Relationships
The Power of Validation
Sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer someone isn’t a solution — it’s understanding.
Validation is the process of confirming the validity of someone’s emotions — communicating understanding and acceptance, without necessarily agreeing. Psychologist Marsha Linehan identified six levels of validation, from simply being present to responding with genuine honesty. Practicing validation strengthens relationships, de-escalates conflict, and helps people feel understood. It’s a skill anyone can build with practice.
Consider the last time you vented a frustration to a friend, a family member, or your partner. How did they respond? If it was something like “give it time, it’ll seem small later” or “it’s not that big a deal,” how did that land? Probably not well. Now imagine they’d said instead, “That sounds really disappointing — I’d be upset too.” That difference is the power of validation, and after two decades of this work, I’m convinced it’s one of the most underrated skills in any relationship.
What Validation Is
In the therapy world, validation is the process of confirming the validity of someone’s emotions. Importantly, it is not the same as approval or agreement. You can completely disagree with someone and still validate what they feel. Validation simply communicates understanding — a way of saying “your experience makes sense to me, and I value this relationship even when we see things differently.” And often, feeling understood is the thing a person actually needs most.
The Six Levels of Validation
Psychologist Marsha Linehan, Ph.D., describes six levels of validation, each one a little deeper than the last:
1. Being present. Simply giving someone your full, undistracted attention — no phone, no planning your reply — is itself a form of validation.
2. Accurate reflection. Reflecting back what you heard: “So you felt blindsided when the plan changed.” It shows you’re actually listening.
3. Articulating the unspoken. Gently naming a feeling the person hasn’t quite said: “I wonder if that also felt a little hurtful.” Done carefully, it helps them feel deeply seen.
4. Validating in terms of history. Recognizing that a reaction makes sense given what someone has been through: “Of course that scared you, after everything last year.”
5. Validating as reasonable. Acknowledging that, given the situation, most people would feel the same: “Anyone would be frustrated by that.”
6. Radical genuineness. Responding as a real, equal human being rather than from behind a role — honest, warm, and present. This is the deepest level, and the most connecting.
Why It’s So Powerful
Validation does something counterintuitive: it tends to lower the emotional temperature rather than raise it. When people feel understood, they usually calm down, open up, and become far more able to problem-solve. When they feel dismissed, they dig in. So validation isn’t just kind — it’s often the most effective first move in a hard conversation, whether with a partner, a child, or a colleague.
It Matters for the Hard Feelings Too
We’re often comfortable celebrating someone’s good news. It’s the difficult emotions — disappointment, anger, grief, fear — that we rush to fix or minimize, usually because we want to help. But it’s just as important to validate the unpleasant feelings as the pleasant ones. Sitting with someone in a hard feeling, without rushing them out of it, is one of the most generous things we can do.
A Skill Worth Practicing
Like any skill, validation takes practice — and most of us were never taught it. If you’d like to get better at it, in your marriage, your parenting, or your friendships, that’s exactly the kind of thing therapy can help with. We’d love to work with you.