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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Appearances
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.
Yeah, I know, I know, right? And it's not happening.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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...
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.
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.
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...
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
I haven't seen it yet. I want to.
And the Menendez brothers most recently. Oh, I saw that one. Yeah.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Showing 221–240 of 364 · page 12 of 19
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