Why Therapists Avoid Using the Word ‘Toxic’
Labeling others can stunt your own growth
One of my most important rules as a therapist: Ignore all adjectives. When one of my clients says someone in their life is selfish, or cold, or hot-tempered, it doesn’t tell me much about the problem. Adjectives aren’t facts.
That’s especially true of “toxic,” an adjective that’s become increasingly popular in and outside of my office (it was even the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2018). It’s also easily overused — a way of reframing a difficult relationship as one not worth having.
So when I have a therapy client who uses “toxic” to describe someone, I don’t ask them to clarify, or to reconsider the word. Instead, I focus on the facts of the challenging situation they’re telling me about.
People use all sorts of words to describe their relationships. But when you sit with people long enough, you begin to see how wildly these descriptions will fluctuate based on their mood. We tend to feel more threatened by others on days we feel anxious, and we tend to be more forgiving on days we feel confident or hopeful. We love to hear that our feelings are valid, but I think another question is more important: Are these feelings useful?
