Invalidation

For the most part, life involves people. That is obvious in the sphere of relationships, such as friendship, family, marriage, and community. But, we are often unaware of how big the people part is in getting work done well. It is just as vital. So, if your character is going to meet the demands of reality, it is going to have to be able to negotiate the world of people. And that can only be done successfully through connectedness. Connecting with others in a way that makes them feel understood and valued is the key to life and the basis of building trust and loyalty. From that base, everything else works. To do that requires the kind of character that is oriented toward others and makes proactive connections with them in a way that builds bonds (p. 73).

"The human heart will seek to be known, understood and connected with above all else. If you do not connect, the ones you care about will find someone who will." - Henry Cloud

In his book Integrity, Henry Cloud asked "If entering into another person’s reality, validating it, and treating it with respect builds connection, what destroys it? The exact opposite: Invalidation. When your experience is all that exists to you, invalidation occurs when you negate the other person’s experience, treating it as somehow not real or non-existent. (p. 63).

Some leaders are afraid to validate if they disagree, because they fear it sounds as if they are giving credibility to something they know is not right. But that is not the issue. Of course, communication is often about persuasion and bringing one person around to another different perspective. To empathize and validate what someone is experiencing does not mean that you always agree or even think that the other person is right. It just means that you see it as valid in that it is really their experience, and true for that person, and you show them that you understand what they are thinking and feeling. And that comes from seeing and caring about another person’s heart, and communicating that, whether or not you agree. You must connect first.... But other times it means that if you did connect with it, you would learn from the other person as well and may even change what you feel about it. That is how communicating helps us to know the other person and thereby enlarge our understanding about reality. (p. 64).

The sad thing is that most times the people who invalidate other people’s experience are not aware that they are doing something destructive. In fact, they often think they are helping… we have all seen those instances where someone has say something negative like “I’m such a loser,” and someone immediately comes back with “Don’t say that! You don’t really feel that way!” or some other attempt to help that only drives the person further into hopelessness. The reason is that he now has two problems instead of one. He has the initial problem that he felt so negative about, and then he feels that he is all alone and has no one who really understands. That is why people who try to help others by talking them out what they fell are usually no help at all. It is also the reason why research has for decades proven that you can help desperate people immensely by giving them no answers at all, and only giving them empathy (p. 66).

In summary, connection and trust happen when one heart meets another. Invalidation, on the other hand, wipes out the other heart and closes it off…

source: Henry Cloud, Integrity