Understanding Validation
Validation is an important aspect of interpersonal relationships, yet its use is often quite misunderstood. It allows us to communicate that we recognize and accept the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of those we care about, and enhances intimacy in our relationships. It is commonly believed that validation and agreement/approval are one in the same, but the former communicates support and care, even in the absence of agreement. When a friend or family member shares their feelings from a negative exchange or experience, validation allows them to feel understood and can actually ease their pain. Now, to facilitate the use of validation in our relationships, we’ll take a look at some of its levels, as it can be pretty tricky to put into practice.
Level 1 – Being Present
While listening to someone speak, you can demonstrate active listening or empathy in a few different ways. By placing your current activity on hold and directly facing the individual speaking, you can help them feel they have your undivided attention. Nodding and providing other nonverbal cues is another way to demonstrate you are interested and following what the other person is saying. Finally, simply being present is enough to ease someone’s pain, so it isn’t necessary to provide the most “appropriate” response--which can be very challenging.
Level 2 – Accurate Reflection and Acknowledgment
This step is easy, because you just have to adequately summarize the main points of what you just heard someone say. It can feel pretty silly and you might think it’s not helpful, but genuinely reflecting what someone has just said can really help him or her feel understood. And again, your summary doesn’t mean you agree with what’s been said, and you might not, because agreement and validation don’t have to go hand-in-hand.
Level 3 – Telepathy
That’s a joke! You don’t actually have to be able to read minds, you just have to focus on what’s observable in your environment, i.e., affect (visible emotion), body language, and perspective taking. The easiest way to accomplish this level is to phrase your observations like clairvoyant predictions: “I bet that was really challenging to endure. You must be exhausted?” In doing so, you might actually help someone gain greater insight to his or her own experience by providing your objective interpretation.
Level 4 – Validation of Consequent, Behavioral Changes
This is just a fancy way of saying understanding someone’s reactions are the result of previous experiences. This one’s more challenging than the previous levels, so I’ll use an example to explain. Your coworker was in a car accident caused by wet roads during the last time it rained. It started raining a few hours into the workday and you notice he is acting anxious and preoccupied during a meeting. A response demonstrating this level of validation would indicate understanding that he is anxious about driving home at the end of the day because of his car accident when it last rained.
Level 5 – Normalizing and Recognizing as Understandable in the Moment
Validation of this level involves communicating to another that the emotional reaction they are having is reasonable and maybe even expected given their circumstances, i.e., anxiety before an exam. “Makes sense you’re a little anxious, you’re preparing for a pretty big test and you want to do well.” This is an example of a normalizing response.
Validation is easy to understand, and hopefully it’s easy to see why it is so essential to the development and maintenance of safe, secure, and meaningful interpersonal relationships (personal and professional). It can be a little tricky to apply, but it gets easier with practice, and in doing so, the quality of your relationships can improve dramatically.
Dr. Russell Floyd