Uploaded by A Sound Mind on 2019-08-03.

Many times, distress in relationships comes from not feeling understood or feeling misunderstood. Validation refers to finding the truth in someone's perspective and communicating it. When we validate, we acknowledge that a person's emotions, thoughts and behaviors make sense. Validation is also relevant for us - we can self-validate or self-invalidate our own experience.

Think of a situation when you validated yourself or someone else and describe how you did that.

Describe the situation: What happened? Who was involved?

Select what you did to validate:

Paid attention to the other person, did not multitask.

Reflected back what the other person said, used nonjudgmental language.

Understood the other person’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors based on their situation.

Validated, normalized the other person’s emotional reactions.

Was genuine, treated the other person as equal, didn’t act superior or condescending.

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