The Art of Validation

What is validation and why is it so important? The dictionary definition describes validation as “the recognition or affirmation that a person or their feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile”. Basically, it means that you are acknowledging that someone’s perspective and feelings make sense.

I learned about the power of validation during my counselling training, and it has become a skill that I have cultivated for my job. It is a tool that I also weave into my personal life with my friends, my husband, my kids, and other family members. What I have found is that by providing validation, it helps people feel seen and heard and allows their feelings to be acknowledged. By responding to someone like this it helps to keep the conversation less defensive, and it allows the feelings to just be there. Often, in relationships we don’t want to see our loved ones struggling, so we swoop in with problem solving ideas. But by doing this, we are missing the important step of validating, and our loved one is left feeling unheard and might not be ready to problem solve yet, so this leads to defensiveness.

For example, if my husband came home from work and started telling me how tired he is and about his hard day of dealing with passengers and traffic and I said something like, “yeah, well, at least you have a job” or “your done for the day now, so let it go”. You can see how this is minimizing his experience and invalidating his feelings and would probably leave him feeling unsupported by me. While on the other hand if I said something like, “yeah, I could understand why you’ve had a hard day, the traffic was nuts today and you are dealing with so many people. It makes sense that you’re feeling tired.” I might follow that up with, “what do you need?” or “how can I support you?” rather than assuming that I know what he needs next. Maybe he just wants to share about his day and doesn’t need problem solving. Here is a funny video clip about validation and empathy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hFAv8z8xmw&t=8s

Dr. Adele Lafrance is an expert psychologist in the Emotion Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) world and offers ideas for parents about how to be emotional coaches to their kids through validation of feelings.

She explains that to validate properly you need to transform this:

 “I can understand why you might think/feel/want, BUT ____________________________.”

To this:

 “I can understand why you might think/feel/want, BECAUSE _________________________.”

(list 3 things that reflect the other person’s internal experience)

 I love this visual representation of what emotion coaching is:

Dr. Lafrance has many wonderful videos, handouts, and book recommendations on her website if you want to learn more: https://www.mentalhealthfoundations.ca/resources

Try on validating in your conversations and see what you notice, does it feel like you are connecting with people on a more meaningful level? Do your loved ones seem more open to sharing with you?