The Danger of a Single Story
How the stories we tell about ourselves and others shape wellbeing, belonging, and our capacity to thrive.
A person stands alone on a rock in calm, clear water at sunrise. Beneath the surface, layered images of roots, footprints, maps, letters, books, a child, and a graduation cap are subtly embedded in the lakebed, symbolizing the hidden experiences that lie beneath every person's story.
"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."
— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Recently, I revisited Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED Talk, The Danger of a Single Story. Although I first encountered her work years ago, I found myself hearing it differently this time.
Before reading further, I encourage you to spend 18 minutes with Adichie's TED Talk. It has shaped how I think about people, stories, and wellbeing for years.
Perhaps that is because I have spent much of my professional life working with people whose lives refuse to fit neatly into a single category. As I listened, I found myself thinking about a moment that occurred in graduate school. During a discussion, a fellow student responded to something I shared by remarking that my lived experiences did not matter in that space because I was "just a student like the rest of us."
The comment stayed with me. Not because it was particularly cruel, but because it illustrated something I encounter frequently: the difficulty many of us have in holding the complexity of other people's lives when those lives differ significantly from our own. No one is simply one thing. And at the time, I was not simply a student.
I was a single parent.
I was raising a young, neurodivergent child during and after a global pandemic.
I was doing so without the family or community support system that others often assume exists and that often shapes a person's capacity to cope, recover, and thrive.
I was navigating rebuilding in the aftermath of an international divorce.
I was managing PTSD.
I had already spent more than two decades working across multiple countries and educational systems.
I had earned previous graduate degrees, built a career, experienced significant loss, and returned to school later in life while balancing responsibilities that extended far beyond the classroom.
Yet in that moment, none of those experiences seemed to matter. The only identity that was recognized was student.
What struck me most was not the comment itself. What struck me was how easily a person can disappear behind a category. And if I am honest, I suspect the same was true for her. I knew very little about her life beyond what was visible in that moment. She, too, undoubtedly carried experiences, responsibilities, struggles, strengths, and identities that I could not see. The difference was not that one of us was complex and the other was not. The difference was that neither of us could be fully understood through a single lens.
In many ways, the comment reflected the very phenomenon we were studying: the tendency to flatten complex human beings into a single, easily understood category. Ironically, this occurred in a learning environment where we were actively studying concepts such as intersectionality, inclusion, social determinants of health, and the importance of understanding people within the contexts of their lives. The experience reminded me that understanding these concepts intellectually and applying them in practice are not always the same thing.
Over the years, I have met students who were also caregivers. Parents who were also graduate students. Professionals navigating burnout while supporting aging relatives. Individuals rebuilding their lives after loss, illness, divorce, displacement, or trauma. People carrying strengths and struggles that remained largely invisible to those around them. Yet despite growing conversations about diversity, equity, inclusion, and intersectionality, I continue to see how easily people are reduced to a single story.
A student.
A patient.
A diagnosis.
A job title.
A parent.
An immigrant.
A success.
A failure.
A label.
A single chapter.
The challenge is that none of us are only one thing.
Why Single Stories Matter
Adichie argues that a single story is created when one perspective becomes the dominant lens through which a person, group, or experience is understood. Single stories are often built on partial truths. The problem is not necessarily that they are completely wrong. The problem is that they are incomplete. When a single story becomes the only story, complexity disappears.
Human beings are remarkably complex. We hold multiple identities simultaneously. Our experiences are shaped by family, culture, education, relationships, health, geography, opportunity, adversity, privilege, access, and countless other factors. One way of understanding this complexity is through what many helping professions call both/and thinking. Rather than reducing people to a single identity, role, or experience, both/and thinking recognizes that seemingly different or even opposing realities can exist at the same time. A person can be struggling and resilient. A parent and a student. A caregiver and someone who needs care. A survivor and someone still healing. Human beings are rarely one thing or the other. More often, we are both.
Research across psychology, social work, sociology, and public health consistently demonstrates that human experiences are shaped by multiple interacting identities, relationships, systems, and environments. Building on a long tradition of Black feminist thought, Kimberlé Crenshaw's framework of intersectionality offers a way of understanding how overlapping social identities and structures shape people's lived experiences. Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory reminds us that individuals cannot be understood separately from the environments in which they live. Social work's person-in-environment perspective similarly recognizes that people exist within complex networks of relationships, opportunities, barriers, and systems.
None of these frameworks suggest that a single characteristic can tell us everything we need to know about a person. In fact, they suggest the opposite. The more we reduce people to a single identity, the more likely we are to misunderstand them. Yet our institutions and our conversations often encourage simplification. It is easier to place people into categories than to remain curious about their stories and make room for the complexity they reveal. It is easier to assume than to ask. It is easier to focus on what is visible than to explore what lies beneath the surface. It is easier to see a single chapter than to make room for the whole book.
The Cost of Being Reduced
Many people know what it feels like to be seen through a single lens. Perhaps you have been known only as:
The struggling student
The anxious person
The caregiver
The high achiever
The difficult employee
The divorced parent
The immigrant
The patient
The person who made a mistake
When one story becomes dominant, other parts of our identity can become invisible. Our strengths may be overlooked. Our resilience may go unnoticed. Our lived experiences may be dismissed. Our humanity may be reduced to a category.
This can happen in schools, healthcare systems, workplaces, families, and communities. It can also happen within ourselves when we begin to believe that one difficult chapter defines who we are. A setback becomes an identity. A diagnosis becomes a destiny. A role becomes the whole story.
As a parenting student, I have become especially aware of how some identities are welcomed in educational spaces while others are expected to remain invisible. Academic institutions readily acknowledge that faculty, administrators, and professionals may also be parents. Their caregiving responsibilities are often recognized as part of the complexity of adult life.
Yet when students are parents, the expectation can feel very different. The identity of student is often treated as though it should stand alone, with caregiving responsibilities remaining largely unseen. Requests for flexibility, understanding, or accommodation may be interpreted as a lack of commitment rather than evidence of competing responsibilities.
What often goes unseen is that parenting students represent an extraordinary range of experiences. They may be returning to school after military service, pursuing a second career, rebuilding after divorce, immigrating and recredentialing in a new country, caring for both children and aging parents, or finally completing a long-delayed educational goal. Others may be seeking greater economic stability for their families, advancing professionally, or creating opportunities they never had themselves.
The challenge is not that parenting students are asking for special treatment. The challenge is that they are often asking for recognition of realities that do not disappear when they enter a classroom. Parenthood does not stop when class begins. Caregiving does not pause for deadlines. Life does not wait for graduation. Student may be the visible identity. The rest of the person is often expected to disappear.
The Cost of Reducing Others
The danger of a single story does not stop with the person being reduced. It also shapes how we relate to one another. When we assume we already understand someone, curiosity begins to disappear. We ask fewer questions. We listen less carefully. We become less aware of the complexity that exists beyond what is immediately visible. Over time, we risk mistaking a single fact for a complete understanding of a human being.
Looking back on that classroom interaction, I felt both alarm and sadness. Alarm because concepts we were actively studying—intersectionality, inclusion, social determinants of health, and person-in-environment—seemed absent from the conversation. Sadness because I wondered what experiences, strengths, struggles, and stories might be overlooked when we decide that one visible identity is sufficient to explain an entire person.
This matters in helping professions, education, healthcare, leadership, and public health. Supporting people effectively requires us to move beyond assumptions and remain open to realities we cannot immediately see. Humility often begins with recognizing that we do not know the whole story and holding space for the complexity we cannot yet see.
I also recognize that I have probably done the same thing at times. Most of us have. We all carry assumptions. We all have blind spots. The goal is not perfection. The goal is curiosity. Because when curiosity disappears, understanding becomes limited, connection becomes harder, and opportunities to learn from one another are lost.
The Wellbeing Cost of a Single Story
Whole-person wellbeing becomes difficult when only part of a person is welcome. Human beings thrive when they feel seen, understood, valued, and able to bring their authentic selves into the spaces they occupy. When people are repeatedly reduced to a single identity, role, diagnosis, or life circumstance, the impact extends far beyond frustration or misunderstanding.
Many people learn to shrink, hiding parts of themselves in order to fit expectations and spaces. They compartmentalize their identities, minimize challenges, silence experiences, or avoid asking for support because they fear being viewed through the narrow lens of a single role, label, or environment.
A parenting student may hesitate to seek accommodations.
A professional experiencing burnout may feel unable to admit they are struggling.
Someone living with a health condition may feel defined by a diagnosis.
An immigrant may feel pressure to downplay parts of their cultural identity.
Over time, constantly managing how much of yourself is acceptable to reveal can become exhausting. Belonging is not simply about being allowed into a space. It is about being able to show up as a whole person once you arrive.
Research consistently links belonging, social connection, psychological safety, and identity affirmation with improved mental health, resilience, academic success, workplace engagement, and overall wellbeing. Conversely, environments that require people to suppress important parts of themselves can contribute to stress, isolation, burnout, underperformance, psychological distress, and a diminished sense of belonging.
It is difficult to thrive in spaces where only part of your story is welcome. When we reduce people to a single story, we do more than misunderstand them. We create conditions that make wellbeing more challenging to achieve.
Moving Beyond the Single Story
At Bloom, wellbeing begins with recognizing the whole person.
Mental health does not exist separately from relationships, caregiving responsibilities, culture, learning environments, work, identity, community, or life experiences. When we reduce people to a single story, we often overlook the very factors that shape their wellbeing. This is why my work in psychotherapy, student wellness, and health promotion begins with the same assumption:
Every person is more than the most visible or challenging part of their story.
People do not exist in isolation. They are shaped by relationships, environments, opportunities, barriers, identities, values, histories, and experiences that often remain invisible to others.
No diagnosis tells the whole story.
No role tells the whole story.
No achievement tells the whole story.
No mistake tells the whole story.
And no single chapter tells the whole story.
Healing, growth, and understanding often begin when we create space for the fuller picture.
Making Space for the Whole Story
As you reflect on your own experiences, consider the following:
Have you ever felt reduced to a single role, label, diagnosis, or life circumstance?
What parts of your story do others rarely see or understand?
Have there been times when you felt pressure to hide, shrink, or compartmentalize parts of yourself in order to fit expectations?
How has being misunderstood, overlooked, or underestimated affected your wellbeing?
When have you felt most seen, accepted, or understood as a whole person?
Have you ever made assumptions about someone based on a single piece of information or a visible aspect of their identity?
What might change if you approached yourself—or others—with greater curiosity and less certainty?
Who in your life might be carrying a story that you cannot fully see?
What would it look like to create more space for complexity, both in yourself and in others?
Perhaps most importantly:
What parts of your story deserve more room to breathe?
Every person carries a story that is more complex than what is immediately visible.
Including you.
Deepen Your Reflection
Many of our assumptions are shaped by our own identities and experiences. If you'd like to explore this further, try completing a Social Identity Wheel and consider:
Which identities feel most central to who you are?
Which identities do others notice first?
Which identities carry privilege or disadvantage in different spaces?
How might these influence the way you interpret other people's stories?
