Seeking Discomfort in Relationships

“Mature love is composed and sustaining; a celebration of the complexities and contradictions that we are.”— bell hooks

The Age of Labels

In our current cultural moment, we find ourselves increasingly drawn to labels.

Neurodivergent. Narcissistic. Empath. Emotional regulation. Gaslighting.

Just a few terms from the vocabulary of “psychobabble” that can occasionally make a therapist’s life difficult.

While these labels can offer loose definitions and initial insight into how a person constructs their reality, they are often used in ways that close conversations rather than open them. And in this day and age, too many conversations close before their time.

The Constructivist View

In constructivist psychotherapy, we envision a person’s system as a pyramid of personal constructs — interconnected, hierarchical, and bipolar in nature.

So when you say, “I’m an empath,” I might ask:

“What would you say is the opposite of that?”

If you respond, “A narcissist,” I’ll likely ask you to define both more precisely — because the catch is: we assume we’re all using the same words to mean the same thing.

In reality, we almost never are.And that’s often where rupture in relationships begins.

Why We Hold Onto Labels

We still use labels because they help us navigate our inner world with clarity. And that’s a difficult thing to let go of.

Control and predictability, in constructivism, are the core goals of our personal meaning systems. Without them, we’re prone to overwhelming anxiety, fear, and threat.

But clinging too tightly to control can lead us to shove reality into our predefined boxes — assuming, rather than witnessing.

When we do that, we deprive ourselves of a more accurate and nuanced worldview — one that might solve problems more creatively and build deeper relationships.

The Role of Discomfort

Those more flexible systems are born not through certainty, but through uncertainty.

They come from tolerating discomfort — from sitting with anxiety rather than rushing to control it. And when we can hold that discomfort, we begin to absorb new elements, allowing nuance to enter the system.

In relationships, this often unlocks something profound: true empathy.

We begin to see others with the same depth and flexibility we’ve learned to offer ourselves.And when we find commonality in places where we once saw only contradiction — well, professionally speaking, that’s where the magic happens.

Breaking the Binary

Let’s take one example.

If we begin to see that “empaths” can carry healthy doses of narcissism, and that so-called “narcissists” can have genuine wells of empathy — that’s when real growth happens.

That’s when we begin to allow ourselves to be both. Without shame. Without fear.

That’s when we begin to forgive our past, forgive others, and soften where there once was trauma.

Staying with Discomfort is a Skill

Of course, this isn’t easy. And it’s not enough to hold one contradiction.

Staying with discomfort is a skill — one that needs to be built over time.

A Reflection to Try

Discomfort often arises when a situation provokes us, or, in psychobabble terms, triggers us, by activating familiar emotional states and signaling to our system:

“I’ve been here before.”

But the key is this: maybe the situation is the same, but much more often, only the feelings are.

As Anaïs Nin would put it:

“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

Or as Carl Jung would say:

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

That gap — between what is and what was — is where your healing begins.It’s where your free will lives.And it’s the exact space where something new can be created.