What was the moment you realized you were spending more time diagnosing your partner than actually working on the relationship?
Dr. Isabelle Morley noticed a pattern in her therapy practice. Week after week, clients would walk in having already diagnosed their partners with narcissism, borderline personality disorder, or bipolar disorder. They’d show up convinced they knew exactly what was wrong with the other person. But instead of doing the actual work of therapy, she found herself spending entire sessions talking people out of these clinical terms.
That’s when she realized something had shifted. Therapy language had stopped being a tool for understanding and started becoming a weapon for avoiding accountability.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
This conversation goes way beyond whether someone is using the word “gaslighting” correctly. Isabelle reveals why the widespread use of clinical language in relationships is actually keeping us stuck in the patterns we claim we want to break.
You’ll discover why the person doing the diagnosing often has more work to do than the person they’re diagnosing. When you call your partner toxic or label them a narcissist, you’re not protecting yourself from harm. You’re outsourcing your agency and blocking the vulnerability required for real intimacy.
We explore the negative cycle that happens in relationships when both people are triggered. In that escalated emotional state, everyone can look pathological. One person appears borderline because they’re having big reactions. The other looks narcissistic because they seem uncaring. But underneath those defenses are vulnerable feelings that never get addressed because the diagnosis becomes the story.
Isabelle breaks down the difference between understanding someone through a diagnosis versus weaponizing that diagnosis to avoid looking at your own part. Understanding leads to empowerment and decision making. Weaponization is an instant disavowal of responsibility where everything that goes wrong gets pointed back to their pathology.
Why Therapy Speak Weaponization Matters Right Now
We’re in a cultural moment where psychological literacy has exploded. Terms that used to require a clinical evaluation are now thrown around casually on first dates and in breakup texts. Everyone either has ADHD they haven’t been evaluated for or an ex who was definitely a narcissist.
This isn’t just annoying semantic drift. It’s fundamentally changing how we relate to each other. When you filter every interaction through a clinical lens, you stop seeing the person in front of you and start seeing a collection of symptoms to diagnose.
The pendulum has swung from zero psychological language to using it as the primary framework for understanding human behavior. And while awareness is valuable, we’ve crossed into territory where these words are being used to control people, avoid personal growth, and justify staying stuck in painful patterns.
This matters because these diagnoses come with an implied power dynamic. When you label someone, you position yourself as the knower and them as the problem. You get to be right. They get to be pathological. And nobody has to do the vulnerable work of admitting they’re both hurting and neither knows how to stop the cycle.
About Dr. Isabelle Morley
Dr. Isabelle Morley is a couples therapist who practices Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Her work centers on helping people move beyond blame and clinical labels to access the vulnerable emotions underneath their defenses.
After watching client after client walk into therapy armed with diagnoses instead of curiosity, she wrote “They’re Not Gaslighting You” to address how therapy language has become weaponized in relationships. Her approach focuses on the patterns between people rather than pathologizing individuals.
What makes her perspective valuable is that she’s living this too. After getting divorced this year and re-entering the dating world, she’s experienced firsthand how everyone now presents with a diagnosis. Almost every person she’s met casually mentions their ex was borderline and they have undiagnosed ADHD. It’s become the lens through which people define themselves and interact.
Key Insights From Dr. Isabelle Morley
Why the Person Doing the Diagnosing Often Needs More Work
Here’s the uncomfortable truth Isabelle shares from her practice. A lot of the time, the person doing the accusing has more of the traits or more work to do than the person they’re diagnosing. Not always, but often enough to notice the pattern.
When you’re convinced your partner is a narcissist, you’re usually missing what’s happening in yourself. The diagnosis becomes a way to depersonalize hurt. You don’t have to look at your part or learn from the pattern. You can just point to their pathology and wait for them to fix themselves while you stay exactly where you are.
How Weaponization of Therapy Speak Actually Works
Understanding a diagnosis means you use that information to make empowered decisions. If your partner has a mental health disorder, you decide whether you’ll stay and support them through treatment, how you’ll set boundaries when they behave inappropriately, and what you’re willing to tolerate.
Weaponization looks different. It’s pointing to the diagnosis every time something goes wrong. You have a fight and it becomes “well we had a fight because you’re so borderline, you get upset about everything.” The clinical term becomes a way of controlling and manipulating the other person.
Isabelle has seen abusive people use these words very effectively. They’ll lie about something, their partner calls them out, and they respond with “you’re gaslighting me” because you’re not agreeing with their version of events. It’s called DARVO – defend, attack, reverse victim and offender. The clinical language gives the tactic credibility.
The Negative Cycle Makes Everyone Look Pathological
Isabelle explains the concept from Emotionally Focused Therapy called the negative cycle. When you’re stuck in a fight, the content doesn’t matter. Whether it’s about dishes or being late, the pattern underneath is the same every time.
One person feels embarrassed, unimportant, unprioritized. They protect themselves from those painful feelings by getting critical and attacking. The other person feels like they’re never good enough, they can’t make you happy. They get defensive and explain why you’re overreacting. The more they defend, the more critical you get. The more critical you get, the more defensive they become.
In that escalated emotional place, nobody is their best self. They look borderline, bipolar, narcissistic because they’re so upset and you don’t see what’s happening under the surface. They can look uncaring and unreasonable. But if you can get to the deeper layer of vulnerable feeling underneath the defense, suddenly everyone seems a lot more human and it’s very easy to empathize with them.
Cherry Picking Symptoms Makes Diagnosing Easy
We’re all a little narcissistic sometimes in some relationships. We all have big reactions and big feelings sometimes. So if you just cherry pick symptoms, it’s very easy to diagnose anyone with anything.
When you go through the actual clinical criteria for something like antisocial personality disorder, suddenly almost nobody fits anymore. There’s so much evidence you have to have for how they lack true empathy and don’t care about the law. But if you’re just pulling symptoms that match your hurt feelings, everyone qualifies.
Different Memories Don’t Equal Gaslighting
People rarely remember things the same way. We remember the feelings we felt and our perception of what happened. Being able to allow different realities in a relationship is critical to not arguing every second of the day.
It’s not gaslighting if someone says they think you’re wrong or remember it differently. They can validate that your memory is true for you while still maintaining they see it differently. You don’t have to agree all the time. You can disagree and still validate each other.
But when you’ve already decided your partner is a narcissist or gaslighter, you filter everything through that lens. You’re creating the meaning in real time and projecting your ideas onto the situation. The clinical diagnosis becomes self-fulfilling.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Therapy Language
The mental health self-help world has become about blaming others and not empowering ourselves. We’ve given each other so little grace to be human and vulnerable and imperfect that it’s very scary to open up with anybody now.
If you share that you’re embarrassed or struggling, it can be turned into a diagnosis or an attachment issue or weaponized against you. So people stay defended. They use clinical language to stay in a position of power rather than accessing the real part of them that needs to be heard.
The irony is that real narcissists are actually hard to spot. When you’re with one, you don’t immediately identify it because they’re so good at insidiously making you doubt yourself and lose your reality. People’s quick confidence about using these words is often what makes them the wrong words to use.
Gaslighting is slow and insidious. It’s very difficult to identify in the moment. You might need other people’s perspectives to see it clearly. But instead we’ve turned it into something people announce with certainty after every disagreement.
How to Apply This in Your Life
Start by getting curious about why you’re reaching for clinical language. When you want to call someone toxic or narcissistic, pause and ask yourself what vulnerable feeling you’re protecting.
Are you hurt? Scared? Feeling rejected or unworthy? The diagnosis gives you a story where you’re not the problem. But it also keeps you from doing anything about the actual pattern.
If you genuinely believe your partner has a disorder, take it seriously. Don’t just use it as an explanation for why things are hard. Make decisions about whether you’ll stay, what support looks like, what boundaries you need. Understanding should lead to empowerment, not just complaints.
Practice allowing different realities. Your partner can remember something completely differently than you and both be telling the truth about your experience. You don’t have to figure out who’s objectively right. You can validate their feelings while maintaining your own perception.
Most importantly, turn the lens back on yourself. All roads lead back to your awareness, your growth, your empowerment, your agency. Stop outsourcing that to other people by making their pathology the story.
Resources & Links From This Episode
- Dr. Isabelle Morley’s website: https://www.drisabellemorley.com
- Dr. Isabelle Morley on Instagram: @drisabellemorley
- “They’re Not Gaslighting You” by Dr. Isabelle Morley (available everywhere books are sold)
- More on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples
- Related Mind Love episode on attachment styles and relationship patterns
- Related Mind Love episode on boundaries and people-pleasing
Take This Work Deeper
Ready to stop diagnosing and start doing the actual work with real support? Join the free Mind Love Collective for monthly themed calls and weekly challenge accountability where we practice the vulnerable conversations these patterns are protecting you from. mindlove.com/join
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