When you validate someone else, it can go a long way towards creating understanding. That’s because validation often requires stepping into someone else’s shoes for a moment and seeing the world as they do.
Many valuable tools fall under the overall skill of effective communication. Yet, some of the tools and skills may seem hard to master.
In fact, it’s probably one of the reasons why you sought out DBT therapy—to work on the communication skills evading you.
Validtion is a crucial communication skill for effective interpersonal interactions
Validation may sound “fluffy”, like you’re stuck agreeing with everything someone says, but there’s more to it than that. It’s actually an important tool that can help you to improve your relationships.
We often get asked about how validation works, so we’ve gathered some of our most frequently asked questions about validation.
1. How Does Validation Create Understanding Between You and Others?
One way that validation helps improve your relationships is by creating understanding between you and others.
What may seem to be unrealistic to you is actually their everyday reality. This helps you to form new ways of thinking and viewing how others experience life.
Then, understanding is fostered between you and the other person. Which, of course, helps to improve your relationships.
2. Can You Find Acceptance Through Validation?
If you are able to create a better understanding with someone else, you are also able to find acceptance, too.
Validation requires you to be willing to acknowledge that what the other person is saying is true to them. Meaning, you choose not to second-guess them as their perspective is just as valid as yours.
Of course, you are also free to have your own perspectives as well. However, by validating someone else’s perspective, you are accepting that their perspectives are meaningful to them, and because you are in relationship with them, they have some meaning to you. You don’t have to agree, but you can see that they have their own perspective and it matters.
This can help a great deal in fostering positive communication with others. There are far too many people out there who, sadly, do the opposite and instead discount those perspectives.
3. Will Validation Allow You to Be More Open?
Another way that validation improves your relationships is fostering a sense of openness.
Think about it for a moment. How easy is it to really have positive relationships with other people when you are closed off to them? The answer is, not very easy at all!
By validating others, you open yourself up to a stronger and more meaningful connection to other people. It’s actually quite exciting to experience.
For example, let’s say you travel to a foreign country and immerse yourself in that culture. When you have interactions with other people, you learn about their backgrounds and stories. You acknowledge what they are saying, which allows you to be more open to their lived experiences. It’s part of what makes travel so exciting and rewarding. You aren’t going to spend the whole trip saying Suffolk County is better, and you aren’t thinking less of your home, you’re just open to experiencing and appreciating the broadness of lived experience in the world.
4. How Can You Improve Your Relationships with Emotional Safety?
Finally, validation lets you improve your relationships by creating a greater sense of emotional safety.
When you feel emotionally safe with another person, you know that you can trust them. Also, that they can trust you. This, in turn, allows both of you to be vulnerable and open. That’s because you both know that your relationship is based on emotional safety.
It becomes critically important when one of you experiences a crisis and needs to reach out to someone who “gets it.” Otherwise, you feel lost and alone.
Validation is just one of many DBT communication skills. Yet, it is very necessary to improve your relationships. It requires that you step outside of yourself and see the world as others see it.
A New York City therapist from Suffolk DBT can help you develop this incredible skill. When you validate someone else you are also affirming that their lived reality is just as important as yours or someone else’s.
Please, contact me today, or click here to learn more about how to incorporate validation in your own relationships.
Frequently Asked Questions About Interpersonal Effectiveness
Why would I want to be “effective” in my interpersonal interactions?
Interpersonal interactions aren’t just random experiences. You may be trying to build or maintain a healthy relationship with someone, or you may be trying to provide, or receive, a service. Every interaction includes your goals, and your personal values.
Effective interactions are rooted in focus on your goals and values. Not in a transactional, “what can I get out of this?” way, but in a “Who am I, what do I need, and how can I interact here in a way that clearly communicates that?” Being honest, focused, willing to listen, and respectful to yourself and others creates effective interactions, even when you’re frustrated, sad, angry, or overwhelmed.
Does “interpersonal effectiveness” mean being inauthentic or fake?
No! Interpersonal effectiveness skills are guidelines to provide you with a balanced way to approach interactions that help you come off as yourself. When your emotions are overwhelming you it can actually be harder to act according to your values. You may say or do things that don’t align with who you know yourself to be; yelling at someone or agreeing with everything they say when you’re overwhelmed with emotion is a response to the emotion, not a response to the moment, nor is it who you are all the time.
Interpersonal effectiveness skills help you find yourself again when you’re interacting with others, but also feeling strong emotions. By prioritizing self-respect and meeting your needs effectively, you get to interact in a way that isn’t driven by strong feelings, but by your most authentic wants and needs.
Suffolk DBT proudly provides quality dialectical behavior therapy, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, at their offices in Manhattan and Long Island, New York and online. Their experienced therapists specialize in serving teens, children, adults, and college students struggling with depression, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, and self-harm. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills and treatment can help you or your kids to manage emotions and work through life’s challenges. Suffolk DBT Manhattan and Long Island offer a free screening call so you can get started right away.