Six Levels of Validation in DBT: From Awareness to Radical Genuineness

Six levels of validation

How do you validate when it’s difficult to find the validity? In the book, Doing Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Kelly Koerner describes six levels of validation which can be helpful in referencing when you’re struggling with finding the validity in another person’s point of view. The higher the level, the more intensely we’re validating. And of course, we want to try to validate at the highest level but that’s not always possible.

At minimum on our level, we want to show interest and be awake. Now, this sounds fairly simple but if you’ve ever absolutely disagreed or been irritated with another person to the point that you didn’t even want to listen, you know that achieving level 1 is a pretty magnificent accomplishment. You may have the desire to frown or shake your head or eye roll or put your hands over your ears or walk away even. So the showing interest and being awake involves giving the other person their time and giving them the respect of listening. As a therapist, maybe we don’t have the urge to walk out of the room but we may look at them in a way with our head cocked that looks skeptical. We may project some non-verbals out toward them that says, uhm, I don’t really believe you or come on, give me a break. So at our level 1, we also want to make sure that we’re listening and we’re not checking our phone or writing something down instead of listening intently. And if you’ve ever had, if you’ve been a therapist and you’ve ever had the flu, been sick in some way, been up with a child the night before, staying awake is not a small task. So as long as we’re doing this level 1, showing interest and being awake, we’re at least on the path to our higher levels of validation.