Empathy and Validation-Relationship Superheroes

Conflict, disagreements, and misunderstandings are par for the course for being a person out in the world who comes in contacts with other humans out in the world. The number one way to prevent those conflicts, disagreements, and misunderstandings from escalating and being explosive is to meet these big feelings with Empathy and Validation.

Empathy and Validation (yes, they are important enough that they both deserve to be capitalized) are two of my most explored concepts in the therapy room. Most commonly between couples, but also with individuals and families these concepts are desperately needed and often misunderstood and underutilized.

So let’s dig into this.

What is empathy?:

According to Merriam-Webster, Empathy has two definitions.

The first is: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

The second is: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

Both of these are important when experiencing and expressing empathy. Simply stated, empathy is being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see a world where what they are experiencing is big “R” Reality versus simply their perspective.

Validation is what comes next. Validation is putting into words that you see your partner. That what they are feeling is real to them. And that those feelings are okay to have.

“But Leah…what if I don’t think their feelings are valid? What if I think they’re just being dramatic or looking for something to be wrong?”

That is not your call to make. Full stop.

A good rule of thumb for everyone is that every feeling is valid (full thought, period, pause). Every behavior, alternatively, is not.

With that, let’s give an example of what empathy is not. I hear this regularly both in the therapy room and out in the world:

“I hear you, but, this is your life and you need to figure it out.”

What’s wrong with this? At first glance, they SAID “I hear you”. The biggest mistake here is the use of “but”. But takes away and negates everything that comes before it. So this sentence is heard as “this is your life and you need to figure it out”. OUCH that’s not validating, that’s not loving.

How can we say this differently?

A potential redo might look like “Hey, I hear you. It sounds like this has been a really difficult time and it must be so frustrating to feel stuck.”

What was different about this? It started the same “I hear you” (which is not even my favorite way to actually demonstrate hearing someone but it works). It follows up with a reflection of what you see them feeling or hear from what they’re saying. That’s it! The goals is to help your partner feel seen. Sometimes this is enough to move into problem solving mode IF it’s something to be solved. Otherwise, it does a great job of demonstrating that you see your partner and you are in this with them.

Not being alone or seen as “crazy” is an incredibly powerful thing.

What ways have you felt people have been able to empathize and validate your feelings effectively? What ways do YOU empathize and validate the feelings of people around you?