How to Heal a Workplace

CHAPTER 5Validation: Judgement vs acknowledgement

When I talk about ‘validation’, a lot of people get confused by what I am actually referring to. If we look at the definition of ‘validation’, we find two distinct definitions of validation.

the action of checking or proving the validity or accuracy of something, in some cases to declare something legally or officially acceptable

which is distinctly different to:

recognition or affirmation that a person or their feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile.

I believe that it is in this distinction of action (judgement) vs recognition (acknowledgement) that the meaning of validation has become confused in the English language. We need to separate them if we want to support psychological safety in the workplace.

How our brains process trauma

When we experience a traumatic event, regardless of the event, there are two scenarios that determine whether or not it will be ‘filed’ as traumatic in our brains: our sense of direct responsibility for the event outcome or our sense of feeling powerless to prevent its impact.

The act of validation, by its dual nature, can therefore determine through ‘action’ the ‘recognition’ of the feelings experienced by an individual in any situation. The validation of our perception of any given situation is important to our ability to appropriately process the information into our memory network.

It is a natural part of our human experience that we look to others to confirm our perceptions of experience. ...