Dr. Caroline Fleck
speaker
364 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Caroline Fleck’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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I am thrilled.
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.
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.
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?
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.
This is me learning how to validate patients.
That's right.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Which is amazing and super effective. You want me to talk about it?
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?
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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