“Toxic People”: The Science-Free Slogan We Use to Explode Our Interpersonal Connections | lifestyle

Pop psychology gurus love to talk about toxicity. In particular, the damage that toxic people can cause, ranging from radioactive residue to minor petrochemical spills. Their message is always the same: There are certain people who naturally emit toxins. Guides to recognizing these people abound, guides to help us escape such terrible influences. These resources enumerate characteristics that serve as an overview of evil in its most twisted form: energetic vampirism and chronic envy, subtle manipulation and seamless selfishness, systematic negativity and cynical Machiavellianism. “Toxic” is thrown casually at partners, bosses, parents, and so-called friends whose diagnosis is discovered by their victims themselves. Apparently we can all fall prey to toxic people. Not to mention that we can all be labeled as such.

But despite its popularity, the toxicity has no scientific basis. A definition of its characteristics is not possible because it is not an empirically researched phenomenon. Its vagueness is more akin to medieval accusations of witchcraft than a thorough examination of the human mind and behavior. No matter: Even without analytical observation or stable criteria, warnings about toxic people have spread by word of mouth and become a social mantra.

“We live in an era of pop psychology that produces boring and dangerous tropes,” says Oriol Lugo, a clinical psychologist and author of ¡Corta por lo sano! (For the sake of your health, listen to it!), a book in which he argues that there are no toxic people. He then examines what actually underlies harmful relationships, the existence of which he does not deny. Fabián Ortiz, a psychoanalyst who works in the Barcelona office of the mental health organization Vida Plena, points out that “we are tired of labels and this is another label that we throw around indiscriminately.” However, if you look online When you look for the term, such dissenting opinions are drowned out by dozens of others – many of them from real psychologists – who express their belief in the fact that toxic people live among us and that they are all but taking a wait-and-see approach every corner to weaken our self-esteem and destroy our peace of mind.

Although it is difficult to say with certainty when the term was first used, it appears that the term “toxic” was coined by American author Lillian Glass, who published her book Toxic people in 1995. Her work became a worldwide bestseller and the irresistibly evocative term began to spread. On her website, Glass, who has no training in psychology, calls herself “the first lady of communications.” Another of her books takes identifying these threatening themes a step further, offering a guide to identifying emotional terrorists by sight and body language analysis. Elsewhere, other authors have made toxic people their trademark, such as the Spaniard Bernardo Stamatea. His compatriot Marian Rojas Estapé even coined a term to contrast with toxic people: “vitamin people”. “These are labels that work very well as a marketing strategy for selling books,” says Lugo.

According to Buenaventura del Charco, a psychologist and author of the book Have the cojones of the positive pensamiento (politely translated as I had it with me positive thinking), this kind of arbitrary labeling responds “to the logic of consumer society in personal relationships: that everyone gives or takes away, that one type gives you good things and the other gives you bad things, with no gray areas.” Except that it is a Manichean simplification, Del Charco sees labeling a person as toxic as an implication of moral authority that “inhibits self-criticism.” Lugo adds that it’s “very convenient to blame others.” And Ortiz emphasizes the idea that relationships are an area of ​​personal growth. “If I don’t like something about someone, maybe I could ask what’s happening to me with that other person. Maybe this other person questioning me is unsettling me,” Ortiz says.

Instead of helping us look inward, Ortiz continues, the toxicity metaphor urges us to attack or flee, logical responses to perceived danger. Undoubtedly, there are relationships—both romantic and otherwise—that are so treacherous that the best course of action for a partner is to take a step back. However, the psychologist warns not to “forget that the problem takes place in the space of the relationship and is not due to an ontological aspect inherent in certain people”. The infinite variety of human interactions, collisions, and couplings—not to mention the harms and benefits that such encounters bring to us—will forever be contextual. “There will always be behaviors that are harmful to someone and not to others,” says Del Charco.

Narcissism and other personality disorders

Toxic traits are often confused with the symptoms of actual personality disorders. Two handbooks published by the universities of Cambridge and Oxford cover everything from paranoid thinking to antisocial patterns to dramatic theatrics in this category. Assuming that these categories are valid, many descriptions of toxic people would indicate that they are pathological. But such alarmist analysis may overlook the differences between mental illness and what is traditionally referred to as “bad mood.” Associating casually observed “toxicity” with such diagnoses, Del Charco says, does not encourage people who see themselves as victims to “understand why some people behave in certain ways.” The toxic conclusion is almost always protectionist, moralizing: Run away, save yourself!

Incorrigible narcissism is a constant in the swirling layman’s image of a toxic person so reinforced by internet pundits. Once again – somewhat paradoxically – Ortiz sees in the widespread use of the label a tendency to focus exclusively on one’s own needs and abandon relationships at the slightest hiccup. “In order to not project, to not insist that everything is the other person’s fault, I have to put the narcissism aside and work on myself and take responsibility for my own discomfort,” he says. Lugo suggests that the mass labeling of toxicity may be related to the symptoms of our own infantilized society and a manifestation of the cultural pendulum. “We come from a past where violence was normal and now we are at the other extreme where anything can be offensive.”

When accusatory fingers are pointed in every direction, Del Charco warns that fear of social stigma can lead to “emotional repression, pretending to be better than us so that others won’t distance themselves from us.” On the other hand, he continues, fear of the corrosive power of toxic people can lead to an excessive sense of fragility, “as if we were made of porcelain.” Del Charco points out that self-confidence is key when it comes to this , moving in the world, especially when dealing with people we don’t always like – and that we have to defend ourselves when the situation calls for it. “There are people who are annoying or bitter, but except in extreme situations it’s not such a big problem. We can endure it, we don’t have to banish them from our lives, but we can learn to set boundaries when necessary.”

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