Dr. Jameca CooperForensic Psychology Consultant, Emergence Psychological Services · Board Certified Counseling Psychologist and Forensic Psychology Consultant

Toxic trait of the week. Insecurity. #fyp #shorts #youtubeshorts #mentalhealth #toxic

17 May 2022 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

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In this YouTube short, psychologist Dr. Jameka Cooper introduces the weekly "toxic trait" series by focusing on insecurity. She breaks down the word’s etymology—‘in’ meaning ‘not’ and ‘security’ meaning ‘safe’—to illustrate that insecurity is a feeling of not being safe, accompanied by anxiety, fear, and low confidence. Dr. Cooper explains why this emotional state is toxic in romantic relationships: regardless of a partner’s behavior changes, the insecure individual’s internal sense of unsafety persists. While external adjustments (e.g., changing appearance, activities, or environment) can temporarily soothe the partner, they do not resolve the underlying insecurity, which must be addressed by the individual themselves.

Chapters

Hi, I'm Dr. Jameca Cooper, and this week's toxic trait of the week is insecurity. I work a lot with insecurity in my practice as a psychologist. And first, let's break down why insecurity is toxic. If we look at the word insecurity, in the prefix, which is in, means not, and of course security means safe or secure, right? So that means not safe. The person essentially feels not safe, anxious, fearful, not very confident. This could be very toxic in a relationship because no matter what you do or how you change your behavior, the person is still going to be insecure. There's nothing you can do that can change their insecurity. Now, you can also modify some variables in the environment, such as changing what you wear, what you do, where you go, and it will make them feel better, but it won't change if they feel insecure or not. That's one of the things they have to fix within themselves.