> I hear that your family member had her actions validated - what she decided to do.

A lot of people in this comment thread are trying to rewrite this situation. That's not what happened.

The problem was that she would have a strong emotional reaction to something and her partner would go along with it: Validate her emotions, offer comfort, not question the validity of responding that way.

This is the problem with the overly abstract notion of validating emotions without endorsing them. If you consistently "validate" the way someone is feeling even when it's obviously harming them, you're not actually helping. You're implicitly agreeing and condoning.

> Validate her emotions, offer comfort, not question the validity of responding that way. IDK if anything here counts as a good container for emotion.

'validate' is very ambiguous. 'comfort' is very different from presence. It can actually be a way of invalidating funnily enough. 'not question' has a lot going on.

I definitely hear a lot of enablement in your example. It sounds like she is better off without that.

> This is the problem with the overly abstract notion of validating emotions without endorsing them. If you consistently "validate" the way someone is feeling even when it's obviously harming them, you're not actually helping. You're implicitly agreeing and condoning.

I agree here. Validate itself is a loaded term, especially in the tech world. It sounds like it implies correctness. Maybe I'm onboard with just a need for 'emotional presence' over 'validation'.

Validation can slide into enablement. Challenge can slide into invalidation. Presence is the impossible one. Having someone you can openly explore an emotion, even just say it all without evoking a fear or anger response, a validation or invalidation response from. Let's it just hang in the air without reaction. Let's it exist without adding distance or withdrawing connection. Have endless curiosity.

I do think I am onboard with validation being a more dangerous term. I get its origin/concept - maybe trying to combat the amount of invalidation in the world but it's ironic to see how invalidating the wrong kind of validation can be.