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There’s a big difference between agreeing with someone, and acknowledging their emotional state. In these situations people just want to hear you acknowledge t

There’s a big difference between agreeing with someone, and acknowledging their emotional state. In these situations people just want to hear you acknowledge that you understand they are in pain, no necessary agree with their cause of action. If you’re not sure what to ask, then your best course of action is to enquire about why they think they feel a certain way. Why does they job makes them stressful, why does talking with a certain person make them anxious. You’re not rendering judgement on their emotions or feels, you simply acknowledge they are what they are, and that’s normal. For some specifics the following might be useful: “Why do you think X makes you anxious” Once they answer “Yes, I understand now why that might make you anxious” Or “It’s perfectly normal to feel anxious” If there behaviour is causing issues: “It’s perfectly normal to feel anxious, that’s ok, but the way you’re dealing with it is causing issues for X. Perhaps we can find a better way for you to cope?” For more, it’s worth looking at Mental Health First Aid. It can provide a number of very practical tips of dealing with someone in crisis, which are also excellent for helping those that just need to vent to someone.

mikepurvis 4y ago
> There’s a big difference between agreeing with someone, and acknowledging their emotional state. This has been a key takeaway for me too, also in the context of intimate partner communication. However, I would say that there can for sure be pitfalls with it— it's easy to believe that you are communicating only acknowledgment of emotional state, but have the listener receive it as signing on to their interpretation of the facts, the overall premise, their assessment of the other players' actions and motivations in the story, and so on. This can lead to major misunderstandings down the road, when the person presents concrete actions that they are expecting will be taken. They may not be anticipating any pushback on this because previous validation-of-emotional-state conversations led them to believe you were both on the same page, when in fact you have significant concerns (whether it was that they misjudged the situation, escalated it unnecessarily, viewed someone else's actions unfairly, failed to accept a compromise or take possible corrective actions, whatever it is). At that point, it's probably the type of conflict best taken to a professional to sort out, but I think of these situations when I see relationship coaches on TikTok talking up this kind of emotional validation as being a silver bullet for resolving all conflicts and achieving lasting harmony.

mikepurvis 4y ago

> There’s a big difference between agreeing with someone, and acknowledging their emotional state. This has been a key takeaway for me too, also in the context of intimate partner communication. However, I would say that there can for sure be pitfalls with it— it's easy to believe that you are communicating only acknowledgment of emotional state, but have the listener receive it as signing on to their interpretation of the facts, the overall premise, their assessment of the other players' actions and motivations in the story, and so on. This can lead to major misunderstandings down the road, when the person presents concrete actions that they are expecting will be taken. They may not be anticipating any pushback on this because previous validation-of-emotional-state conversations led them to believe you were both on the same page, when in fact you have significant concerns (whether it was that they misjudged the situation, escalated it unnecessarily, viewed someone else's actions unfairly, failed to accept a compromise or take possible corrective actions, whatever it is). At that point, it's probably the type of conflict best taken to a professional to sort out, but I think of these situations when I see relationship coaches on TikTok talking up this kind of emotional validation as being a silver bullet for resolving all conflicts and achieving lasting harmony.