Inspection, Not Definition

Before we begin…Label Lab is not a dictionary, diagnostic manual, clinical reference, or substitute for professional evaluation. The pieces in this section are not attempts to issue official definitions from behind a well-equipped workbench. They are essays about language: what a word is trying to describe, what behaviors tend to get placed underneath it, what gets confused with it, and what can disappear once the label becomes more interesting than the person.

Some of the terms we inspect come from psychology, therapy, sociology, relationship culture, workplaces, or older academic ideas. Others were shaped by popular media and the internet. Their origins, precision, and seriousness are not all the same. Label Lab does not pretend they are. When a term has a specific clinical meaning, that meaning matters. When a word has broadened into everyday shorthand, that broader use is part of the inspection too.

The operating rule is simple: put down the noun and show us the verbs. Before deciding that someone is toxic, avoidant, manipulative, insecure, controlling, an empath, a narcissist, or whatever label has entered the room, we want to know what actually happened. What did the person do? Was it a single event or a recurring pattern? What did the behavior accomplish? What was the context? What changed when the behavior was challenged? The label may eventually prove useful. It just does not get to skip the evidence line.

That means these essays will sometimes narrow a word and sometimes widen it. They may distinguish ordinary human behavior from pathology, or point out when a familiar label is hiding something more serious. They may find that two behaviors that look alike are doing completely different jobs. They may also conclude that a plain-language description is more useful than the fashionable term everyone arrived carrying.

The goal is not to police vocabulary. It is to preserve dimensionality. Human beings are complicated enough without turning every trait into a diagnosis, every disagreement into a disorder, or every difficult moment into a permanent identity.

So consider Label Lab an inspection bench, not a certification desk. We are taking the words apart, looking at the mechanisms, and putting only the useful pieces back together.