Shades of Depression: Anhedonia, Anxiety, Anger, and Alienation

            Depression has been described in many ways. Through my experiences and my reading and discussions with others, I think that while there are some common experiences, the details of each person’s experience with depression are unique, and vary even among multiple experiences of depression for the same individual. I’ve felt terrible sadness, apathy, hopelessness, helplessness, and these things I thought were all normal. Yet I’ve also had other experiences less well-associated with depression, and I’m not alone.

Anhedonia

            “Anhedonia is defined as a loss of capacity to experience pleasure. This inability to enjoy pleasurable things is associated with a number of mental health problems including depression. The word anhedonia comes from ancient Greek and means without delight. The individual who is experiencing this condition will find that their life is emotionally empty.

            “…A world without pleasure is a grey place indeed. Without this emotion, life become monotonous, and there doesn’t seem to be much point in doing anything. Day to day living becomes an endurance race, and there is no motivation to try to improve things. The inability to experience pleasure means that life can feel pointless, and that is not a satisfying form of existence. It is a particularly dangerous way to feel if people are trying to recover from an addiction.

            “…Pleasure is a vital component of the internal reward system – it helps people grow and learn. If the individual is unable to experience rewards they will fail to make any progress.” —‘Anhedonia in Recovery’

            Anhedonia sucks. It sucks away your motivation to recovery, to do anything at all. “What’s the point?” you may think.

            “I know nothing. I can do nothing. I understand nothing. I know nothing. Nothing. And all this misery does not even make me particularly unhappy.” —Gerhard Richter

            I go through the motions, but get no pleasure, and soon may not have the energy or motivation to go through the motions. I wander through a twilight fog where everything has lost its color.

            In this state, anytime I feel a glimmer of feeling for anything, I grab it, fiercely, and hold on as long as I can, until that fleeting joy is gone. I feel as though I am hopping from melting ice floe to melting ice floe over a killing-cold lake, and I wonder if they will sink, or get too far apart, or run out before I reach the other side I’m hoping is there.

            “I tend to find the ecstasy hidden in ordinary joys, because I did not expect those joys to be ordinary to me.” —Andrew Solomon

Anxiety

            “If you told me that I’d have to be depressed for the next month, I would say, “As long as I know it’ll be over in November, I can do it.” But if you said to me, you have to have acute anxiety for the next month,” I would rather slit my wrist than go through it. It was the feeling all the time like that feeling you have if you’re walking and you slip or trip and the ground is rushing up at you, but instead of lasting half a second, the way that does, it lasted for six months.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘Depression, the secret we share’ TED Talk

            Living in terror or panic for a prolonged time affects your body. Your adrenal glands wear out. You’re hypervigilant. You can’t sleep, and your body doesn’t recharge. The cortisol soup your whole system is swimming in takes its toll. Your brain rewires. Your sense of the future becomes foreshortened. Anything can trigger you to fight, flight, or freeze. It can become too much to leave the house, into a world of unknown variables and overwhelming stimulation. It can feel like having no skin.

            You develop learned helplessness when nothing you can do stops the source of fear and panic. It wears you out when you feel you have to keep this vulnerability hidden, which if you are living with someone or something that is threatening to you and more powerful than you, is highly likely. You feel small, disempowered. You are liable to lash out at the smallest trigger. It is as though the gain has been turned up on everything—a whisper is a shout, a simple word is a hammer blow.

            It is hard for me to tell, having lived with terror all my life, what is a genuine assessment of a threat, what is a childhood flashback, what is either causing or a result of depression. What I do know is, regardless of cause and effect, terror is the most debilitating of all. With anhedonia, even at its worst, I still can connect to the idea that I haven’t experienced absolutely everything, and perhaps there is something out there in which I can take pleasure. Anger, even frustrated and helpless anger, urges me to action against that which is intolerable and unjust.

            Fear chases me into a corner, binds my chest with invisible iron bands so I cannot even dare breathe or make a noise, lest someone notice I am here and take more from me when I have nothing to give, or beat down someone so beaten down by life I feel paralyzed.

            “Suicide is really more of an anxiety response than a depression solution: it is not the action of a null mind but of a tortured one. The physical symptoms of anxiety are so acute that they seem to demand a physical response: not simply the mental suicide of silence and sleep, but the physical one of self-slaughter.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

Anger

            “First, you are faced with an experience that seems wrong or unfair. Second, you don’t feel able to calmly correct it. And yet, in order for you to feel okay, the situation must be successfully resolved because leaving it as it is does not feel like an acceptable option (the third factor). You feel a strong desire to right a situation that seems wrong, yet you also believe that, at least for now, you are unable to do so. When this set of circumstances occurs, your normal, built-in, human response is anger.”
—Marcia Cannon, ‘The Gift of Anger’

            “A lot of painful things happened to me, and I just wanted to forget. I would wake up in the mornings and just be angry that I woke up. I felt like there wasn’t any help for me, ’cause I was just on this earth wasting space. I lived to use drugs and used drugs to live, and since drugs made me even more depressed, I just wanted to be dead.” —Sheila Hernandez

             “It’s like a hurt. It’s just like they raking your heart out your body, and it won’t stop, it’s just like somebody’s taking a knife and keep stabbing you all the time.” — Danquille Stetson

            It’s been said that depression is anger turned inward. I think depression can have in it anger both turned inward and outward. In depression what I have felt is helpless anger.

            I’ve been angry at hurt I could not prevent or defend against, angry both at the source of the hurt and at myself for my impotence or weakness.

            All this anger is exhausting and demoralizing, and without effective ways to express all this anger non-abusively and feel heard, it becomes a hopeless, angry despair. Loneliness is not just the absence of people but the absence of compassionate understanding.

            “I meet people and I know that they don’t have the level of experience that I have.” —Bill Stein

            Despite a lifetime of painful interpersonal traumas, I have come to believe there are some out there who aren’t habitually, mindlessly hurtful. Yet the absence of a flaw doesn’t indicate the presence of a virtue.

            We humans are rarely comfortable with the expression of emotions like anger and fear and shame, even when we are only bystanders. It takes awareness, effort, investment, and a willingness to learn from inevitable failures to practice empathy, compassion, validation, and humility in the face of these things; with emotional boundaries that don’t trend to self-protective insensitivity. Too often we rely on comparison and pity in the face of others’ pain; or unwanted and inappropriate judgment, advice, and humor. Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.

            “Generosity and love demand great expenditure of energy and effort and will.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

            Prolonged anger can also have physical health consequences—heart attacks, hardening of the arteries, strokes, hypertension, high blood pressure, heart rate and metabolism changes, muscle and respiratory problems (Dr. Herbert Benson, The Relaxation Response, 1975).

Alienation and the Struggle to Overcome it

            Depression is an alienating experience. Anhedonia, acute anxiety, and anger are alienating experiences.

            “You can’t measure in objective terms how sick people are or what their symptoms are. You can only listen to what people say and accept that that’s how it feels to them.” —Deborah Christie
 

            “There is an interaction between illness and personality; some people can tolerate symptoms that would destroy others; some people can tolerate hardly anything. Some people seem to give in to their depression; others seem to battle it. Since depression is highly demotivating, it takes a certain survivor impulse to keep going through the depression, not to cave in to it.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

            Compassionate understanding isn’t something we’re automatically good at, nor empathy, nor non-judgment, listening skills. Capacities for these are there, unless you’re a sociopath, but it takes mindful work and perseverance, and humility, to build and practice these skills. It’s not easy, it’s not always fun, and it requires uncomfortable self-examination and self-honesty and a willingness to fail and try again.

            Becoming a brain surgeon is hard work and you would (I hope) not presume to try brain surgery without that work. Yet many people try to offer support who have underdeveloped humility, awareness, and trustworthiness necessary to be effective. We do this because we don’t know what we don’t know. We also do this because shame shuts down genuine human connection and vulnerability (see Brené Brown’s work for more on overcoming these issues).

            I’ve been there. I’ve not only bought the t-shirt but run the t-shirt stand. But having had the experiences I’ve had, I can never return to not-knowing. Sooner or later I think most everyone is touched by tragedy or trauma, and ignorance is no longer an option. The choice is, what do you do then?

            “You cannot draw a depressed person out of his misery with love (though you can sometimes distract a depressed person). You can, sometimes, manage to join someone in the place where he resides. It is not pleasant to sit still in the darkness of another person’s mind, though it is almost worse to watch the decay of the mind from the outside. You can fret from a distance or you can come close and closer and closest. Sometimes the way to be close is to be silent, or even distant. It is not up to you, from the outside, to decide; it is up to you to discern. Depression is lonely above all else, but it can breed the opposite of loneliness. …So many people have asked me what to do for depressed friends and relatives, and my answer is actually simple: blunt their isolation. Do it with cups of tea or with long talks or by sitting in a room nearby and staying silent or in whatever way suits the circumstances, but do that. And do it willingly.” —Andrew Solomon, ‘The Noonday Demon’

            “Our needs are our greatest assets. I am able to just be there with people because of the stuff I’ve needed from people. I guess I’ve learned to give all the things I need.” —Maggie Robbins

Sources and further reading:

            ‘Anhedonia in Recovery’ article

            Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression by Allie Brosh

            Hyperbole and a Half: Depression Part Two by Allie Brosh

            ‘Depression, the secret we share’ TED Talk by Andrew Solomon

            ‘The Noonday Demon’ by Andrew Solomon

            ‘The Gift of Anger’ by Marcia Cannon

            ‘Honor Your Anger’ by Beverly Engel

            ‘Healing Through the Dark Emotions:The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair’ by Marcia Greenspan

            ‘The power of vulnerability’ TED Talk by Brené Brown

            ‘Listening to shame’ TED Talk by Brené Brown

            ‘Suicide: Read This First’ on metanoia.org

            ‘What can I do to help someone who may be suicidal?’ on metanoia.org

            Emotional Intelligence information on EQI.org

            ‘EQ for Everybody: A Practical Guide to Developing and Using One’s Emotional Intelligence’ free PDF by Steve Hein

Compassion

Self-Compassion as Shame Resilience

“Self-compassion is key because when we’re able to be gentle with ourselves in the midst of shame, we’re more likely to reach out, connect, and experience empathy.” — Brené Brown, ‘Daring Greatly’

Shame is painful and visceral. We go to great lengths to avoid and defend against experiences of shame. Often we put on masks and avoid being honest and authentic out of shame. This can set up an endless cycle of not feeling good enough, and judging others.

In ‘Daring Greatly’ Brené Brown talks about cultivating experiences of empathy with others as a balm to answer shame. However, that requires the participation of someone who can engage empathetically, and with people run rampant with unaddressed shame of their own, it’s a rare thing to find. Also, while empathy requires two participants, shame does not:

“Shame started as a two-person experience, but as I got older I learned how to do shame all by myself.” —Robert Hilliker

Compassion is something we can practice on our own—and I’ll describe how I do it in the next two sections. The great thing is that building compassion with ourselves and with others are linked. The more compassion I feel for me, the more I can feel for others. Like mindfulness, it’s not a state that once achieved is just there, always, absolute. Compassion is a skill, and there are many ways to practice it.

“In her new book, Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, [Dr. Kristen Neff] defines each of these elements:

• Self-kindness: Being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.
• Common humanity: Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience—something we all go through rather than something that happens to “me” alone.
• Mindfulness: Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness requires that we not “overidentify” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.”

 —Brené Brown’s summation from ‘Daring Greatly’

Using ‘Tonglen’ for Compassion Practice

“In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.” —Pema Chödrön

The exercise of tonglen was described to me this way:

• Settle first with breathing mindfulness
• Identify stuck thoughts or emotions
• Breathe in the emotions or thoughts gently
• Be with it as fierce protector
• Allow it to be present
• Watch the urge to push it away
• Remember that all emotions are transient and will pass
• Hold open the possibility of change
• Breathe out compassion or other opposite emotion, for:
• Yourself
• A benefactor
• A loved one
• An acquaintance
• A stranger
• An estranged one
• Settle back to basic mindfulness of breathing before finishing your practice

Breathing in the stuck emotion, validating and welcoming it fully into your consciousness, is not something we tend to do. We push away, we numb, we reject. As I mentioned in my post on validation, this can make those feelings more intense. Breathing in what hurts and what’s stuck is somewhat counterintuitive and can be quite difficult, and can be done to degrees. The important part is breathing in what you don’t want, and breathing out what you do.

“Tonglen practice is a radical departure from our usual way of going about things. It may seem threatening, and even crazy; but it strikes at a very core point—how we barricade ourselves from pain and lose our connection with one another. The irony is that the barricades we create do not help all that much; they just make things worse. We end up more fearful, less willing to extend ourselves, and stunted in our ability to express any true kindness. Tonglen pokes holes in those barricades that we create.” —Judy Lief, ‘Making Friends with Death’

What does compassion feel like? How can we practice something if we rarely experience it?

Shame was so prevalent in my life I thought I had no understanding or experience of compassion. But I did—my dog. We shared an unconditional bond. Sometimes I might be upset with her behaviors, if she peed on the floor, but I still loved her very much.

When I started practicing tonglen, that was my out-breath visual—sitting with and petting my dog, looking into her eyes. I could easily call that image to mind. It felt good to think about, which positively reinforced and strengthened that feeling. I was practicing compassion and learning what it felt like.

Even if you are not a dog person, chances are you have an experience of compassion, somewhere in your life, even if only a brief memory you can call upon. The more you call it up, and the more pleasurable it is, the easier to draw on it becomes.

Someone We Care About

 “To claim the truths about who we are, where we come from, what we believe, and the very imperfect nature of our lives, we have to be willing to give ourselves a break and appreciate the beauty of our cracks or imperfections. To be kinder and gentler with ourselves and each other. To talk to ourselves the same way we’d talk to someone we care about.” —Brené Brown, ‘Daring Greatly’

In my Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills class I received a non-judgment worksheet, to help challenge judgmental thinking. The last question is, “If this happened to a friend, what would you say to him/her?”

We’re good at imagining other people who are important to us, pre-visualizing conversations to others, imagining what we might say to them and what they might say to us. I take the practice one step further. I imagine what others would say to me.

In Barbara Sher’s book ‘I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was,’ she describes an exercise for self-cheerleading that involves imagining all your heroes and idols around you, encouraging you. Perhaps famous people or mentors or family members whose words and deeds have inspired you. The goal of the exercise, and one of the goals of this book, was to self-encourage to dare greatly, to be vulnerable and take risks.

Having cultivated this imaginary cheerleading team for myself, it was easy to expand that practice to the comforting words I wanted to hear when I felt shame, when I felt pressured to do or be something.

By imagining in tonglen that I am being held by someone who encourages and accepts me unconditionally, imaginary though they be, I am practicing self-compassion. I have gone from only being able to imagine compassion for others to being able to imagine both giving and receiving at the same time.

I’ve also developed positive triggers by diligently practicing tonglen, even for a few moments, whenever I hear a certain audio cue with which I’ve saturated my playlists, CDs, and life. I have gotten into the habit of practicing tonglen when I am journaling through tough emotions and thoughts, as often as it occurs to me, usually at the end of a really rough thought or writing. I highly recommend the process of associating certain cues with positive practices of which you wish to make a habit. Pavlov yourself.

The more I practice, the easier it gets. I still experience shame often, but I am building resilience through compassion.

Sources and further reading:

• ‘Daring Greatly’ by Brené Brown
• ‘Self-Compassion’ by Kristen Neff
• ‘Tonglen’ by Pema Chodron
• ‘Making Friends with Death’ by Judy Lief
• ‘I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was’ by Barbara Sher with Barbara Smith
• Non-judgmentally (DBT Self Help)
• ‘The Power of Vulnerability’ TED Talk by Brené Brown

Validation Handout

Why Validate?: Using Validation to Strengthen Emotion Regulation

‘Emotional wisdom,’ knowing when to be changed by emotion and when to change emotion, requires blending the ability to experience and express emotion (accept emotion) and the ability to actively regulate emotion (change emotion). (Koerner, 2011; Lee Greenberg, 2002, p. xvi)

“When you talk to people who get it, it makes it a lot easier to realize that what you are experiencing is real.” —realsocialskills.tumblr.com

“Being alone is not only the absence of people, but the absence of understanding.” —Clara, 17, as quoted in ‘Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman’

What to Validate

• Problem importance
• Task difficulty
• Emotional pain or sense of being out of control is inevitable
• Wisdom in ultimate goals, even if not in means currently being used
• Location perspective
• Rely on reflective listening and verify what you are hearing.
• Be cautious of using comparisons, especially with others but even with yourself. Experiences, emotions, resources, abilities and circumstances vary widely, as well as ultimate goals and aims, and what will be effective.
• Focus on emotions and needs more than details, speculations, judgments, or interpretations.
• Focus on the person being validated, not on others.

How to Validate: Six Levels of Validation

Validate at the highest possible level with yourself and with others. Remember that actions speak louder than words; there are a lot of noverbal ways to convey validation with facial expression, posture, tone of voice, touches, gestures.

Practice is the key to making validation a natural part of the way you communicate.

•          Level 1: Being Present. Be One Mindful. Give all your attention to the person you are validating. Use gentle returns.
•       Level 2: Accurate Reflection. Use active listening; restate/summarize what you have heard. Observe and describe non-judgmentally.
•       Level 3: Tune in and Guess. Guess what the other person might be feeling or thinking, from verbal information and nonverbal cues. Accept corrections.
•         Level 4: Put it in Context. Understand behavior and reactions in terms of both history and current situation. Restate past and connect it to current issue.
•             Level 5: Normalizing. Express that the emotions are normal for anyone in that situation.
•       Level 6: Radical Genuineness. Demonstrate understanding the emotion on a very deep level, sharing that experience as equals. Express your truth. Focus on shared emotions more than details or similarities; gently return your focus to the current situation and emotions of whom you are validating.

Sources/further reading:

•     ‘Doing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: APractical Guide’ by Kelly Koerner
•    Understanding Validation: A Way to Communicate Acceptance
•      Validation (DBT Self Help)

Why, What, and How to Validate

Why Validate?

We’ve all had the experience of invalidation. We talk about how we feel, or the details of a situation, and the other person responds with something like, “it can’t be that bad,” “you must have been mistaken,” or, “you’re too sensitive.” Even professional-grade reframings can come across as lack of belief in what we’re saying. If we’ve experienced persistent invalidation, we may internalize that, and find ourselves saying to ourselves and others, “It’s not that bad,” “I’m making a fuss over nothing,” and doubt our own perceptions and emotions.

The usual responses to invalidation go one of two ways. Sometimes thoughts and feelings get more intense. Sometimes we numb and shut down or push them away. It’s normal for invalidation to produce increased arousal. Our emotions have come with a message, and the message isn’t being heard. We lose trust in someone else’s ability to listen and believe what we say. We lose trust in our own feelings and the capacity to listen to them.

Effective emotion regulation is a blend of accepting, experiencing and expressing emotion, and actively regulating and changing emotion. Les Greenberg refers to this as emotional wisdom, knowing when to be changed by emotion and when to change emotion.

Before doing this we have to identify and label the emotion and make sense of what its message is. Primary emotions are like a spotlight that turns on to show us what needs attention. When we’ve experienced pervasive invalidation, this can be a real challenge.

By using validation strategies, you learn to recognize and use your experience of emotion. This re-establishes wise-mind, adaptive use of emotional experiences to identify what works and is effective. When we have clarity about emotion, the messenger doesn’t need to keep delivering the message, and we can naturally move into, “Okay, this is what’s going on, what can I do about it?”

Emotion processing takes time. It can’t be rushed, but it can be helped. Confirm and focus on what is experienced before offering problem-solving strategies to get to the desired goals. Be guided by the intent to reduce arousal and cue adaptive emotions.

When you validate a difficult emotion that’s been avoided, it increases connection and acceptance of emotional experience and expression. It may be exactly this shifting that is key to transforming stuckness into a way forward. This is fantastic for us, and can also deepen our connections when we use validation with others.

Validation is a key component of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills. It’s the V in VITALS, and the V in DEAR MAN GIVE FAST. It’s an important skill, but if we’ve experienced invalidation more than validation, it can be hard to know what validation looks like and how to do it effectively.

What Do I Validate?

Validate that the problems are important, that a task is difficult, that emotional pain or a sense of being out of control is justifiable, and that there is wisdom in the ultimate goals, even if not in the particular means currently being used to try to reach those goals.

Validate location perspective. Unless we believe that someone truly understands our dilemma, exactly how painful, difficult to change, or important a problem is, we won’t trust that the other person’s solutions are appropriate or adequate. Unless we radically accept awareness of our own pain, difficulty, problem importance, and awareness of where we want to get to, we’re not fully aware of where we ourselves are.

Without that validation of location perspective, understanding and the ability to facilitate change get blocked. Everyone needs to be on the same page with the experience of what the problem is and what the goal is or we’ll be running at cross purposes, or fighting with ourselves. It’s important to know where one is starting from, and where one wants to go.

How?—Six Levels of Validation

Level 1: Being Present.

Holding someone’s hand when they are having a painful medical treatment, listening with your whole mind and doing nothing but listening to a child describe their day in first grade, and going to a friend’s house at midnight to sit with her while she cries because a supposed friend told lies about her are all examples of being present. Often we’re uncomfortable with others’ intense emotion because we don't know what to say. Just being present, paying complete attention to the person in a nonjudgmental way, is often the answer.

Being present for yourself means acknowledging and sitting with your internal experience rather than avoiding or pushing it away, which is not easy when it’s intense. Being mindful of your own emotion is the first step to accepting your emotion.

Be One Mindful. Give all your attention to the person you are validating. Use gentle returns to keep your focus there. Listen and observe.

Level 2: Accurate Reflection.

Summarize what you have heard from someone else or summarize your own feelings. When done in an authentic manner, with the intent of understanding the experience without judging it, accurate reflection is validating. Non-judgment is where you want your focus, to avoid doing this in an artificial, sing-song way, or when you’re self-validating, avoiding sneaky self-judgment and criticism.

This can help separate thought from emotion. “So basically I’m feeling pretty angry,” would be a self-reflection. “Sounds like you’re angry he didn’t call you back,” could be accurate reflection by someone else.

Use active listening; restate what you have heard. Observe and describe non-judgmentally.

Level 3: Tune In and Guess.

People vary in their ability to know their own feelings. We may confuse different types of emotional arousal, like anxiety and excitement, or excitement and happiness. We may mask our feelings if we have learned that others don’t react well to our sensitivity.

We may have difficulty acknowledging, accurately identifying and tuning in with ourselves if we weren’t free to experience and express emotion in the past. Being able to accurately label feelings is an important step to being able to regulate them.

When someone is describing a situation, notice their emotional state. Then either name the emotions you hear or guess at what the person might be feeling. “I’m guessing you must have felt pretty hurt by her comment,” is Level Three validation. You may guess wrong and the person could correct you. It’s her emotion and she is the only one who knows how she feels. Accepting her correction is validating.

Guess what the other person might be feeling or thinking, from verbal information and nonverbal cues. Accept corrections.

Level 4: Put it in Context.

Your experiences, your physical and psychological conditions, current and past living situations, all influence your emotional reactions. If your best friend was bitten by a dog a few years ago, she is not likely to enjoy playing with your German Shepherd. Validation at this level would be saying, “Given what happened to you, I completely understand your not wanting to be around my dog.”

Another friend was raised by alcoholic parents; she put up with constant lies and raising her siblings. She just found out her 17-year-old was at a party drinking. You say to her, “Hearing your outlook, based on your home environment when you were raised, it makes sense you’d respond so angrily.”

Self-validation would be understanding your own reactions in the context of your past experiences and current situation.

Understand behavior and reactions in terms of both history and current situation. Restate past and connect it to current issue.

Level 5: Normalizing.

Understanding that your emotions are normal is helpful for everyone. For the emotionally sensitive person, knowing that anyone would be upset in a specific situation is validating. For example, “Of course you’re anxious. Speaking before an audience the first time is scary for anyone.”

Express that the emotions are normal for anyone in that situation.

Level 6: Radical Genuineness.

Radical genuineness is when you understand the emotion someone is feeling on a very deep level. Maybe you have had a similar experience. Radical genuineness is sharing that experience as equals.

Be careful of making comparisons and be mindful how much time you spend talking about your feelings and experiences. Be mindful of the possibility of Trojan advice-giving, sneaking in discussing how you coped. I’ve done it, out of a sheer desire to want to rescue this person from a pain I know all too well, or rescue myself from what seems to be the same situation over again. It’s normal to want to stop the suffering. But this can pressure the other person to explain why your solution wouldn’t work for them, or move out of their current experience, indicating that their feelings and thoughts are not acceptable.

Demonstrate understanding the emotion on a very deep level, sharing that experience as equals. Express your truth. Focus on shared emotions more than details or similarities; gently return your focus to the current situation and emotions of whom you are validating.

Practice Makes Progress 

Validate at the highest possible level with yourself and with others. Practice is the key to making validation a natural part of the way you communicate.

Accompanying handout here.

Sources/further reading:

•     ‘Doing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: APractical Guide’ by Kelly Koerner
•    Understanding Validation: A Way to Communicate Acceptance
•      Validation (DBT Self Help)