her. She came to get hold of a notebook where she wrote down the enneatypes and tried to fit her acquaintances into them. Her practice was a mix of entertainment, curiosity, and observation. More a game and a classification than a desire to understand others and herself.
However, many professionals are critical of seeking explanations through labels rather than mere description, which is what classifications of this type would do. “Within psychopathology, labels help professionals to describe, but then we have to go further, look for the causes. Each person is different. The label has the counterpart that it seals. One no longer wonders about what has caused something to you, how you have felt, what could be done or look for other types of answers before these experiences” says Carme Guillén Sangrá, clinical psychologist belonging to the Official College of Psychologists of Catalonia.
For Denisa Praje, a health psychologist, this labeling process reminds her of the horoscope and, for her, the same circular explanation also falls: I do X because I am a Gemini. Why am I a Gemini? Because I do X. Or: I do X because I am highly sensitive. Why am I highly sensitive? Because I do X.
The term of high sensitivity is another of the labels that is very fashionable today. Highly Sensitive People or PAS would be those with greater emotional sensitivity and deep information processing. Marisa Martínez Cervantes, 34, came to this term. She felt very identified and allowed her to make sense of experiences like feeling very overwhelmed in shopping malls or crying very often.
When the 2020 confinement situation overwhelmed him and he required professional help, he went with the label as a possible explanation for his problems. His psychologist determined, after a series of tests, that she met the requirements for a diagnosis of autism. As a result of her experience, Martínez Cervantes pays attention to the fact that the label hides a disorder or a problem to be defined.
Not only a basic disorder can be excluded with the labeling. Also certain facts. For example, someone may define themselves as anxiously attached (an attachment style characterized by a special need for contact and attention from others) and pretend to need to be on top of their partner, and to suffer greatly if they are not. . This could mask the reality that his partner is not taking care of him. You may even have built a healthy relationship with other people outside of the label of anxious attachment.
In turn, the understanding of one as "to be" and not "to be" can lead to confusion if something supposedly defining and central varies depending on the context. Someone at one moment can identify with the extroverted person they think they are, and yet at other times go to the opposite pole. Or be very brave for certain activities and very cowardly in others.
“Personality is not something that is marked on you. Although there is a genetic load on personality, it is being seen that it is much less important than previously thought and what constitutes personality are rather experiences," says Guillén Sangrá. "It makes no sense to say that I was born that way." .
Silvia Rico Pérez is opposed to the use of the enneatype to "lock people up". Instead, she finds it very positive as a starting point in understanding and personal development. “I think people end up in the enneatype when they are in a moment of personal crisis, searching for answers,” she points out.
Since the pandemic, emotional discomfort has skyrocketed or has become more evident, or both. A greater concern and interest in how to feel better has permeated people ever since. A moment of social anguish where the labels have been able to serve as a guide without the need to go to a professional. The downside in this sense is that overanalyzing and living in constant rumination about who one is could lead to psychological problems.
The economic exploitation of the human need to reduce uncertainty also remains on this red line. There is a whole market niche with bestsellers, payment tests or therapeutic sessions to "help" self-awareness. Courses are also offered that, in exchange for a few hundred euros, offer the possibility of identifying talents and virtues, discovering the type of personality or learning techniques to strengthen character.
“I certainly think there is a commodification of mental health and therapy labels. There is a tendency to pathologize things that are normal, people with problems of everyday life. A self-criticism is necessary in the disclosure that we psychologists have made”, concludes Praje.
