Validation in Therapy: Honoring the Person, Transforming the Identity

Effective therapy isn’t just about the fact that we validate, but how and what we validate.

Validation is present in almost every therapeutic approach, but shows up in many different ways. In some models, it's treated as an ethos: a deep, underlying attitude of compassion and empathy. In other models, it's deployed as a deliberate, technical intervention to reduce blame and guilt. However it is used, validation can be a powerful agent of change, but perhaps only if it is used precisely? Effective therapy isn’t just about the fact that we validate, but how and what we validate.

Validate Everything?

On the surface, validation looks easy… stay away from anything that will feel invalidating for a Client and give full appreciation for what Clients do, whatever the consequences. You can see from this summary that one aspect of validation targets the person, while the other aspect targets what they do. And this is where a potential risk lies. In trying not to invalidate the Client as a whole person, we can easily and inadvertently validate the self-identity and the behavior it controls. To avoid this risk, many therapists play it safe and validate everything. This makes sense, at one level, when we think about the potential harm caused by invalidation, but it is hardly precise.

Avoid Invalidation, Always

PBBT takes a strong overarching stance on invalidation: no invalidation anywhere at any time. Negating or weakening identity should never come through invalidation. Invalidation is a blunt tool often used to suppress, punish, or correct behavior. Even when unintentional, it can make Clients feel judged, dismissed, or unsafe.

Many therapeutic techniques carry the risk of invalidation. For example, cognitive restructuring may imply a Client’s thoughts are irrational. Thought experiments may challenge beliefs in ways that feel dismissive. Defusion or distancing exercises can seem to reduce painful experiences to mere narratives, feelings or sensations. And negation techniques often attempt to disprove or override emotional truths.

PBBT never uses invalidation in part because it is simply too risky and too stigmatizing for individuals already highly stigmatized. The emotional cost of making a Client feel unheard or unseen is never worth it. Furthermore, identity cannot be weakened through contradiction or critique. Identity transformation, conversely, requires understanding, exploration, and appreciation.

PBBT’s Distinction

PBBT draws a critical distinction to support its precise use of validation. We validate the whole person, but not the self-identity that manages and contributes to the person’s psychological suffering. We validate the Client’s lived experience as a product of their history and interactions with the world. We validate the emotional truth and pain of those experiences. We validate the inevitable self-identity that formed from those experiences. In doing so, we are legitimizing that identity without reinforcing it. These distinctions among lived experience, self-identity, actions and personhood allow us to maintain deep respect for the Client, their pain, and their history, without validating the distorted negative self-perspective these produced. In short, we validate the experience that created the identity, but not the identity as a permanent truth or fixed form of self-knowing.

Walking the Thin Line: Precision Is the Solution

There is a thin line between validating a person and reinforcing a harmful identity. In PBBT, the way to stay on the right side of that line is precision. Separating out personhood from historical identity means being sharply attuned to the emotional and historical layers of a Client's self-meaning. Validation in PBBT is exact and purposeful. We validate the person who is trapped inside a painful identity. We validate the emotional logic of their beliefs from inside that psychological space. And then, with precision and care, we help loosen the grip of those beliefs, not by denying them, but by honoring them fully and helping the Client find new space to be more than what history dictates. Validation in PBBT is not just kind - it's deliberate, clear, and transformational.

Want to learn more?

Join us for an informational webinar on the Professional Diploma in Process-Based Behaviour Therapy (PBBT).

Date: 11th August 2025
Time: 16:00 (Irish Time)

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