Dr. Caroline Fleck
Appearances
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I'm doing well. How are you?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I am excited to be here.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
No, no, common mistake, but that's not what we're talking about. We're also not talking about agreement, which I want to clarify upfront because a lot of people confuse validation. If I validate somebody, I must agree with them, which is not the case.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
That is my job. And I'm like having this moment as you're describing that of just this like warmth moment. this tingly warmth, like literally in my chest, because I have had that experience again and again and again with people both who are the victims in these situations, victims of pervasive invalidation, right? Who were told that their emotions don't matter, their bodies don't matter, right?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I've seen that side of it. I've also seen the perpetrators of those acts. And it's my job, oftentimes, to reform, to help those people change, which is a really difficult situation to be in when you have all these judgments, as one would, about what they're doing to themselves and to others. But when you flip that, when you are able to find something valid in their experience, it is...
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It's a profound experience in both directions, both for me as the person working with that individual and then for that individual. All of these things that you're describing occur in cycles. If you look at the chain of cause and effect that led someone to be a rapist or to be X, Y, or Z, there's almost always a long history of invalidation, trauma behind that.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So validation communicates basically that you see the other person, you hear them, okay? If I was to give you the academic definition, we'd say validation communicates, first and foremost, it's a form of communication. It communicates mindfulness, understanding, and empathy in a way that conveys genuine acceptance, okay? So it's just that feeling of like, oh, I feel seen.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
OK, so if you want to intervene in that cycle, you've got to be able to work with the perpetrators as well. Right. Like you have to if you're going to stop the cycle of violence, you have to intervene, you know, with those who are creating it. And in order to do that, you simply must be able to validate them. That's the only way to do it. It's the only way I know how to do it.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, and we have this feeling, I think, that they just don't deserve it. We're just shooting ourselves in the foot. And I think this has really become heightened as I see the politics playing out as they are. But the more entrenched we are in the belief that people don't deserve...
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
to be heard or seen or that we're gonna like do some type of reinforce their behavior in some way by doing that like this bad behavior that we don't like that is where we um actually end up contributing to the cycle um yeah it also reminds me of the uh
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I haven't seen it yet. I want to.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And the Menendez brothers most recently. Oh, I saw that one. Yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Oh, no, but as someone who works directly with, you know, not those specific people, but folks who are, you know, have serious behavioral and emotional problems. No, I see exactly what you're saying. Like, I think they dramatize that backstory, but it is very much there and real. You asked about, you know, what are the effects of validation and or invalidation?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
We as a society have really failed to reckon with, to acknowledge, to even label what invalidation is and how it affects people, okay? So invalidation is anything that basically dismisses, punishes, or denies another person's reality, be it their emotions, be it their thoughts, be it their behavior, okay?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Invalidation is directly linked to some of the most common and also severe forms of psychological disorders, all right, from BPD to major depression to PTSD to narcissism to even psychopathy, okay? So this is not like, does it play a role? No, we know it is a key ingredient. Yes, there are biological predispositions and everything else.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
But once you add invalidation into that mix, it's like a cowder peg explosion. Yeah, it's just boom. And we don't appreciate that, I think. And therefore, it's harder for us to validate people in those situations.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I feel like you really get me, all right? I can validate somebody even though I don't agree with their perspective. I can validate why somebody would eat meat even though I myself am a vegetarian. And if I wanted to try and change their opinion and have a debate, I could do that too. I could definitely find plenty that I disagree with and that I could nitpick.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Exactly. So again, as therapists, we are trained to do this. And that's why I am so passionate about this subject. No, innately, that's not how we are driven to respond. We respond with emotion. We respond to threat. That's what we look for. That's what we're trying to protect against.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
But we have strategies to help people communicate effectively, even when they're being hit with a lot of offensive behavior. So in those situations that you're describing, you probably don't understand the other person's perspective in those moments or certainly not empathize when someone's coming at you and there's a conflict. But at the very least, we can have you just mindfully attend.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So this is kind of the first step to validation. If you just, we use these two skills, attending and copying. If you use just these two skills, and when I am hit with somebody, like I have a narcissistic client across from me, and they're going on about how the school that I graduated from, you know, Really, do I really think Duke was where it's at for clinical psychology?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Because they've done their research and they want to know why I didn't go or get into these other schools, right? And you're just, I can see it in your face right now, like there's just that like, oh, screw you.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
More than once. Versions of that, not necessarily... specific to that school, but then like undergrad. Oh, so you went to U of M. Oh, that's interesting. I went to Yale. Hmm. How did you end up going from- It's so obnoxious. Oh, it's so obnoxious, yeah. But again, that's why these folks are referred to me, right? Like they are that obnoxious- Like in their real lives. Yeah, yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Then they're struggling, okay? So that's why they come to see me. I mean, they come to see me for some other reason, but it's pretty obvious right out the gate that that's probably- what's causing a lot of the problems.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. So in that point, I'm just annoyed. Right. I'm having that reaction. And so I can only use these two skills. This is what I was trained to do. I focus on what's this person's trying to say, like what's their message. And then more critically, how could I do a better job of making that point? I don't have to agree with their point. I am just trying to crystallize it.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And I don't even have to say this out loud. I just play this little game in my head. I'm thinking what's their point and how do I do a better job of making it as though I were in a debate and asked to like told that I had to argue why people should smoke. And I just have to kind of get behind that. All right. Then the other thing I do is I just repeat.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So I repeat the keywords they use and I copy their body language. If you just do those two things, you will slowly begin to understand and empathize. The copying is doing most of the work there for empathy because it triggers mirror neurons. I start to literally feel and experience some of what the other person is experiencing. That is fascinating stuff.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
But if I'm just looking for the validity in their perspective, the kernel of truth, I can look and find that and communicate that.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Again, it's just like if you ever are like can't sleep at night and you want to do like a black hole search on the web, just get into the research on copying or mimicry because that stuff is fascinating in how it's used in conflict resolution, the effect it has on people's attraction to each other. We are hardwired to copy when we like people and we want them to like us.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
OK, we don't copy when we feel attacked and we distrust the person across from us. But if you do copy in those situations, interestingly enough, you will start to build bridges. So it's again about doing kind of this is there's a skill to this. You're kind of pushing back sometimes against your natural inclinations.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And I'm noticing in myself just this kind of closing up that I start to do and I do the opposite. Just experiment with that, with just those two. And I promise the ability to understand and empathize will come out of it. And then you can use those skills.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Oh, you are? Yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It is mindfulness. So these are two mindfulness skills. And so in these moments, I am really focusing on the other person, almost like that's the breath, right? Or that's the point of focus, is this other person. It's non-judgmental. That's the whole, like, what's their point and how could I improve upon it? Like, how could I sharpen it? I'm not judging the point. I'm not thinking of my rebuttal.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I'm not in my head thinking, what a jerk. Oh my gosh, what's this guy's problem? What's he trying to prove? If my mind is chewed up, like chewing on all that, I can't actually be nonjudgmental, much less like validate them.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Right.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I get it.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I absolutely, 100%. I was also most of my life until, let's see, until college.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I saw a video of animals being experimented on, and it was just a devastating video of like where they were pumping like shampoo, you know, into some little monkey's tummy.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So I'm going to say something a little controversial, which is that I think, I believe validation is more important than love in some sense. It is certainly as important. It's a conduit. So if you don't feel accepted or seen by your partner, what does it mean to feel loved by them? Like you can't really feel loved from someone that doesn't know you.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And I think that's why a lot of us end up in relationships that feel empty in ways we can't quite put our finger on. And often it's because we haven't been vulnerable, we haven't risked, or they haven't been vulnerable, or worse yet, we've been vulnerable and they responded kind of negatively to it. They didn't engage, they shut down, or in the worst situations, they were critical.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Okay, boom, learn not to do that again. And I really like this person, so I'm not going to do that again. So in romantic relationships, if validation isn't communicated frequently and regularly, it's really hard to feel a sense of deep intimacy or love. It's just what is it based on, if that makes sense.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And and I just couldn't believe it. And then when I kind of looked behind that curtain of what goes on in a lot of these industries, I just like couldn't look.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. So when, and I work a lot with couples, but, and we'll do these assessments when they come in, you know, to kind of gauge the strength of the relationship. And one thing we ask about is kind of loneliness. Do you feel lonely in this relationship?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And when the answer is yes, I know one of the first things I've have to help them do is kind of develop these skills and then use them in communication with each other. Because loneliness is a symptom of not feeling seen, right? That's, that is the implication there.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And I think that's what a lot of people struggle with. They're afraid of being alone and yet don't realize that they're actually in a lot of ways lonelier in this relationship because there's no potential. It feels like there's no potential to be seen. So you're like, you know,
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Away.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
That doesn't make any sense. Correcting people's emotions. I think this is often the form that gaslighting takes, right? You're not frustrated, you're jealous. You're jealous of my success. You're not frustrated with your... And so this kind of emotion correcting where people are like, wait, am I jealous? Am I? So this is what we see in folks who come from pervasively invalidating environments.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. So for me, it's purely it's actually purely ethical. So if I can speak to a lot of valid reasons why even for health reasons, like when I first tried going vegan and like literally almost killed me because I was just eating like cereal and milk. It was bad.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
They don't trust their own sense of... what's going on in the situation. They defer to others in the environment to figure out what they should be thinking and feeling because they've learned, they've been told repeatedly that their emotions are wrong. They shouldn't be feeling that way, right? Don't be a baby. Act your age. These messages. Now, those are we have all careful.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
We've all said things like this to our kids before. Right. But it's like when that's done on a large scale, when every every other reaction the kid has is responded to in this way, you end up with adults who cannot trust themselves, much less be vulnerable with others.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, in some sense, but it can be overcome.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, that's my job.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yes. And that has been many of the clients I work with. In working with folks who have BPD, the sad truth about that condition is that it is disproportionately higher in women and women with a history of sexual trauma. Because what could be more validating than BPD? sexual trauma, especially as a child. The people who are supposed to protect you are hurting you. Okay? It's hard to understand.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
This doesn't feel right, but this is someone I should trust. This person knows what's right, and they're doing this. But this doesn't feel right. And then there's the confusing thing a lot of times, which people don't talk about often, which is that sometimes there's some component of pleasure involved for the child. Not always, but sometimes.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And that's confusing as hell because then it really feeds this narrative of I brought this on. I deserve this, which is also kind of reinforced oftentimes by the perpetrator. And you can just see this invalidating storm of like what's up and what's down. All I can conclude is that I'm bad. I'm wrong.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Again, that is my job. Yes. It is my job to first come in. And because then what folks may be doing as adults, not always, but folks who have developed problems, is that they're acting out in ways as adults that are really offensive, right? And make me say some version, like they're coming in and saying, oh, you went to this school, not that school. And I'm like, that's so gross, right?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, I can see validity and validity on both sides.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So they're doing things that attract a lot of negative attention. And so what I have to do is pull back and look at what's valid in their experiences. And when you do that, for someone who's been chronically invalidated, the reaction is like, first it's disarming, then it is...
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
There's like an immediate transformation that doesn't change everything, not by any means, but there's this sense of like, holy shit, wait a minute, what I've been feeling is okay, is right? Like I should have been feeling that? I mean, they kind of knew it all the time, but to have somebody else come in and say, no, that makes perfect sense.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Like I totally understand why you want to do X, Y, or Z in this situation. I totally understand why you're upset or not upset in this situation. It's just not a message they're used to getting. And so it starts to, the wheels start turning and you can almost see it in real time of like what else have I been discrediting in my own experience? Like how far back does this go?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I hope so. Yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And that's when the work starts.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Oh my gosh, yes. So this is... We make this big divide between self and other. And in my experience, folks who treat others poorly don't treat themselves well either. Like the really critical folks, they're not like lavishing themselves with like, good job, buddy. Oh, you did a great job at your speech this morning. No, they're like highly self-critical.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So we treat others in some way, shape, or form the way we treat ourselves and vice versa.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. Yeah. You're not. You're not a happy person. In my experience, I don't know many people who are active assholes who are deeply happy. Yeah. The two things just don't go together.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is what we were describing with like that that cycle of invalidation, everything else. Right. That's why I'm saying you got to intervene on the victim or the perpetrator. Everyone's hurting here. OK. So, yeah. Sorry. What was the initial question? I totally lost my train.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Oh, yeah. Self-compassion. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, it's it's really this quality of like, I feel accepted. OK, so As human beings, we are different from other animals, not so much in our need for affiliation, but in our need for acceptance. We are seeking acceptance. And when we feel that, it is a powerful experience. And then it's often conveyed in these terms of like, oh, I feel so seen. I feel so hurt.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
something that's just isolated to this person and this waiter. That is that person's perspective. Now, the issue with self-validation is that, unfortunately, we are a culture of change. We like to problem solve, especially as parents.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
We want to protect our kids so much that we're quick to solve their problems and focus on change and not maybe validate that they're disappointed that they failed their little spelling test. So it's not modeled for us. We don't learn how to validate our emotions. We learn how to problem solve our behavior. All right. And so then as adults, we don't model that for our children.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
They don't learn how to do that. I have yet to meet a person, be it someone that I work with as an executive coach, somebody in the corporate space, or a patient who is really good at self-validation. Okay, it just, it's very rare. And so we teach these skills in order to validate others. And then as a therapist, we talk a lot about how do you turn that inward?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Because that's ultimately what I have to have folks do, right? Part of why I'm validating these, my clients, these folks who come from these, you know, horrible experiences is so that they can learn to do the same for themselves. So I validate them and say, hey, yep, that's valid. Now, here's how you do that for yourself.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So when you're lying in bed, or frankly, when I'm lying in bed and I'm sitting there and I'm seeing, oh, my gosh, I feel really anxious about tomorrow. Okay. I immediately start to look for what's the validity. I am... I'm in LA, which is not where I normally live. I'm sleeping in a bed that's not mine. I have to get up tomorrow and do an interview. And I'm worried about how that's going to go.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I'm looking for all of the valid reasons why I'm feeling what I'm feeling. And I do not do the, you're such a wuss. Like, what's wrong with you? Nobody else would be feeling this. Everybody else would be so excited to be in your position. What's wrong with you? So I've learned to challenge that script. but it takes active intention and frankly, skills. You gotta know how to do it.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
There's always space for focusing on what you need to do differently, what you could behaviorally change. I don't think you can tough love your way out of your emotions. I think it is a huge mistake to think that you can just bully yourself out of feeling sad, anxious, down, depressed. It just doesn't work. We know that. It compounds negativity.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So while I think there's a time and space to say, you know what? Yes, I'm depressed. But if I stay in my bed another day for 12 hours straight, I'm not going to feel better. I need to do something different. Yeah, I believe in that. I also believe in validating all of the reasons why you got to that place. All right.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And believe me, doing that first step, doing that emotional validation makes the change easier. It's just not something we've been taught to believe. We've been told kind of the opposite. Right. We've got to do this tough love, tough approach. And it's not an either or, it can be both and. It's acceptance and change. The two go hand in hand.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Well, now let me ask, does it need the lazy fuck part? Like you've done it all these years and that's the assumption. If you took the approach of, okay, you worked 12 hours straight, you haven't slept in three days, All right. You are exhausted. There's a valid reason you don't want to go to the gym. I get it. Okay. And it will 100% make you feel better.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And like, I care about you enough to push you to do that. Like, that is how I talk to my clients, right? Like, and that is the voice I want in your head. Not this like, you lazy fuck, get up. Like that's not how I would talk to someone. That's not how I would talk to a client that I was trying to like help change because it doesn't work right now. It's just for us.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I feel like someone is looking at me and accepting who I am. And I'll, again, differentiate this from praise. That's different from me giving you a heart emoji on Instagram, which is a form of praise. It says, I like how you look, girl. I like how you perform. Which is fine. If you build your whole life around trying to get as much praise as possible, that's not going to fly well for you. Okay.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
We've gotten so used to that negative self-talk to being the self-abuser that we don't even see it as abuse. But Max, there's another way.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, yeah. And yet, I know there are people listening right now who do actually feel the, I'm a lazy fuck. And if I don't keep telling myself that, I will just become...
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, I mean, you want to be you want to be the type of person that you would want to be around. You know, there's this really interesting distinction in my head between like loneliness and solitude. And I think if you are kind to yourself, the times when you're alone become opportunities for solitude rather than like that deep, lonely, I need someone else. I need to be with somebody else.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I like need to escape myself to feel comfortable, to feel safe.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I would say if you are in a situation with someone where you feel like you have tried everything and it's just not changing, you're just not able to get through or the relationship is deteriorating in some way, try validation. It's going to feel really counterintuitive, but just try to look for the validity in some part of the other person's experience.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
You don't have to validate the entirety of it. It could just be their emotions, could just be their thoughts, or it could be their behavior. Just pick one thing that makes sense to you and convey that.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
But I can see the validity in it. Okay. So that's probably my... Even as a clinician, when I'm feeling stuck with someone, like we're just not making any progress, I often need to go back. I haven't sufficiently validated them. Once I've sufficiently validated them, then we can move on to change. So that would be with regard to others.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
If you're in a relationship in which you're feeling, again, as we described earlier, like really kind of lonely, one thing to consider is... whether or not, one, you've been vulnerable, and if you have, two, if it has felt safe, if you have felt accepted in those moments or not. And if not...
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I wanna live in a world, I mean, my purpose for writing this book is that I wanna live in a world where we can say to each other like, hey, I need some more validation.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
In my house, that is just like the language we use because every single person, when someone comes to them with a problem or an issue or they feel bad, our inclination is to problem solve, like jump in with what they could do differently. You got to just tell your manager that he can't talk to you like that. That's just where we go.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And nine times out of 10, when people come to us with something, they're just seeking validation. They just want to know that they're not crazy. So that's what you need to provide. And yet... We don't do that. We attend to what we think we can fix. That's how we were raised. That's the culture we were brought up in.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So in those moments, if the other person can say, actually, I'm just seeking validation right now, it should be like a gear shift. So I'm a psychologist. My poor husband has to deal with living with a psychologist who, I know this sounds like, yeah, I'd be really good at validation. But I'm also like, oh, I see all the things that you should change. Like, mm, you're not thinking about that right.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Which is why we say don't seek external validation. We really mean don't seek excessive praise. But seeking acceptance is a very different thing. And in fact, it's a very human thing. It is critical to our mental health and in some cases, truly our survival.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Or like, mm, that's not quite right. And he'll often say like, OK, thanks. I just need validation. And that isn't offensive to me. I'm not I don't feel like he's criticizing me. It's just like, oh, shoot. I was like aiming at the wrong thing. Right. Like I need to like, OK, the dartboard boards over in the other direction.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And my daughter, like all the time, I'll say to her, do you want to do you want validation or problem solving? Like, mom, I didn't get into I don't like the camp that I'm in. I hate it. All right, do you want validation or problem solving? She says validation, then I'll go down that road. If she wants problem solving, then I'll say, OK, well, have you tried this? What about that? What about this?
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And then if she starts giving me, yeah, but that doesn't work because of this and that, then I know she actually needs validation.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, I think there definitely can be. I think as parents, we're often equal offenders, although just women tend to pivot more quickly. They can see it, but they'll also often open with problem solving. The really interesting thing that I have found in my practice, so there's an emotional intelligence quality to some of this that you've hit at.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
The higher your EQ, presumably the easier this would be. And that is and it isn't true. So oftentimes, I'll have couples come to me wanting couples therapy. And again, if it's a very stereotypical, perhaps more patriarchal relationship, the woman presents as more emotionally intelligent. And the male partner is just like, all right, well, this is what we need to fix.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And how long is this going to be? And what's your fee? When I start teaching them validation, though, The person who is more emotionally intelligent is like, yeah, no, I got this. Yeah, this makes perfect sense to me. And so they don't pay attention as much, take notes, and then practice. Their partner, however, if this isn't coming naturally, they do tend to try harder at it.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And at the end of, say, 12 weeks, the better validator tends to be the person who worked harder at it, more so than the person with a high EQ, which is really interesting. Just because you're sensitive, that doesn't mean that you're equally skilled at communicating that sensitivity in a way that resonates. And that's what these skills do. We've narrowed this down. This is a science.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
We know how to convey that message really effectively. And again, just because you're emotionally intelligent doesn't mean that you've dialed that in. And so interestingly enough, yeah, I think it doesn't really matter how kind of problem-solving centric you are so long as you make... Now, if both partners were to try equally hard, yeah, the EQ person's going to come out on top. They will.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
They just don't tend to invest in the same way.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Absolutely.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So if you'd worked with me, what I would have said to you and taught you and what you would have internalized after me drilling it in over and over again, is that you need to ask yourself one question. Is this an opportunity for problem solving or validation? Should I respond with problem solving or validation?
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
If you're not asking yourself that question and you're just shooting from the hip, you're usually going to get it wrong because you're usually going to problem solve.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. And so this is and this isn't just in romantic relationships like this applies even at work, right, where it seems like problem solving should be the name of the game. Oh, such a mistake. Ask yourself, is this person seeking validation or do they actually need help here? All right? You can open with validation and then problem solve. There's nothing to say that you can't do both.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I mean, in this country, our most extreme form of punishment is isolation. So as human beings, we will seek out negative attention over no attention, okay? It is just so detrimental.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It's just in any one moment, you can only respond with one or the other. All right? And if all else fails, if you, in that moment, shoot from the hip and do the problem solving thing and she responds poorly, then that's your cue to validate. So although this is what I mean in that it is just kind of these are these strategies you kind of learn. To ask yourself and operate off of.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It's almost like an algorithm. Like it's pretty easy to kind of internalize with enough repetition.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, so when you're applying for grad school in psychology, you're supposed to talk all about like, you know, why do you want to be a clinical psychologist? And everyone talks about their like deep research interests and all of that. And I did too. And that was all bullshit.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Because the reason I went into clinical psychology is because I struggled with major depressive disorder from the time that I was 15 until about 26, 27. And it was hell. It was absolute hell. And in retrospect, I realized that so many of the experiences I had with therapists and mental health providers at that time were deeply invalidating. Like it did not feel helpful. It felt harmful.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I felt pathologized. I felt like I was treated like a patient, not a person. And not even like a medical patient, right? With like a broken arm or something, but like this broken person, right? And I wanted to be the type of therapist I didn't have. That was my motivation.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
That and low key, I wanted to see if I could figure out how to treat depression and maybe come up with a treatment that would help me. So that was my true kind of motivation there. And again, when I look at it back through this lens, I realized that what I was experiencing was just pervasive invalidation. and I was hoping to provide experiences that were more validating.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And so I open with that a lot. I use that information in session. I share with people that there was a time in my life when I was suicidal. I know exactly what that feels like. I don't know what it is that got you here, but I know that level of desperation and it fucking sucks. And I'm so goddamn sorry. And it's this is the hardest thing. I've had breast cancer. I have MS.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Depression trumps those hands down. OK, that's a pretty big statement about how just profound that suffering is. And if I can communicate that, if I can connect with people in that way. There is a high level of validation that's communicated. I get it. I see you. I don't blame you. I don't think, you know, you're broken. You're just like me.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I think health care, big picture, including medical health, has operated under this just horrible model of hierarchy with the doctor above the patient. And I put patient in quotation marks because my training was to refer to folks as the client. More equality in this. There's not like, I'm the doctor, you're the patient. I'm up here, you're down there. That is a disaster.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I don't care if it's in treating cancer. which was often my experience. Again, there were all these kind of experts telling me what I should feel and, you know, oh, that doesn't make sense. And then certainly within mental health care, we need to be seen as equals because we are.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And if someone doesn't feel that sense of, again, acceptance and equality, it's just not going to be healthy for the relationship. And so one, of course, I advocate for that. Two, as a therapist, I actually do believe in the power of self-disclosure, using that as a tool. It is a validation skill. Now, of course, you don't want your clients taking care of you.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I mean, it's like you have to be very skillful about how you do this. But using self-disclosure to validate, I think is incredibly powerful. In fact, when I was first diagnosed with MS, I was working with this doctor. I just arrived in Seattle after like five years of horrible symptoms, and now it's like, oh, you have MS. And I am just like totally gutted, totally devastated.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And I was in the middle of an episode, so there was this question of like, oh, should we hospitalize you and do these steroids? I'm crying. And the doctor was in a wheelchair, which I didn't know anything about MS. It was like totally over my head to even consider that he might be in the wheelchair because of MS. And he was. And he reached out his hand. He put his hand on my hand.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It is.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
He said, hey, I have MS. I know what this feels like. I know what you're thinking. This is absolutely terrifying. If I were in your shoes, I would do the steroids. I think we should. I would go to the hospital if I were you. Okay. But you don't have to listen to me. You listen to your own body and you do what you need and I'll support that.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. Well, so a negative attention is positive attention feels really good. But on that spectrum, I would say acceptance. Now, that's really yummy. Right. So if we were to kind of put these things on a scale because praise and all that, that's a judgment. But it also is contingent upon you meeting or exceeding someone's expectations. All right.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And it just cut through everything, all the other noise, all the other doubt. It just was such a lightning moment of like, boom, I trust this person, they get it. And that's what I'm talking about. Being human should be part of the medical model. We shouldn't be so sterile as though that's helping people. That's not how we heal. We heal through connection.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, man.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yes.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
They do.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
How old, if you don't mind me asking, how old was she when that happened?
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Oh, Minding Your Mitochondria. Yeah, yeah. I think I actually saw that way back.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
She has MS and she was like then she went into remission based on the health, the diet changes she made, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I know, man. And that's the line in the sand. Like, oh, it's so hard for me.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I know.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I am such an animal lover. And beyond that, I think we've done such a profound... just disservice and abuse to animals that I feel like if, even if it took years off my life, I would, uh, accept that over, um, engaging in a lifestyle that would contribute to any further contribution to it, which is messed. I know that's messed up.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. But it's gonna, it might kill me, but, uh,
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
No, but it's bad. It's so bad. It's so bad.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So you can get really into like facade making, especially with like social media. You're filtering this. You're filtering that. You're getting all this praise. But it's somewhat empty because it's not you. that the person truly quote unquote likes or appreciates or whatever. It's this version of you that you've created that's being reinforced.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I think that is the only, in my opinion, like way to reconcile that cognitive dissonance, right? Like to say that I really care about animals, but I'm going to participate in an industry that systematically abuses and tortures them. That doesn't make sense.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Now, if you say I deeply care about animals and therefore I'm going to select and really put my money behind folks who are trying to change that industry, that I can respect. Unfortunately, I often doubt the, actors in the positions of changing it. Like it takes so much research to really know and understand the distribution process and what's going on there.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And like, if I had those resources, I think I would, I mean, I would, I would probably go that route. Um, I don't. And so the easier route for me is just to say like nothing.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I'm just vegetarian. And actually, I love that you asked that because I think this is, we don't reckon with cognitive dissonance very well. We think we've got to go like all black or all white. Like, okay, I care about animals, so it's got to be to this degree, right? Which is kind of what I was just saying. Now, the reality is, like I said, when I tried to go vegan, it like almost killed me.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Like I wasn't eating. I do not cook, which is embarrassing to admit in front of- tons of people, but it's true. I've tried in the past, but I would have to make such lifestyle changes that I just haven't been able to make and sustain. So I do eat a little bit of dairy products. And I do that with open eyes. I do that with intentional awareness of what that industry looks like.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And again, as you described, trying to opt into companies that say they're doing better, whatever. But I'm not proud of that fact. And I think that's okay. I think it's something I would work toward and that I want to change. And I know that just right now where I'm at in my life, I'm not there. But that would be the end goal for me.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It's horrific. Yeah, it is horrific. And not even for animals, but just for the the planet and also the people operating within those industries, which interestingly, I've also had a couple of clients, you know, who worked in factory farms and stuff like that. And it is just it's a devastatingly dark reality to be perpetuating torture to the extent that we do to sustain factory farming.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And then you're reinforced for distorting more and more. And it's just there's this hollowness. There's this emptiness to that type of connection because it's not you that's accepted. It's not you that's appreciated. It's the version you've created.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Totally. Whichever way you totally agree. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I like I that again is another thing that I aspire to.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Right, right, right, right. Oh, that's a very good, that's a very good point.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And it's just not how we think about food, especially in our like excess culture of like superset and double this and double that, right? But like, let's think about what we're eating here just for like a hot second. Like, is there a better way to do this? Yeah. But it requires you to acknowledge that you are doing some degree of harm.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And that's what I was saying where I really actually value being mindful of when what you're saying and what you're doing don't align. You can't just be like, I love animals, and I'm not going to look at that right now while I'm ordering over here. It's like, hold the two simultaneously. That's OK. You don't have to be perfect.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Like you said, I aspire to have a totally plant-based diet, but I'm not there. And yet with every one of those decisions, I am thinking, do I really need cheese on this? If I were in your shoes, like, could I, you know, a cow versus a chicken? Yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah. And it is it's just about like not being so black or white, like, oh, well, I eat meat. So I eat meat. This is what I do. Like you can there can be all sorts of like, compassionate decisions within that that are more aligned with your values, even though you're making a decision that as a whole, maybe feels, you know, not completely in line.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, it sure was. Yeah. I could do this all day.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Oh, thank you.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, I am everywhere where you get books. So, you know, Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, you name it, you'll find it on social media. I'm on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn at Dr. Caroline Fleck.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Oh, yeah. And my website, drcarolinefleck.com has behind the scenes stuff from the book, including recorded conversations between me and my husband, in which I secretly try and validate him without him realizing it. Super fun.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Living a genius life means living a life with eyes both open, as we were describing. I think not jumping between these black or white, I'm a meat eater, I'm not a meat eater. I care about animals, I don't care about animals. But just being mindful of the ways in which you contradict yourself and trying to just make decisions that are more aligned while also
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It is for all of the above. So there's a really interesting kind of backstory to validation, which is that it came out of a treatment, at least the skills that I teach. They were developed in a treatment for borderline personality disorder, which is a pretty severe psychological disorder. And up until the 90s, we had no treatment for this population.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So folks with BPD are highly stigmatized in the mental health field, and I think just in popular culture, in part because some of their external behavior can look and feel very aversive. So folks who are self-harming, folks who are what many would consider manipulative to try and get their needs met. And there's all of this externalizing behavior
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
This person kind of oscillates between loving and hating you. And there's these extremes at either end. And it can make for, as a therapist, a very difficult, quote unquote, patient.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
What, if you're borderline?
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, so it's more in the emotional experience beneath that. So there's this profound sense of emptiness, loss of identity kind of at the core, an inability to regulate anger. Emotional dysregulation is at the core of the disorder. And so there's a lot of often self-harm in an attempt to regulate emotion, which then graduates at some point to suicide attempts or suicide threats.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And this is a serious situation. This is a deadly condition. And for the longest time, even to this day, I meet tons of therapists who say they will not work with borderlines because they don't want to be, quote unquote, sued or harassed or X, Y, or Z. So just really ugly stuff out there around how we talk about and have historically treated this group.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And up until the 90s, like I said, we had no interventions that worked. This was just kind of like a life sentence if you were diagnosed with BPD. And it wasn't until we developed these validation skills, okay, finding a way to see the kernel of truth in someone's experience and communicate that, communicate some degree of acceptance while also pushing hard for change, right?
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So when we combine this approach of acceptance and change, whoa, not only could we treat BPD, but the entire field of clinical psychology was revolutionized. And very few people outside of the field realize what that was and the effect that it had. It's really weird. It's like this secret that no one talks about.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, that's right. So up to that point, we had a lot of behavioral treatments, think reinforcement, shaping, right? Or cognitive behavioral treatments, which focus not just on changing how you behave, but also how you think. Those are very change-focused approaches, which works well if you want change and if you're willing to take feedback.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
If you don't, if you don't trust your own capacity for change, if you don't trust the person across from you, or I don't know if you're an adolescent or somebody who's just like pretty resistant to a lot of what's coming in, it's not going to work. It just won't, okay?
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And what we found is that when we combine some degree of validation or acceptance, when we emphasize that as much, if not more than change, people end up making pretty big transformations. Yeah, so the message is in DVT or at least in this treatment for BPD is I'm doing the best I can and I need to do better. So it's being able to hold those two things simultaneously
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
that is um that's where kind of the magic happens that's so cool yeah it is cool is there not the concern though that that might bleed into normalizing sure dysfunctional harmful behaviors absolutely i don't validate um experiences that aren't valid so for instance um I can validate why somebody would want to abuse substances.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
I can totally validate why someone who came from a family in which drug abuse was pervasive, was all they saw, And it's now functioned to help them get through life and be more social and be more extra. I can validate all of the reasons why that person would want to use substances. And at the same time, I can say, I don't agree with that behavior. It's not effective for you. It's not working out.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
So on some level, I have to be able to validate why you're in this situation, why you want to do what you're doing, if I'm actually going to challenge that behavior. Otherwise, I don't get it.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yes, that's exactly right. I actually think of... An example of validation came from my daughter. So if she's wanting to use, so she wants a smartphone, all right? She's 11, and I'm a psychologist, so she's not getting a smartphone right now. If she was to come at me as she does and says, all my friends have smartphones, it's so unfair, you don't get it.
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487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
All these kind of common arguments that I've heard from her over and over. I'm not really... She's not going to change my opinion. However, if she came to me and said, I understand your concerns. In fact, I read this study and this study and this study, which says that these are the effects of smartphones on kids. And I totally understand that you as a parent are in a really hard place here.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
You're trying to protect me from these negative outcomes, and you have to deal with me pushing for them. I totally get that. So here's what I'm going to propose. I think these are valid concerns. So if I get a phone, which would be a huge, you know, extension of trust from you.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, I know, I know, right? And it's not happening.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
It is, it is, but you can imagine how, In that situation, her validating me actually goes so much further. Like I'm getting persuaded as she's talking. So in making my arguments for me, I am that much more, I'm like, okay, she sees the validity in my perspective. She gets it, she understands, she takes this seriously.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
And when I feel that, I am much more receptive to the other person's perspective. Okay. I use that example because I think we always think about it in reverse. Like, how do I, you know, get the kid not to?
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
When in fact, we are all susceptible to these forces and that feeling of acceptance and feeling seen and feeling understood, that really makes us much more receptive to listening to the person across from us.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
Yeah, it can be used to influence behavior. It can be used to reinforce behavioral changes. Another thing that's really controversial. Whenever I talk about that, people are like, that is so manipulative, that's so exploitative, you know, that you would actually use validation as reinforcement. In my experience, it is none of those things. It's very positive. I want people to validate me more.
The Genius Life
487: Why Feeling "Seen and Heard" Can Save Your Relationship and Your Sanity | Caroline Fleck, PhD
All right. And if they want to reinforce my behavior through validation, please go ahead. Like you can do that all day. I love it. That's fine.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Just by copying. Yeah. So this is what I'm saying about how you use these entry skills to cultivate more understanding and empathy. And that is how you move to higher levels of validation. Because my full-time job is working with people who are saying, doing, and believing things that are distorted to the extent of being pathological.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Well, Caroline, it's clear. I guess this is done. I guess we're not working together anymore. Me saying, I'm sorry, what happened? I emailed you yesterday. You didn't respond? Didn't respond to me? Oh, I'm so sorry. I had so many... Immediately I'm getting defensive, right? I am so sorry. I had so many... You know that I self-harm.
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You don't care. You don't care. You think this is fun. You think this is fun. Just really kind of... Wow.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
It is. And in my heart, I'm feeling responsible for... For what's going on.
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And then like, I need to get this under control. So it's that type of, those types of situations. And if these skills work in those situations... Their potential when the stakes are much lower and folks are much more rational is significantly bigger.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Exactly.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yeah.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yes. I mean, it's much easier.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
There's a lot of different things that go into that. At this, at that point, what I would start doing genuinely is actually to copy back. Okay. So let me get this right. I want to make sure I've got this. You emailed me yesterday. From your perspective, this should have been a signal to me that you were in crisis. Okay. I, okay. And I need to be careful not to say that wasn't in your email.
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Just like, so, so right now I got it. You were feeling like I totally betrayed you. Like I'm intentionally trying to hurt you. Oh my gosh. Okay. I get, I see, I see, I see. Oh, I'm so sorry. You feel that way. Oh my gosh. That is no, no, no, no. That is not what happened. Not from my, can I share my perspective?
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It's okay if you don't want me to, cause that could sound offensive, but I really, I, I, I'm, I, it hurts my heart that there was this miscommunication.
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Yeah, a little.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
No, because I am seeing like that's their world. That's their perspective. I do see that. I'm not saying anything I don't believe. Now, here's the thing. It's acceptance and change, not acceptance or change. They are two sides of the same coin. So I can validate. And then once there's once I see that that has resonated, I switch gears. OK, but let's look at this for a second.
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If you keep responding to people in this way when they miss a message from you, I'm worried you're going to start burning people out. Because the other thing I felt just now was attacked and scared and not in a good way. All right.
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Is there anything we could have done, do you think, that could have brought down the intensity just a little bit so you could give me that message but not, you know, make me want to hide under the couch?
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
So that's it. That's that combination. You see how I'm going from validation to change.
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Right.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yeah. And the second is copying, which is that mimicry that I do.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
That's right. So it's a two-parter. It's that little game that you're playing in the head, and then it's nonverbals. All right. And what was the first thing to go out the window once we were in lockdown from COVID?
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Proximity.
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I mean, all of it, I guess. Gestures get really awkward. Everything.
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Everything.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
It's hard to feel seen. It's hard to feel connected, right? And I'm not saying that that explains all of the loneliness we experienced. But as a therapist, I can vouch for the fact that it was significantly harder. I had one hand tied behind my back. Because these skills that I've learned to rely on, I could not use. And that's hard. And that is something we sacrifice by being so online.
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And if you think there's nothing meaningful there, I would challenge you to look at the research on kind of how folks who are online for hours and hours a day fare in terms of mental health and relationships. Yeah, it's not good stuff.
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Or at the top, I see myself in you. That is real power.
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When I look at you, it's like looking in the mirror. I see so much of my own experiences. I can relate so deeply to what you're describing. It's like we're one in the same. That's the moments you have, perhaps in self-disclosure, when someone says to another, hey, man, I'm also an AA. Right. Immediate. There's an understanding there. There's a sameness.
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There's connection. And I would actually go a step further with how critical validation is. This sounds like controversial. I see that. But I think it is more important than love. I think you cannot have true love in the absence of having been and having consistently been validated.
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If there isn't validation in the relationship, it's hard to feel loved. Because if you don't feel accepted or seen, what does the person love?
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No, you can love a facade, but that doesn't feel good. I can, you know, create all these stories about myself and, you know, filter this and filter that and get all sorts of likes and praise, which is a positive judgment. Praise says, I like how you look or I like how you perform. Validation says, I accept you independent of how you look or perform. Okay.
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In the absence of feeling seen, feeling accepted, it's hard to feel deeply loved. We don't, I mean, we haven't been vulnerable. We haven't shown ourselves or we have, and the other person has been like, whoa, that's weird. And we shut that down.
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Right. And so they love the parts of us that we've shown or dressed up, but perhaps not the entirety of who we are.
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Yeah. So the research on attraction is often with copying. So we are more attracted to people who copy us, which is like just if you're going on a first date.
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Always try to, right.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Right, right, right, right. But like, don't be, you know, again, as I said before, I give myself just this little cute copy. That's it. Because if I'm like really dialed in on it, it gets awkward.
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Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. But again, we're naturally wired to do this. And so if you just kind of remember it in a moment, that's sufficient.
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Yeah.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
That's right. We see it as almost a common courtesy.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
But it is at a deeper level. And when it's used more intentionally to kind of establish connection, it can be used in those ways.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
I am thrilled.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yeah. The next level up is to say, is to show some degree of understanding. Right. And usually this is like logical understanding, cognitive understanding. I can see how you got there. Right. And there's a couple of skills here. You can do the, anyone in your shoes would feel that way. Right. Like anyone in your shoes would be probably anxious about this set coming together.
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You can do anyone in your shoes. A way more effective way to do it is like, oh my God, yes, I would be so anxious to. Like, me too. If you think about going to a doctor and them saying, like, if you're like, yeah, I don't know, I think I might, I don't know if I should get a second opinion. You should absolutely get a second opinion. If it was my child, that's what I would do.
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We're like, yummy, that feels good. There's this sense of like, okay, I'm valid. What I'm thinking is valid. It's reasonable. I'm not being dramatic. I'm not being X, Y, or Z. That's kind of what these understanding skills communicate. One of them happens to double as a Jedi mind trick. I've just got a word here.
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Proposing.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Proposing is when, you know, I was playing that little game in my head earlier where I'm trying to figure out like, you know, what are you thinking? Why does this matter to you? I don't actually communicate any of that. This is all just in my head to keep me engaged. But if I come up with some stuff, I can throw it out there and see what sticks. I can propose something you haven't said. All right.
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It's also known as like mind reading.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
You know, a great example was actually an interview with Oprah and Meghan Markle. And Meghan Markle is describing this life of being in front of the paparazzi and feeling like she couldn't be her true self. And then she's obviously kind of pained and shamed about having not stood up for herself. And she looks at Oprah and she says, I just, I was silent throughout this experience.
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I just, I was just silent. And then Oprah being Oprah says, were you silent or were you silenced? Oprah effect. Right? That's proposing. That's articulating something the person hasn't said. And if you're really good, if you really nail it, perhaps you facilitate an insight that they didn't even have.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
So this is such a critical point. I'm glad you dialed in on that because I can't emphasize enough. These are skills. All right. And to develop any skill, you've got to strike out. Right. Usually you if it's a skill for like a sport or something, you're getting coaching on the side. As therapists, I'm getting a lot of coaching on the side.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
And you're just taking that feedback in to sharpen those skills. But with this stuff, we tend to really internalize the feedback. And get shut down or feel rejected or like, oh God, I'm just going to make things worse. And that is a mistake. You have to look at these things as skills that you develop. And you're right. You strike out, you get some feedback.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Oprah strikes out all the freaking time. It's amazing. Like go watch these and she's throw things out. And it's just like, no, I wasn't scared. I was humiliated, you know? And she's like humiliated. She goes back down the ladder, copying humiliated. Hmm. What was humiliating about it? Attending. She gets more information. She gets more than she tries again. It doesn't stick.
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She drops down that ladder, starts back with just being mindful and then tries again.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
You're trying to show that you understand. That's right.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yeah. Great example.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Now, here's the thing, though. In a perfect example, what most people do in that first scenario, when they said, oh, you must have been so excited, and the person goes, actually, no. I struggled with postpartum depression. They go... Really? Oh, next topic.
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And they don't, they might, they just don't ever try again to show understanding. They've like, they're like, okay, I don't get it. I don't want to make things worse. And that is the biggest mistake. You've got to stay in the game. Just take it as feedback. Clearly you weren't paying close enough attention. So go back to those two skills, keep working them.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yeah. Yeah.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yeah.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
And so this is like, you know, I talk about each of these skills individually, but the real skill is being able to kind of like move between these things.
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And know when to, how to correct, course correct.
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Right. Or at the worst, we're invalidating them.
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Right.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
So at the top, you've got these empathy skills and they communicate mindfulness, understanding and empathy in one fell swoop. This is powerful stuff. It's also at like the top of this, if you visualize a ladder. So you can imagine when you fall down from a high position, it hurts. Yes. So if you strike out with these, it can be a little ugly. All right.
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And, you know, there's, they're not all super intense. Some of the most basic ones are just like emoting, like expressing your genuine emotion. Okay. But I'm trying to think of, I almost need to like show you what it looks like.
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There was a great example of Jon Stewart actually talking to Congress on behalf of the 9-11 first responders. And he's advocating on their behalf. I remember that. And he's Jon Stewart. He's incredibly articulate, very eloquent.
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But as he's talking, he starts getting choked up.
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He just gets so mad and it's just such an injustice. And like, holy cow, you can feel how much like he just so swiftly validated their outrage, their sorrow, the injustice of it simply through his emotions. Right. He broke character from his like standard, you know, like that was not who showed up.
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It was a person who was deeply vulnerable and it was clear that he was deeply affected by their experience. And that's kind of what it can show. It doesn't have to be negative emotions. Like I'm a big one for jumping up and down and like high fiving and hugging. It's just like it's breaking character, I think.
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Like self-disclosure. Okay. So that would be, for instance, I struggled with depression for about a decade.
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Yeah, yeah. From when I was 15 through about 26. It's one of the reasons I wanted to become a psychologist.
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I mean, I'm kind of a jerk. Yeah. Like, I wanted to see if I could treat depression on some level. In part because so much of what I received felt damaging. In retrospect... I felt invalidated by most of the mental health providers I saw. There was this, and I can see it. I was high functioning. There was this disconnect between like, you look fine.
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You know, and the fact that I'm saying like, no, I'm really struggling, really struggling here. And so I felt dismissed. I felt I doubted if this was even real. A lot of the time there was this whole narrative of like, what's wrong with me? I've got everything like poor you. You know, it's just. Yeah, it was just swirling around my head big time. And fortunately, I got treatment and got better.
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And now when I work with clients, and I've got someone who says, you know, like... You don't possibly, you couldn't possibly understand. You're sitting here and you're like, you're with your degrees behind the wall and you think you've got it all. And I say, yeah, but I had ECT for depression. That's electric shock therapy. Wow. Okay. That's a big deal. I understand suffering.
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I understand being at that level of pain where you would do anything to
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to relieve it and it kills me that this person I care so much about is in this exact same situation but I got through it and I won't quit I will do whatever I can to see how to get you through it okay there is a connection there there's you know you can feel that um again it's I see myself in you I'm not better than you we're in this together that's what disclosure can do
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Remember when I said the higher you go, the harder it hurts. Oh, right, right, right. Right.
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Yes.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
Yes. Yes.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
That's right. That's right. And I have all sorts of tips in the book around how to kind of repair if you think you've screwed up, how to avoid making some mistakes there. But the fact of the matter is, I can't emphasize this enough. It's a skill. All right. And so if you want to get good at this, you practice it. you practice it.
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I wasn't coming on podcasts saying that I had had ECT and major depression. I figured out a way to communicate that in a way that feels effective to me and focused on the topic.
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Well, you don't have to wait to the last moment. So that's an important point. With validation, you want to go as high as you can. authentically and effectively. So if I get it right away, I could go for it. Yeah. But if I don't have rapport with the person and I don't know, so I have, I've made that mistake actually once with emoting.
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But I remember with a client whose mother, this mother had come to see me. Her daughter had gone to one of these like wilderness programs, which are just a complete scam. She was there for eight weeks, came back and attempted suicide and was in the ICU.
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And mom was devastated. Mom's seeking treatment for her. And she's telling me about this and I'm allowing myself to just kind of tear up a little bit.
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Okay. Because I am feeling like just, oh, I hate the system and this poor kid. I'm just having all this stuff. And I just, I lost control of it. I work with suicide and self-harm day in and day out, but I just got worked up. I like lost control.
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I got too emotional.
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That's right. Interesting. So that, I mean, that was a mistake. It happens.
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That's right.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
And unfortunately, I think that's where we've kind of been pushed in society. And especially with all of like the facades and this, or we'll disclose like the things that are really trendy to disclose, you know, that you're struggling with this or that because everyone's talking about, I don't know, menopause now or something. Right. But the other stuff that's not trending.
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But maybe the other stuff, someone hints at something they're going through that you've also gone through, but that's not something we talk about.
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There's always the trends of, deep down, I hate myself, which people are not comfortable kind of disclosing or opening up about.
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You know, I couldn't say because there's also all sorts of like cultural variations and stuff there. In the States, I mean, I think it's really quite high. Yeah, I'd say maybe like 60% of people think they're unlovable. I was at this Tara Brach training once. I don't know if you know who she is. She wrote this book on radical acceptance years ago. It's this
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Yeah. She did this very risky thing, in my opinion. She's got this whole audience of maybe 80 folks, all mental health providers. And she says, everyone close your eyes for a second. And I want you to raise your hand if you believe there's something about you, something you've done, something specific to your character that makes you unlovable. Now open your eyes. Don't do that.
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Validation. And validation is a set of skills, really. So you learn as a clinician, you're trained in these skills to help you communicate acceptance, to help you help another person feel seen and heard. It's very important if you want to get people to listen to you and to collaborate with you and to work with you, okay? And there's a science to this.
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But you open your eyes. And everybody's hand was up.
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These are mental health experts.
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Yeah. It was one of the most kind of moving, insightful moments of my life. Really, it was. Like, oh, this is deep. Like, this is, there's something going on here. This is cultural. Yeah.
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It's just like I almost get worked up because it's something I'm so passionate about. I think, unfortunately, most of us were raised on problem solving. When we came to our parents with a problem, they had a solution. Study more. Let's get you a tutor. Don't worry. You can try out next time. This kind of impulse to make it better.
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To fix. And unfortunately in the process, there's this subtle message that you shouldn't be feeling that way. Stop feeling that way. Okay. Not, it's totally valid that you're disappointed. I get it, man. I get it. Oh God, I remember being your age. Oh, I once failed a math test, but it was nothing compared to this. But like, and I couldn't even, my mom came and picked me up from school.
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I was crying. I can't believe you made it through the day. We just, we're not raised on that. And so it's no surprise that as adults, when we make a mistake, we struggle to see the validity in our emotions, our reactions. We're not trained to do that.
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Well, there's a difference between recognizing an emotion, realizing it's valid, and choosing to regulate it rather than express it, right? So there are plenty of times where I'll feel sad, okay, about something. And I'll start going down that loop. You know, the story starts coming together of like why I suck and how I should have done something better. You know, it makes sense that I'm sad.
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I was really looking forward to this. It didn't come through. This is upsetting. Right now, it's not going to be effective to focus on that. I'm going to feel worse if I draw more attention to myself. So how can I take care of myself right now? I probably just need to get through this. And then when I get home, I'm going to take a hot bath.
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Yeah. Yeah. But there is this, there's not, we have this fear that if we recognize our emotions, they will overtake us and like, we'll just be at the mercy of them and express, you know, kind of falling apart all over the place. It's really the exact opposite. When you see the validity in your emotions, you stop wrestling with them. Okay. And you get to be the pilot a bit more.
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We've researched what is the most effective way. How can you signal acceptance? And as therapists, you're trained in this method. These specific skills were developed for a treatment called dialectical behavior therapy, DBT. which is a specific treatment for folks who have a condition known as borderline personality disorder, okay? Often characterized by self-harm and suicidal behavior.
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it's important to feel like you can regulate. So if you're going to get yourself to a place that you can't get yourself back down from, that's a problem. It's just not going to be constructive for you. And so knowing how to regulate pretty much determines the extent to which you should kind of wallow or not wallow.
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But in general, the interesting thing about emotions, I mean, they're called feelings because we feel them. If you just sit with the feeling, like whatever feeling you're feeling right now, if you just sit with it, this is part of self-validation. You first kind of notice the emotion, you label it, and then you just try and feel it as intensely as you can without feeding it the narrative.
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Like if you do that, if you just say, okay, I'm going to feel this as intensely as I can. Sadness, sadness, no story about why, just sadness, sadness, feel it really, really squeeze out that sponge. It will decrease. That is how emotions operate. They go up, it goes down. I know you're saying it's not going to decrease, Carolyn. It's not going to decrease.
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But if you divorce yourself from the narrative and you just feel it, it can.
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It just gets bigger. It just gets hungrier. It's like a child trying to get your attention, isn't it, right?
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That's right. I think what you'll find, you know, if you struggle with being alone, I think that's a real tell for the degree to which you are facing and at peace with your emotions.
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Because when there's no one else around and your phone is dead and you're the only person you're with, if that is painful and uncomfortable and you can kind of feel things trying to like crawl out, that suggests that you're not quite at peace with yourself.
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practice a lot of self-validation.
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That, I mean, this is, I go through these steps almost every single night in bed. I go through these steps of like... What's this process look like?
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I had a breast cancer about a year ago, and I had to go through all of the nastiness, the chemo, the radiation, the mastectomy, the surgeries, all this. Wow. And it profoundly affected my daughter. And she felt like after I lost my hair, I was a different person. She's 11, but she has felt this really acutely. And I've had to really work on rebuilding that relationship. Wow.
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And so we're here in L.A. doing all this great stuff. And I had an article that I needed to get out by 9 a.m. this morning. And so she's wanting to watch Friends in the Hot Tub. Like, come on, what's better than that, right? Like, we're staying at this fun place. And I just didn't have time.
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Like I was able, you know, we did a little bit of time in the hot tub, but she's like, can we watch it in your bed? And I'm like, I got to write this, you know, and I'm texting my husband. Can you like read to her tonight? And so I got in bed and I just felt so bad about myself. Like I felt so I had to sit there and be like, all right, what am I feeling? All right. This is this is shame.
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Okay. Now that I've, the first step is just to acknowledge it, give it an adjective.
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Yeah, sure. Guilt, shame, devastation, disappointment. And then I repeat whatever that emotion, I copy it. I keep repeating it. This is shame. This is shame. And as I'm repeating it, I'm trying to feel it in my body. Where is it? Is it in my chest? Is it behind my eyes? Try and feel it as intensely as you can without reliving it.
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the evening or replaying it in my head or all the reasons why i'm a failure as a mom or i've screwed up my kid i'm never going to be able to repair this relationship here i am now prioritizing my career all these things that want to like fight their way in to feed and stoke that shame i'm just putting them over here and i'm just my mantra is this is shame this is shame feel it this is shame feel it
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So serious stuff. But here's the thing. I found myself, however old I was, getting my PhD in psychology. studying this very specific treatment and finally being introduced to these skills that I'm thinking, why isn't this in grade school? Like, why aren't these skills taught in, you know, K through five? Why am I just hearing about this now?
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And it goes up and it does come down. And once it comes down, I need to look for the kernel of truth in that shame. Where is it coming from? Why am I feeling this way? Well, of course I'm feeling shame. I'm not being the type of parent I want to be. That makes sense. There's a lot of societal expectations around being a mother and a working mother, what that's supposed to look like.
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And I don't feel like I'm measuring up. That shame makes sense. Okay. I get where that's coming from. If I were to look at this from the outside and see a friend in this position, I wouldn't think they were a bad person. I would have empathy for them. So I do this kind of understanding, kind of looking for the validity in the emotion if it's there.
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At the same time, maybe challenging it if it's not serving me. And then the most important things I do are kind of the last two steps. The first is to take action in some way to self-soothe.
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hmm okay so i'm usually lying in bed when i do this well do like um soft touch so rubbing your shoulder hand on the tummy whatever it may be um and then you got to pay that forward you got to do something with that negative energy so if i'm if it's during the day i would go and i've done all sorts of wild things to like you know Everything from working out to fostering kittens, right?
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Trying to just do something I wouldn't have done that day were it not for this suffering.
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And last night it was just a loving kindness meditation. So I thought about all the mothers out there who had had cancer and who were also struggling and just like, you know, imagined like, let me take that on. And like, let me just imagine them being more at peace.
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And that's it. But so that's like, that's a, it sounds really, yeah, it sounds kind of exhaustive, but like, it's, oh, it's so soothing.
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Yeah.
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It's such a good point, right? Like there doesn't have to be this stopwatch.
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It was so validating. That was like really good proposing.
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I felt that.
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Nobody else sees it. Like, why doesn't anyone else see it? Like, you're not the same person. You're a different person, but you're not the same person.
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Yeah. But you know what's so fascinating? Despite having written this book and knowing all this stuff, there have been times when my inclination has been to say like, no, honey, I am the same person. Okay. I love you just as much as I did before. And that is invalidation.
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I love her more. Right. But me saying no, nothing has changed. I'm invalid. I'm dismissing her emotions.
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And I have done that. And then I have followed up the next day to say last night when you said this to me, my knee jerk response was I haven't changed. And that is not fair to you. And I said that you must feel like you're grieving a parent that's still alive. That is some heavy stuff.
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And like, this is the path it took for me to get this information. And, I mean, not only was it immediately apparent that these skills helped patients and improved, you know, were critical to doing therapy well.
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And I don't know how you're dealing with it. Mm-hmm. So you can screw it up in the moment, as I have and every single parent will. Yeah. But you also have those opportunities to circle back.
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That's right. Because that's what I want her to do as an adult. I want her to circle back with people when she realizes, ooh, that was invalidating or that was unkind. The only way kids can figure that stuff out really is through modeling, by seeing it. That's it.
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Well, the two are not mutually exclusive in the sense that people are more easily influenced by those that they trust. Okay. That is just a fact. If you trust that I understand what it takes to run this podcast and I'm the best podcaster in the business, you're going to trust my suggestions. You're going to be more likely to be influenced by me. Okay. So those two things kind of do go together.
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Yeah. But influence is kind of a change agenda. Like I'm trying to push you in some direction rather than the acceptance of just what is.
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Yeah. So it just kind of the one kind of bleeds out of the other, as I kind of described earlier with that one patient. It's this like, oh, my God, like I totally see where you're coming from. I totally valid. You know, this is all valid. I see you. And I think, you know, once that's, and I keep saying once that's landed and like, to me, it's really clear having done this a lot, there is a look.
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You feel it. Yeah. There's a moment. And after that moment, then there's a door that opens and you can say like, but is there a better way for us to come at this? Yeah. You know, I'm, I think that if you had, okay, so I imagine if you could regulate, like if you could just bring down that intensity, you wouldn't have come at me so angrily, right? I think that's what we need to work on.
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This is me learning how to validate patients.
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Oh, I actually just read this article about, there's this technique you can try called the mammalian diet. When you put your face in cold water and you come out, it drops your heart blood pressure and then you feel better, whatever. So then I, at that point I transitioned into, yeah, skill building.
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Let's try this. Let's try that.
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Yeah.
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That's right.
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Stanford Psychologist: The #1 Psychological Skill To Master The Art of Influence & Transform Your Relationships
It's even a little further than that. So prior to DBT, we had this real focus in psychology on change. Everything was, you know, behaviorism, cognitive behaviorism, which focuses on changing your behavior, changing your thoughts. And that's great for folks who are change-focused, believe in their capacity for change, and are willing to do what you suggest, okay?
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If you've ever raised an adolescent or just been in a relationship with somebody where you feel like nothing's working, you know that feeling of, like, there are times when that approach just doesn't work. And so for the longest time, we didn't have treatments that worked. for folks who were what we called treatment resistant.
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Um, and the discovery, the fascinating insight was that if you want to help people make profound changes, you need to help them feel deeply accepted.
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So the skills that we learn, you start out with just a couple that basically signal engagement, that help me engage, and help me listen in a way that will foster understanding and empathy. Okay? But here's the thing. I don't have to validate the entirety of someone's experience.
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So when I'm working with, say, a schizophrenic client, someone who literally is seeing and hearing things that are not there... And this person is reacting to me as though I'm a threat. I'm trying to kill them or something. And I'm not. I don't agree with those thoughts, not by any stretch of the imagination. That is not valid.
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However, the feeling of fear and the desire to protect themselves, given what they're thinking, makes sense. I can validate that. I can go a step further and say, would you feel more comfortable taping, recording this conversation? Because I understand that you don't trust me right now.
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And if I wasn't feeling trust towards the person who I was talking to, I might want some recording so I could go back to it.
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Right. I'm not saying I agree with your thoughts, but I see the validity in your feeling and I can attend to that. Does that make sense? So like that is critical because what we tend to focus on is behavior that we don't like, we don't agree with, and we fail to attend to the valid emotions behind it.
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Okay. The model I use is called the validation ladder, and it includes eight skills. Okay. And I won't go through them all, but essentially validation conveys mindfulness, understanding, and empathy in a way that makes the other person feel accepted. So at the bare minimum, if I don't understand or empathize with someone, all I can do is be mindful and engaged.
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And to be mindful, you need to project non-judgment. So it's not just listening, OK, because people can tell when you are listening and coming up with your rebuttal and your counter argument or your judgments. So you have to listen in such a way that projects curiosity. And we know how to do that. All right. You use specific nonverbals and you play this little game in your head.
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Which is amazing and super effective. You want me to talk about it?
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I'm kind of embarrassed. Okay. It's a little therapist trick, but it is. It's how we attend. If I'm sitting across from someone and you're talking to me, the game I'm playing in my head is to solve or figure out this kind of two-part riddle. What's your point? Why do you care about it? And how do I improve upon it? How could I crystallize that argument better?
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I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're just thinking on your feet and you're throwing all this together. So in my mind, I'm thinking just how do I make this point better than you're making it now? It's kind of like when you're in a debate and you have to argue a position you don't necessarily agree with, right? Like why you should smoke.
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And your job is just to kind of formulate the best argument you can. That's essentially what you're doing. So you start asking questions to try and understand their position better. And you're just tweaking it and tweaking it. If you watch great interviewers like late night hosts, you'll see you can see them playing a version of this game. They're trying to pull out the best interview they can.
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It doesn't necessarily mean that they agree with what the other person is saying or whatever. They're just trying to crystallize that message. And that informs how they listen and then the questions they ask. And without fail, there's a sense of genuine curiosity there because it's genuinely there.
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Okay, so as I'm playing that game, I'm just asking at this level, it's just kind of mindful awareness that I'm projecting here. And as I'm listening, I am hearing the emotion. I am starting to make connections in my head. I am looking for what is the kernel of truth in what this person is saying? Where is this coming from? What is the feeling behind this? What function does this behavior serve?
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With suicidality, it's often relief from pain. If they had a way to relieve pain, they would take it. And this is the only option they see. I don't agree with that. But importantly, validation does not require agreement. I'm a vegetarian, but I could validate why somebody would choose to eat meat. That doesn't mean I agree with them. I just see the validity in their argument.
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And I can focus on that instead of the part that I disagree with. And importantly, if I focus on that first, the conversation around perhaps changing their opinion is much more likely to be successful.
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Validate the valid. Yeah.
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That's when I pivot to more like behavioral stuff. Okay. So that would be, you know, we have all sorts of reinforcement shaping that we do to try and kind of nudge the person in the other direction. But the interesting thing is the person will just be more receptive to you. you're curious, they absorb that curiosity.
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So one of the other mindfulness skills we use here, there's that attending one and then there's copying. which sounds so weird. But let me tell you, if you are like up at night, you can't sleep. Google the research on mimicry or copying. It is fascinating stuff. Like simply copying another person's body language. Okay.
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It does.
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Yeah, it does.
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It would, but here's the thing. So as soon as we were talking and I was starting to feel like, ooh, this isn't going well, I would in my head just say, like, copy. I'm not going to be too... you know, drilled in, but I just give like myself a message copy.
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For me to copy you. I just tell myself copy. And I slowly start to assume a similar position. Okay. And I'm intentionally doing that because I'm trying to attune to you. And this isn't me just being weird. Doing this activates mirror neurons. wherein as a result of copying your expression and your body language, I will start to feel, I will start to taste some of what you are experiencing.
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That is how mirror neurons function. We are designed to copy. Babies mimic the facial expressions of people, of their parents and caregivers. When we're attracted to people or we want to impress them or we like them, we naturally copy them. When we sense threat, we tend to close up. And interestingly, those are the moments oftentimes, conflict, right, where connection would serve you best.
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It's just not what we're wired to do.
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That's right.
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Mirroring, uh-huh, and mimicking.
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Oh, my gosh. So I'm trying to think of some of these really quirky studies. They looked at, for instance, when waiters simply repeat back an order compared to those who don't, they get a 25% higher tip on average, right? Copying increases altruistic behavior. towards the person who did the copying, it also overcomes implicit racism.
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So they have ways of measuring kind of subtle forms of racism that you're not even aware of. They'll give you an assessment to measure that. And then they'll have you copy someone of the opposite race, copy their movements in a video or something, and then they'll measure it again. And that implicit racism has significantly decreased.