You can say every correct word and still invalidate someone, purely through tone.
This is the part of validation that nobody teaches and everybody can feel. The content of what you say matters less than most people assume. How you say it carries most of the signal.
The way and tone in which we communicate in and of itself can be validating or invalidating. To communicate to someone and ask about their experience as if they are in an interrogation room can feel inherently invalidating.
The interrogation room is a precise image. Nothing said in an interrogation is untrue. The questions are reasonable. What makes it an interrogation is the posture behind it, the fact that the asker has already decided something and is gathering material.
Most people who do this have no idea they are doing it. The posture usually comes from worry rather than judgment, and worry produces exactly the same rhythm: rapid questions, narrowed focus, an audible need for a particular answer.
What the other tone sounds like
The alternative is not softer or warmer in a performed way. It is a specific stance: open, curious, and genuinely uncommitted about whether the person's experience is correct.
To communicate to someone with a gentle, open tone of curiosity and compassion conveys, listen, whatever you say I am going to be open to. I am not going to inherently judge what you are thinking or feeling as right or wrong. I am genuinely curious, what is happening for you in this moment? Help me help us both understand.
Help us both understand is the operative phrase, and it is worth slowing down on.
The person may not know either
There is an assumption buried in most attempts at validation: that the other person knows why they feel what they feel and is deciding whether to tell you. Often that is not the situation.
For some folks, they might not have a clear picture of why something is hard, why they feel or think or behave a certain way. For many of us we go about at times doing things so automatically that we may never even slow down to really question or interrogate that.
Most behavior runs on automatic. The snap of irritation at a particular tone of voice, the reluctance to open a certain kind of email, the flatness that arrives on Sunday evenings. These have causes. Very few people have examined them, because ordinary life does not require it.
So when you ask with real curiosity, you are often not extracting information the person is holding. You are inviting them to look at something for the first time, with company.
This also explains why pressing harder backfires. If the answer does not exist yet, more pressure does not retrieve it, it just produces a guess offered to end the discomfort, which both of you will then treat as true.
Validation as a shared investigation
This reframes what validation is for. The usual account is that it makes the other person feel heard, which is true and incomplete.
Validation, in addition to helping bring people closer together, can also be a huge opportunity to help people you care about develop greater curiosity and compassion for their own experience.
You are modeling a way of relating to an inner experience: without verdict, with interest. People tend to adopt toward themselves the stance that others have taken toward them. A person who has been asked about their feelings with curiosity begins to ask themselves that way.
Over time that is the larger effect. A single conversation helps for an evening. A consistent stance changes what someone does with their own difficulty when nobody is in the room.
What this looks like in practice
Some concrete markers, since tone is hard to describe abstractly.
- Ask fewer questions and leave longer gaps. Speed reads as prosecution.
- Drop the why that means justify yourself. Try, what was that like, or, what happened right before.
- Do not finish their sentence with your theory, even when your theory is probably right.
- Let an answer of I do not know stand. That is often the honest one, and pushing past it ends the investigation.
- Notice your own arousal. If you are activated, your tone is already doing something you did not choose.
That last point is the one that quietly determines the rest. A person who is flooded cannot produce a curious tone by deciding to. If you are in that state, the skill you need first is not validation, it is regulation. The TIP skills exist for that.
When it is not the right moment
Validation is not always the move, and pretending otherwise turns it into a technique applied at people rather than a stance held with them.
If someone is asking a direct question, answer it. If someone is in immediate danger, act. And if you are too depleted to be curious, saying so honestly is better than performing an interest you do not have. People can tell, and a performed version costs more than an admitted absence.
Where this fits
Validation is a core DBT skill for increasing compassion toward yourself and others. If you are starting from scratch, validation is not agreement clears up the most common misunderstanding, and validation as a way to connect covers what it is actually doing between two people.
Dr. Jesse Finkelstein works on this in individual therapy and couples therapy at Axis Psychological Services in New York. You can book a free consultation.
If you want to practice validating with curiosity and compassion, learn about DBT therapy in NYC, or join the DBT skills group in NYC.
Common questions
Why does tone matter more than wording in validation?
Because you can say every correct word and still invalidate someone. Asking about a person's experience as though they are in an interrogation room feels invalidating regardless of the content. Nothing said in an interrogation is untrue and the questions are reasonable. What makes it an interrogation is the posture behind it, and curiosity and compassion are what change that posture.
What if the person cannot explain why they feel that way?
That is common. Most behavior runs on automatic, and very few people have examined the causes because ordinary life does not require it. When you ask with real curiosity you are often not extracting information they are holding, you are inviting them to look at something for the first time with company. Pressing harder does not retrieve an answer that does not exist yet, it produces a guess offered to end the discomfort.
What should you avoid saying?
Ask fewer questions and leave longer gaps, because speed reads as prosecution. Drop the why that means justify yourself and try what was that like, or what happened right before. Do not finish their sentence with your theory even when your theory is probably right. And let an answer of I do not know stand, because pushing past it ends the investigation.
What if you are too activated to be curious?
Then regulation comes before validation. A person who is flooded cannot produce a curious tone by deciding to, and the tone is already doing something they did not choose. Saying honestly that you do not have it in you right now is better than performing an interest you do not have, because people can tell.
