Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): Mi psicóloga dice que reconocer mi inseguridad no es una debilidad, sino una fortaleza. - My psychologist says that recognizing my insecurity is not a weakness, but a strength.

Mi psicóloga dice que reconocer mi inseguridad no es una debilidad, sino una fortaleza.

My psychologist says that recognizing my insecurity is not a weakness, but a strength.

Breakdown of Mi psicóloga dice que reconocer mi inseguridad no es una debilidad, sino una fortaleza.

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Questions & Answers about Mi psicóloga dice que reconocer mi inseguridad no es una debilidad, sino una fortaleza.

Why is it mi psicóloga and not mi psicólogo? How do I know which one to use?

The noun psicólogo / psicóloga agrees with the person’s gender:

mi psicólogo = my (male) psychologist
mi psicóloga = my (female) psychologist

Spanish professions usually have a masculine form in -o and a feminine form in -a:

doctor / doctora
abogado / abogada
psicólogo / psicóloga

So you choose psicóloga here because the psychologist is female.

Why do we say mi psicóloga and not la psicóloga?

Mi is a possessive adjective and already tells you whose psychologist it is. You don’t combine it with la:

✅ mi psicóloga = my psychologist
❌ la mi psicóloga (incorrect)

If you say la psicóloga, you’re just saying the psychologist, with no possessive idea:

La psicóloga dice que… = The psychologist says that… (maybe one we already know from context, but not necessarily “mine”)

So in this sentence, you want mi to express possession, and you drop the article.

Why is it dice que reconocer mi inseguridad and not dice que reconozco mi inseguridad?

Both structures are possible, but they’re not identical.

dice que reconocer mi inseguridad no es…
The verb reconocer is in the infinitive, and the whole phrase reconocer mi inseguridad acts like a noun phrase (like English “recognizing my insecurity”).
It’s talking about the general act of recognizing your insecurity.
dice que reconozco mi inseguridad
Here you have a full clause with a subject and a conjugated verb (yo reconozco).
This focuses more on the fact that I (right now / generally) recognize my insecurity.

In English:

reconocer mi inseguridad no es una debilidad… ≈ “Recognizing my insecurity is not a weakness…”
que reconozco mi inseguridad ≈ “that I recognize my insecurity”

In the original, they want the action itself to be the subject of es, so the infinitive is natural.

Shouldn’t dice que be followed by the subjunctive? Why is reconocer not in the subjunctive?

There is no subjunctive here because reconocer is in the infinitive, not a finite (conjugated) verb form:

dice que reconocer mi inseguridad no es… → reconocer (infinitive)
Subjunctive would be something like que reconozca / reconozcas / reconozcamos, etc.

The structure dice que + [infinitive used as a noun] does not trigger the subjunctive, because that infinitive phrase isn’t a subordinate clause with its own subject; it’s just a verbal noun.

Compare:

Mi psicóloga dice que reconozca mi inseguridad.
Here you would expect a subjunctive (reconozca), and it would usually mean something like
“My psychologist tells me to recognize my insecurity” (a kind of order or recommendation).

In the original sentence, reconocer mi inseguridad is treated as a concept or action, so there’s no need for subjunctive.

Who is supposed to be doing the action in reconocer mi inseguridad if there is no explicit subject?

The subject is understood from context. We know it’s “I” because:

The insecurity mentioned is mi inseguridad (“my insecurity”).
The psychologist is talking about you and your inner life.

Spanish often omits the subject when it’s clear:

(Yo) reconocer mis errores es difícil.
= For me, recognizing my mistakes is difficult.

So in reconocer mi inseguridad, the implied subject is yo:
“I (the speaker) recognizing my insecurity…”

Why is it no es una debilidad, sino una fortaleza and not no es una debilidad, pero una fortaleza?

Spanish distinguishes between pero and sino:

pero = “but”, adds contrast or an exception
sino = “but rather / but instead”, corrects or replaces a negative idea

In no es una debilidad, sino una fortaleza:

First part: no es una debilidad (it is not a weakness)
Second part: sino una fortaleza (instead, it is a strength)

You are rejecting the first idea and replacing it with another. That’s exactly the job of sino.

Compare:

No es tímido, sino reservado.
= He’s not shy, but rather reserved.

Using pero here would sound off:
❌ no es una debilidad, pero una fortaleza
With pero, you’d normally repeat the verb:
✅ no es una debilidad, pero es una fortaleza
That’s grammatical, but sino is more elegant and natural when you’re correcting the first part.

Why is no placed before es in no es una debilidad? Why not like English, “is not”?

Spanish negatives usually go before the conjugated verb:

no es = “is not”
no tengo = “I don’t have”
no quiero = “I don’t want”

So:

English: is not a weakness
Spanish: no es una debilidad

You don’t say es no una debilidad in this kind of sentence; that word order is almost always wrong in modern Spanish, except in some special, literary, or very marked constructions.

Why do debilidad and fortaleza both use una? How do I know they are feminine?

In Spanish, nouns have grammatical gender, and both debilidad and fortaleza are feminine:

la debilidad → una debilidad
la fortaleza → una fortaleza

So their articles and any adjectives must agree in gender and number. That’s why you see una in both cases.

There isn’t always a logical reason why a word is masculine or feminine; you usually just learn the noun together with its article:

la debilidad (weakness)
la fortaleza (strength, fortress)
el problema (problem – masculine, even though it ends in -a)

What is the difference between fortaleza and fuerza? Could I say no es una debilidad, sino una fuerza?

Both fortaleza and fuerza relate to strength, but they’re not identical.

fuerza = physical strength, force, power (more general, very common)
fortaleza = strength of character, resilience; also literally “fortress”

In psychological or emotional contexts, fortaleza sounds very natural:

Es una persona de gran fortaleza.
= She is a person of great inner strength.

You could say no es una debilidad, sino una fuerza, and people would understand, but:

It sounds a bit less idiomatic in this emotional‑psychological context.
fortaleza is the more typical word when talking about personal traits as “strengths.”

So the original choice of fortaleza fits the context very well.

Why is it mi inseguridad and not mis inseguridades?

Both are possible, but they emphasize different things:

mi inseguridad (singular): your insecurity as a general trait or inner state.
→ More abstract: the overall idea of “my insecurity.”
mis inseguridades (plural): several specific insecurities.
→ More concrete: particular fears, doubts, areas where you feel insecure.

In therapy or self‑help language, it’s very common to talk about mi inseguridad in the singular to refer to the general quality of being insecure, which is what this sentence is doing.

Why is the noun inseguridad used instead of the adjective inseguro/a?

Spanish often uses abstract nouns in -dad (similar to English -ty):

seguro (secure) → seguridad (security)
inseguro (insecure) → inseguridad (insecurity)
débil (weak) → debilidad (weakness)

Here the focus is on the quality itself as something you recognize:

mi inseguridad = my insecurity (the state or trait)
ser inseguro = to be insecure (adjective describing the person)

You could express it differently:

reconocer que soy inseguro / insegura
= to recognize that I am insecure

But the original phrasing treats inseguridad like an object you can look at, accept, and work with, which is why the noun fits nicely.

Should there be a me after dice? Like Mi psicóloga me dice que…?

Both are possible:

Mi psicóloga dice que…
= My psychologist says that…
Mi psicóloga me dice que…
= My psychologist says to me that… / tells me that…

In practice:

With dice que, it’s often clear from context who is being spoken to, so the me can be omitted.
Adding me just makes it explicit that the psychologist is addressing you.

In many contexts Mi psicóloga me dice que… is actually more natural, but Mi psicóloga dice que… is absolutely correct and common, especially in written or more formal summary style.

How is psicóloga pronounced, and why is there an accent on ó?

Pronunciation (Latin American Spanish):

ps at the beginning: the p is silent → sounds like si-
ci → like “see” (an s sound, not “th” as in Spain)
g before o is a hard g, like in “go”

So, syllables: psi‑CÓ‑lo‑ga, pronounced roughly: see-KO-lo-ga.

The accent mark:

Words ending in a vowel, -n, or -s are normally stressed on the second‑to‑last syllable.
Without an accent, psicologa would be stressed as psi-CO-lo-ga (stress on CO), which actually matches where we want the stress.

But -loga / -logo type words have some historical and lexical reasons for written accents to clearly mark stress, and psicóloga is written with an accent because it’s esdrújula (stress on the third‑to‑last syllable):

psi‑CÓ‑lo‑ga → stress on CÓ, three syllables from the end

All esdrújula words in Spanish always carry a written accent on the stressed syllable, and psicóloga is one of them.