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[quote=Anonymous]PP with long post here.

Validation is a technique developed to help cope with family members who have borderline personality disorder.  BPD is essentially a disorder of emotional regulation.  By definition it cannot be diagnosed before a person is 18.  However, lots of pre-teens and teens have problems with emotional regulation, which IME makes validation very useful for dealing with adolescents.

In essence, the technique is aimed at validating strong emotions the BPD (or teen!) person is feeling while ratcheting them down so they can be in a position to think through solutions to whatever the problem is.

It is important to immediately validate whatever the feeling is.  ("That must be so upsetting!")  Knowing you are on their side (at least with regard to how she is feeling), the teen can then give some details on what happened.  You respond empathetically and without judgment or without any statements that just might imply judgment (sometimes harder than it seems).

At a suitable point when you know more, you universalize the teen's feeling.  (Anyone would be upset if that happened to them!")  Personally, I think that is one of the most powerful aspects of validation because teens often think they are the only ones who have ever felt this way and it can be very isolating.

It is important to not shortcut this by having your first statement be something like "I'll bet you are mad; anyone would be outraged."  It can come off as too stock and insincere if you do it often enough in part because you haven't yet heard the details--that's when you come in with the universalization.

There are a couple of rules, number one of which is "Don't validate that which should not be validated."  Validating feelings is always okay; validating negative statements about others or bad behaviors is not.

IME, one of the words you have to ban from your vocabulary is "but." "I see why you are were upset, but the teacher needs to have homework turned in."  Pre-validation faced with the rat situation I probably would have said something like, "I'm really sorry, but it's 3 in the morning.  Let's deal with this in the morning."

One reason I gave the second example with the inward me was to show that you have to really filter your inner thoughts when practicing validation and this can be very difficult (especially at 3 in the morning!).  My DH refuses to do this because he thinks he should be able to speak his mind and DD has to face the facts.  Umm, no, she already knows the facts and the anxiety is killing her.

Along side this, it is really helpful to do the same with positive emotions but you don't have to be so careful, just mindful.  DD:  I took the trash out  Me (in non-mindful mode):  That's nice you are doing your chores.  Do you know where I put the chopping board?  Me (in mindful mode):  You did?  That's so great! I really appreciate it when you do your chores without being reminded.  I so don't like nagging--thanks for being so helpful to me.

This may seem a bit overboard, but it actually helps a lot.  At the beginning, you may have to seek out the tiniest positive thing to convey to your teen.  "I noticed you hung your loofah brush on the hook.  Thanks for doing that--you know how it really bothers me when I stumble over it on the tub floor."

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