Validation: The New Psychology of Influence

Validation is one of the best psychology books I’ve read, providing accessible evidence based techniques for building better relationships and being kind to yourself. Fleck is a therapist and student of Marsha Linehan, the creator of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and brings her decades of professional experience, along with an engaging personal style that includes her struggles with multiple sclerosis, depression, and breast cancer, along with a sometimes imperfect family life.

Validation is about seeing people as they really are, about authentically connecting, and creating the space for them to grow. The acronym ACCEPTED provides a mnemonic for how to validate. Attend, Copy, Contextualize, Equalize, Predict, Take action, Emote, and Disclose. Fleck provides plenty of examples about how to do each of these steps, as well as how they can be taken too far or go wrong

One of the core techniques, the A Game (for attention game), involves listening to a person and silently trying to restate their viewpoint in a stronger way, which is a good thing to build into an active listening practice. Empathy, and an escalating ladder of ways to validate, seem like solid foundations.