So Avigail, with reference to podcast #4, let's say that a person says something to me that is reflective of their, say, paranoia with reference to me. Their paranoia about me is not accurate, not valid, and, for the sake of discussion, I'm not trying to use them or deceive them or whatever. Their paranoia is not an accurate reflection of me, though of course their feeling of paranoia is a valid feeling to them. If I'm Good Friend #2, do I validate their paranoia, and then try to correct their perception of reality by saying that I was not trying to use or deceive them? If I don't try to correct, and just validate, then they would be left with an inaccurate understanding or perception of reality. J.H.
Validating someone else’s feelings is not the same as agreeing with them or saying that they are right. What it does is it lets them know that you recognise that they have a feeling/an inner subjective reality. To have any chance of getting through to another person and offer them new information/facts/correction or whatever, they need to know we see them, and acknowledge that they have their feelings/subjective reality. If we engage in a conversation with someone else as if we are sparring with them, then it just becomes a power struggle. If we start with validating and acknowledging that they are feeling something, there is a better chance the engagement will become more collaborative.
Most people are so used to fighting/arguing/sparring, that when someone validates them they don’t know what to do with it at first, and become very confused or even hostile. We have a problem in our world that almost everything is fighting and a competition. There is not much collaborative effort to help people grow and be well. Arguments between non-disordered (no Personality disorder) people and hostility are always a results of one or two of the people being triggered into some unfinished business wired into their heads and a feeling of threat. Remember that under threat the limbic system takes over and all rational, clear thinking goes out the window. All it takes is one person remaining firmly in their PFC and validating, to diffuse the entire situation. Validation does not work with people with PDs and should not be attempted. Where possible stay away.
Validating people is a completely different paradigm in human relationships. In practical terms what it does is that if someone else is very limbic and triggered, genuine validation helps regulate their brain in that moment. It doesn’t last—we cannot change the architecture of adults brains directly from outside—but when people are better regulated, even if it’s temporary, they will have access to their own prefrontal cortex. There is a better chance then that they would be more rational and open to considering other points of view. There is a chance that they will experience genuine empathy. I see this with couples all the time in real life.
I do not engage with people who are abusive. But if someone is just triggered and expresses emotions, validating them is easy, provided I can remain in my PFC and not have my own limbic brain hijack it. Eg. ‘I can see you are very worried about antisemitism and you are scared. It’s understandable and you have a right to feel your feelings. Are you interested in hearing what I think about such and such?’….
I have not been very good with Zionists myself some of the time, partly because they can be horribly abusive. I don’t feel an obligation to engage with absolutely everyone, and I don’t expose myself to harm if I can help it. But where possible, validation is the key to starting a proper human engagement that is not a sparring match.
Some people are very deeply wounded and messy, filled with suffering and inner warfare. This can often be expressed as hostility to others, bitterness, a need to appear superior, etc. It can be very difficult to engage in a productive way, so choose who you engage with.
Another thing to mention is that after you validate, some people might continue to be hostile and you might walk away, but there is a chance that you will have planted a seed. No one changes when everything is always the same and they get the same reaction that they expect to get. People need encounter something new and different and actually get confused, to have a chance of changing. Confusion works differently in those who are capable of change and those who aren’t. The latter would pretend it didn’t happen and will continue to see things from within their own wiring. In those who are capable of change, confusion is likely to trigger reflection and growth.
My clients come to therapy with the intent to change. In the world outside my work I don’t have a mandate to do what I can do in therapy. But I always validate and see what happens. As I said, I don’t knowingly put myself in harm’s way. My wellbeing is the most important thing for me. If I am unwell, I won’t be able to play my part in the world. Being well makes us more generous and available to others, not less.
Validation is an expression of our shared humanity. We don’t have *the same* feelings or inner experiences, but we all know what it’s like to feel anger, sadness, grief, hurt, fear. So when we validate someone else, we show them we recognise our shared humanity. It’s worth validating others not for any end gain, but because it is the right thing to do.
I can try to tell a rabid Zionist that I am a good person until I am blue in the face, but they will stay fixed in what they believe about me. I need to *show* them that I am not the person they think I am by behaving in a way that they don’t expect. We learn much better experientially than we do from being told, or another way of saying it is that showing is much more powerful than telling. I hope that makes sense. It’s a bit late and I’m not sure I’m so coherent anymore, but I waned to respond because your question is really good and it is one that I am asked all the time. Thank you.
You make some interesting points in your response to the question. Can validation occur just through listening? I am thinking in terms of a close relationship where the listener is only acting as a sounding board rather than just verbally acknowledging the person laying their emotions out on the table so to speak. And is journalling also a way to validate when there is no one around to listen to your expressed emotions or frustrations?
Validation always makes people feel safe and often enables people to open up more. So we should always aim to be validating in all our interactions with people. But traditional therapies haven’t made a significant difference to people, because we cannot change adult brains in any significant way from the outside. Obviously being in a safe environment supports growth, but it doesn’t in itself change adult brains directly. I think I try to explain this in more than one video. But let me know if it’s not clear and I will repeat.
We can only make significant changes from the outside and directly to children and young people’s brains. When we are small our brains wire everything from the outside. This is how we learn everything we know It means that when you validate children and young people’s feelings, it directly leads to connections forming between their limbic brain and developing prefrontal cortex.
Journalling is validating, but I find the most effective way is to journal in the form of a dialogue where the person’s PFC and limbic ‘selves’ speak to one another and the PFC is always validating.
It’s also helpful to say ‘you’ when validating, rather than ‘I’. When parents validate children’s feelings, they say ‘you’ because the child is a separate person. In my work I have found that when clients say ‘you’ internally (e.g., ‘It’s OK to feel whatever you’re feeling’) change happens faster compared to clients who tried to speak in the first person (e.g., ‘It’s ok for me to feel like this’). So I suspect that the brain responds better to ‘you’. Also when we say ‘I’ it’s not clear who’s talking to whom in the brain.
Basically we’re training the PFC to do what the person’s parents should have trained it to do by modelling their brains and by wiring the child’s brain directly from the outside. In adulthood we need to do the work ourselves. This is why it feels harder to learn in adulthood compared when we were children. Therapy is no different to any process of learning (wiring). All human learning depends on connectivity between different brain parts. Human psychological functioning depends on good connectivity between the PFC and limbic system, which we are supposed to get from outside (like language). We have the potential to develop it but we need the right input from outside in childhood and that input is validation by significant others, and ideally all adults around the child. (If it helps, I explain it all in my short book, _Therapy Without A Therapist_).
So Avigail, with reference to podcast #4, let's say that a person says something to me that is reflective of their, say, paranoia with reference to me. Their paranoia about me is not accurate, not valid, and, for the sake of discussion, I'm not trying to use them or deceive them or whatever. Their paranoia is not an accurate reflection of me, though of course their feeling of paranoia is a valid feeling to them. If I'm Good Friend #2, do I validate their paranoia, and then try to correct their perception of reality by saying that I was not trying to use or deceive them? If I don't try to correct, and just validate, then they would be left with an inaccurate understanding or perception of reality. J.H.
Validating someone else’s feelings is not the same as agreeing with them or saying that they are right. What it does is it lets them know that you recognise that they have a feeling/an inner subjective reality. To have any chance of getting through to another person and offer them new information/facts/correction or whatever, they need to know we see them, and acknowledge that they have their feelings/subjective reality. If we engage in a conversation with someone else as if we are sparring with them, then it just becomes a power struggle. If we start with validating and acknowledging that they are feeling something, there is a better chance the engagement will become more collaborative.
Most people are so used to fighting/arguing/sparring, that when someone validates them they don’t know what to do with it at first, and become very confused or even hostile. We have a problem in our world that almost everything is fighting and a competition. There is not much collaborative effort to help people grow and be well. Arguments between non-disordered (no Personality disorder) people and hostility are always a results of one or two of the people being triggered into some unfinished business wired into their heads and a feeling of threat. Remember that under threat the limbic system takes over and all rational, clear thinking goes out the window. All it takes is one person remaining firmly in their PFC and validating, to diffuse the entire situation. Validation does not work with people with PDs and should not be attempted. Where possible stay away.
Validating people is a completely different paradigm in human relationships. In practical terms what it does is that if someone else is very limbic and triggered, genuine validation helps regulate their brain in that moment. It doesn’t last—we cannot change the architecture of adults brains directly from outside—but when people are better regulated, even if it’s temporary, they will have access to their own prefrontal cortex. There is a better chance then that they would be more rational and open to considering other points of view. There is a chance that they will experience genuine empathy. I see this with couples all the time in real life.
I do not engage with people who are abusive. But if someone is just triggered and expresses emotions, validating them is easy, provided I can remain in my PFC and not have my own limbic brain hijack it. Eg. ‘I can see you are very worried about antisemitism and you are scared. It’s understandable and you have a right to feel your feelings. Are you interested in hearing what I think about such and such?’….
I have not been very good with Zionists myself some of the time, partly because they can be horribly abusive. I don’t feel an obligation to engage with absolutely everyone, and I don’t expose myself to harm if I can help it. But where possible, validation is the key to starting a proper human engagement that is not a sparring match.
Some people are very deeply wounded and messy, filled with suffering and inner warfare. This can often be expressed as hostility to others, bitterness, a need to appear superior, etc. It can be very difficult to engage in a productive way, so choose who you engage with.
Another thing to mention is that after you validate, some people might continue to be hostile and you might walk away, but there is a chance that you will have planted a seed. No one changes when everything is always the same and they get the same reaction that they expect to get. People need encounter something new and different and actually get confused, to have a chance of changing. Confusion works differently in those who are capable of change and those who aren’t. The latter would pretend it didn’t happen and will continue to see things from within their own wiring. In those who are capable of change, confusion is likely to trigger reflection and growth.
My clients come to therapy with the intent to change. In the world outside my work I don’t have a mandate to do what I can do in therapy. But I always validate and see what happens. As I said, I don’t knowingly put myself in harm’s way. My wellbeing is the most important thing for me. If I am unwell, I won’t be able to play my part in the world. Being well makes us more generous and available to others, not less.
Validation is an expression of our shared humanity. We don’t have *the same* feelings or inner experiences, but we all know what it’s like to feel anger, sadness, grief, hurt, fear. So when we validate someone else, we show them we recognise our shared humanity. It’s worth validating others not for any end gain, but because it is the right thing to do.
I can try to tell a rabid Zionist that I am a good person until I am blue in the face, but they will stay fixed in what they believe about me. I need to *show* them that I am not the person they think I am by behaving in a way that they don’t expect. We learn much better experientially than we do from being told, or another way of saying it is that showing is much more powerful than telling. I hope that makes sense. It’s a bit late and I’m not sure I’m so coherent anymore, but I waned to respond because your question is really good and it is one that I am asked all the time. Thank you.
You make some interesting points in your response to the question. Can validation occur just through listening? I am thinking in terms of a close relationship where the listener is only acting as a sounding board rather than just verbally acknowledging the person laying their emotions out on the table so to speak. And is journalling also a way to validate when there is no one around to listen to your expressed emotions or frustrations?
Validation always makes people feel safe and often enables people to open up more. So we should always aim to be validating in all our interactions with people. But traditional therapies haven’t made a significant difference to people, because we cannot change adult brains in any significant way from the outside. Obviously being in a safe environment supports growth, but it doesn’t in itself change adult brains directly. I think I try to explain this in more than one video. But let me know if it’s not clear and I will repeat.
We can only make significant changes from the outside and directly to children and young people’s brains. When we are small our brains wire everything from the outside. This is how we learn everything we know It means that when you validate children and young people’s feelings, it directly leads to connections forming between their limbic brain and developing prefrontal cortex.
Journalling is validating, but I find the most effective way is to journal in the form of a dialogue where the person’s PFC and limbic ‘selves’ speak to one another and the PFC is always validating.
It’s also helpful to say ‘you’ when validating, rather than ‘I’. When parents validate children’s feelings, they say ‘you’ because the child is a separate person. In my work I have found that when clients say ‘you’ internally (e.g., ‘It’s OK to feel whatever you’re feeling’) change happens faster compared to clients who tried to speak in the first person (e.g., ‘It’s ok for me to feel like this’). So I suspect that the brain responds better to ‘you’. Also when we say ‘I’ it’s not clear who’s talking to whom in the brain.
Basically we’re training the PFC to do what the person’s parents should have trained it to do by modelling their brains and by wiring the child’s brain directly from the outside. In adulthood we need to do the work ourselves. This is why it feels harder to learn in adulthood compared when we were children. Therapy is no different to any process of learning (wiring). All human learning depends on connectivity between different brain parts. Human psychological functioning depends on good connectivity between the PFC and limbic system, which we are supposed to get from outside (like language). We have the potential to develop it but we need the right input from outside in childhood and that input is validation by significant others, and ideally all adults around the child. (If it helps, I explain it all in my short book, _Therapy Without A Therapist_).