The Dark Side of Validation

We hear often that to help regulate a client, we validate validate validate. The idea is that if a client feels truly understood, they will calm down because their venting is a result of not feeling understood. The hope is that once someone is more regulated, they will be able to tolerate seeing their action tendency as something both understandable and unhelpful in the cycle. Ultimately the wish is that the client will recognize they need to do something different with their fears in order to achieve soothing and connection.

But sometimes we see - huh, when I validate this client, they seem to take my validation as permission to act out. It actually seems to increase their venting, or they continue to beat this same drum session after session.

This is where it can be really helpful to ask - am I validating a red part or a green part of this person? Lorna Smith Benjamin coined these terms, helping us see that red parts of ourselves are connected to problematic patterns or fantasies, and green parts of ourselves are connected to a desire for healthy change.

Take for example an affair case, where the partner cheated on is raw in their grief and anger. No matter how many sessions pass, this partner never seems to feel soothed by you or their partner. They feel momentarily understood by you, but it never lasts. No matter how many times you affirm, reflect, and validate, they seem to be caught in a cyclone of their pain. They express a desperate wish for their partner to come close, to soothe them, to acknowledge their pain, but any time their partner tries to get close, they push them away - not trusting their partner truly cares and regrets the affair.

This takes nuanced work of the therapist, because the red and green parts are swirled together like Christmas yarn. Green pattern - I want soothing and comfort from my partner for this pain. Red pattern - I want my partner to soothe me regardless of how much I vent or act out. I wish the therapist would reinforce to my partner that they need to comfort me regardless of my venting.

It’s not that it’s always wrong to reflect/validate the red, because we need to help clients feel understood and work with where they are. But in hindsight I can see some clients where I feel I was simply amplifying their red patterns and wishes with every affirming reflection I did. I cringe to tell you that there are couples I worked with for YEARS who never budged, and I can see now how much I was amplifying their red wishes and desires out of my own lack of education and anxious reflex to validate and soothe them.

So what might a red vs green reflection sound like? Here are some examples.

RED - “You’re in so much pain, and you really don’t trust them yet. This affair exploded everything you knew, everything that helped you feel safe in your life.”

RED - “I get it, you were truly burned in the past, and now whenever they do XYZ, it flares up all those fears again.”

RED - “You had insecurities but you could keep them quiet knowing she/he had chosen you and loved you - this affair has ripped away that security and now the insecurities are so front and center.”

You can see with the red reflections that it sounds like I am really getting their pain, but that it could also amplify someone’s sense of despair and helplessness. The reflections could also reinforce why they are acting out so much - “Yeah, it IS that bad! It makes perfect sense why I would be this upset!”. This is where it’s really important to have a clear conceptualization of your clients. If this client has a red pattern of, “I want my partner to soothe my pain regardless of how I act” then the above reflections would likely amplify this belief. If you have a client who doesn’t have that pattern, they would probably take the above as a simple validation and not stay stuck here.

GREEN - “There is this need for him/her to come close and soothe you, and a simultaneous impulse to push him/her away.”

GREEN - “There may be this wish that I as the therapist would reinforce your message, and become another voice telling your partner he/she needs to do what you want him/her to do.”

GREEN - “Being in a relationship where your partner has cheated on you is a reality you never imagined you would be in, and now you’re faced with the very difficult tasks of how to cope and receive comfort from this person.”

You can see the green reflections are very subtly nudging at the idea of a better perspective or personal agency. There’s this implicit notion at the end of each green reflection that there could be something for the client to work on here.

Remember that it’s your clients who will tell you what is or isn’t working. Understanding the difference between red and green becomes much more important when you see a client taking in your reflection and validation as further reinforcement that they don’t have agency or ability. If you find yourself thinking, “no matter how much I validate, this client doesn’t seem to regulate or feel more understood,” it’s a good time to consider if you could be unknowingly amplifying a red pattern.

My fear is always that I would cause a client to feel invalidated or not understood in their pain. I still get nervous, even writing this post, that I could be seen as not caring enough about my client’s pain. But then I hear my supervisor’s voice in my head asking me, “What do you think will really regulate them more - them thinking you’re the most empathetic therapist in the world, or them believing they have the ability to change something for themselves?”