Levels of Validation
DBT SkillsSo now we're gonna move in to a really important skill, which is the importance of having an ability to validate other people. Alright? And so what I'm gonna do right now is just go over that with you because this is really good to teach to your clients because you've gotta remember Not only are you learning how to validate them, but you're teaching them how to validate everybody else. So the first one is pay attention. You can't really validate somebody if you haven't paid attention. I guarantee you. The second one is reflect back without judgment.
Basically, the bottom line here is that you're going to observe something, then you're going to tell a person what you observed. And when you tell them what you observed, you are not going to be judgmental. Because judgmental is exactly the opposite of validation. I guarantee you that. Then the third is reading other people's minds. Really, what it means is observing other people and figuring out what is likely going on with them and saying something about it. Four is what? It's communicating that you understand the causes.
This one's easy. This one is super easy. Why? Because all things are caused. So number five is when you acknowledge the valid. This is when someone tells you something that someone else didn't agree with. But in fact, what they're telling you really is valid. So believe me, it's very validating when you say, I really understand what you're talking about. I understand why you're saying it. Number six is when you show equality.
Now, what's that mean? That's really showing that just about everybody makes mistakes of one word or another. And even though the person that you're talking to may have made a really big mistakes, you can also say other people have probably made the same mistake at some point in the game. In other words, you're validating that this is not a tragedy, that it doesn't mean that they are incompetent. So the idea to a certain extent is to normalize the behavior.
Such that the person is not being treated is if there's really something seriously wrong with them and take it from me, interacting with a person that communicates there's something seriously wrong with them, will always, every single solitary time come across as invalidating. So you're trying to do pretty much just the opposite without necessarily saying you approve of everything they just did. Because there actually could be mistakes. The idea is that we all make mistakes.