How I work

Validation

One of the most useful ideas in therapy fits in a sentence: you can let someone know their reaction makes sense without agreeing with everything they say. That includes the someone in the mirror.

Two cushioned armchairs and a small side table in a warmly lit room at dusk

What is validation, exactly?

Validation is communicating that someone's reaction makes sense, given what they have lived through and what they are facing. It is not agreement, approval, praise, or giving in. You can validate a feeling and still disagree about the facts, the decision, or what happens next.

For example: I can see why you felt dismissed when I checked my phone while you were talking. That sentence settles nothing about who was right. It simply says the reaction is understandable, which is often what a person needs before they can hear anything else.

Why does DBT care so much about it?

DBT, my primary method, rests on a balance between acceptance and change. Pushing for change in someone who feels unheard tends to produce resistance. Validation is the acceptance half. It tells a person that they make sense as they are, and that is often what makes change possible.

It is also how I work in sessions. I meet you where you are and take your reactions seriously, and I will also challenge you and say what you need to hear. Those two belong together. Either one on its own falls short.

How do I validate someone without agreeing with them?

Start by actually listening, the active kind rather than waiting for your turn. Reflect back what you heard without editing it. Look for the part of their reaction that makes sense, given their history or the situation, and say that part out loud.

What it is not: telling them they are right when you do not think so, fixing the problem before it has been heard, or explaining why they should not feel that way. Those responses tend to close a conversation down. Something as plain as saying it makes sense that you are upset tends to open it up.

What is self-validation?

The same skill turned inward. It is common to be generous with other people and harsh with yourself: you should not be this upset, other people have it worse, get over it. That voice rarely makes anything better. It mostly adds shame to whatever was already hard.

Self-validation sounds more like: given what happened, of course I feel this way. It does not mean you like the reaction or want to keep it. It means you stop fighting the fact of it, which frees up energy for deciding what to do next. Over time, a steadier inner voice also makes it easier to admit a mistake, because a mistake stops feeling like proof that something is wrong with you.

Where does validation help most?

In couples, it can interrupt the cycle where each person defends a position and nobody feels heard. Between parents and teenagers, it can be the difference between a slammed door and a conversation that keeps going. With yourself, it can take the edge off the inner critic.

Two things are true: your reaction makes sense, and you can still choose a different response next time. We practice both with real conversations from your week, toward goals that are specific and achievable.

What validation can sound like

That makes sense, given what happened
I can see why that hurt
Of course you are worried about that
I would probably feel the same in your position
I see it differently, and I understand why you see it that way

Questions people ask

Is validation the same as telling people what they want to hear?

No. Telling people what they want to hear is about avoiding conflict. Validation is about accuracy: naming the part of a reaction that genuinely makes sense. You can validate and still say the hard thing, and the hard thing tends to land better once the person feels understood.

What if their feelings make no sense to me?

Then get curious before you decide. Ask what happened, what it meant to them, and what they were afraid of. Something in their history or the situation usually makes the reaction understandable, even if you would have reacted differently. If you still cannot find it, saying you are trying to understand is a form of validation too.

Can validation help with a teenager?

Often, yes. A teenager braced for a lecture may be caught off guard, in a good way, by a response that starts with understanding. It does not mean agreeing with every choice. It means the conversation can last long enough to reach the choices that matter.

Where to go from here

DBTWhy acceptance and change belong in the same room.
Couples therapyWhere feeling heard often has to come before anything else.
Relationship issuesWhen both of you are defending and neither of you feels heard.
About RodricWhy a conversation is a platform, not a competition.
Family therapyGetting a household talking again instead of managing each other.

Ready when you are.

Therapy starts with a conversation. Send a short message and tell me what is going on, in your own words. We meet in person in Omaha, and online across Nebraska and Rhode Island.

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