• Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Marriage Counselling
    • Couples Therapy
    • Relationship Coaching
    • Imago Therapy
  • Shop
  • FREE Master Class
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Contact

John Sullivan Counselling

Marriage Counselling and Couples Therapy

P: 519-966-1408   C: 226-346-2503
FREE INITIAL ASSESSMENT

Chap 9. – Imago Dialogue: Validation

“To make somebody feel valued as a person, or feel that his or her ideas or opinions are worthwhile … is precisely what the second step of Imago Dialogue, validation, is meant to do. Very simply, it sends the message from the receiver to the sender, ‘You make sense, and what makes sense is …”(p.206)

What Validation Means

Validation means that you recognize and accept that the other person has also had an experience, and that his or her point of view, while it may be different from yours, has equal validity. Remember that others are not you.

Tim Horton’s Example

I used the example, last week, of going to a Tim Horton’s drive-thru as an example of mirroring. When I asked for a small black for me and a medium decaf with milk for my wife, the person immediately repeated back to me: Was that a small black and a medium decaf with milk? A perfect mirror. The employees have been taught to repeat back the order to the customer to cut down on wastage from mistakes because they cannot see the person giving the order and there might be static in the system.

Using the same example from a validating point of view, the person on the inside didn’t say, “Are you crazy? Don’t you want a large double?” because that is what they prefer. No, they just repeated back the order to make sure they heard it correctly. There is no judgment!

The authors do go on to say: 

“Of course, validation may be more difficult to pull off than we’re making it sound; in our experience, validation seems to be the most demanding step of the Dialogue for many couples. Yet, it may be the most important step of all, and here’s why. Being validated – receiving the explicit message that what we are experiencing makes sense to another – is precisely the opposite of what many of us experience much of the time. Invalidation, unfortunately, is the norm in many kinds of relationships – between parents and children, between boss and employee, among siblings, and between romantic partners.” (p.206)

The Validation Experience

“The experience of validation reverses the messages we received from our childhood caretakers and others, who, wittingly or not, left us with the impression that we were wrong to feel what we felt or to want what we want or to think what we think.” (p.211)

Steps of the Imago Dialogue Process

The first two steps of the Imago Dialogue Process (the Safe Conversation Process) are

  1. Mirroring
  2. Validation

With mirroring we make sure we get the content of the sender’s message – the what. Validation is about understanding – it makes sense that is how you think about something. Next week, I’ll explore the last step of the process – empathy, which shifts the focus from how the sender feels, to the emotional experience behind the message.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: harville and helen, harville hendrix, imago dialogue, imago relationship therapy, imago therapy, mirroring, validation

Relationship Issues

What Conscious Partners Know (con’t): 16 and 17

We are continuing our journey of moving a relationship from the unconscious, old brain, reactive modality to the conscious, new brain, and intentional modality. Along that path, there are many concepts that conscious partners incorporate into their relationship.  Being conscious means taking responsibility for (only) their own behaviour and allowing room for their partner’s flawed […]

What Conscious Partners Know – 14 & 15

What Conscious Partners Know – 14 and 15 (from Doing Imago Relationship Therapy in the Space-Between) They need to remove all forms of negativity that show up in the Space-Between; instead of picking a fight and using negativity to get what they want, they ask their partner for a Dialogue.  They need to do their […]

What Conscious Partners Know (con’t)

What Conscious Partners Know (con’t) Back from England and Ireland, where we celebrated our 50th anniversary. This stuff works! We certainly wouldn’t have made it to 50 without Imago. Before going away, I had started working my way through the 25 statements Harville and Helen have written in their book Doing Imago Relationship Therapy in […]

Older Articles

About The Coach

That's how he likes to think of himself - a coach. John Sullivan won't fix your relationship. He gives you the tools to help you build permanent and lasting connections and a deeper intimacy with those in your life.

Services

  • Marriage Counselling – Windsor
  • Couples Therapy – Windsor
  • Relationship Coaching – Windsor
  • Imago Therapy

Connect

           

Contact

P: 519-966-1408 C: 226-346-2503 john@johnsullivancounselling.com
Hours - Mon-Fri 9am to 8pm
Sat. 9am to 5pm

© Copyright 2016 John Sullivan Counselling · All Rights Reserved · Website by Oliver Marketing · Admin