Validation Statement – validating a client’s emotions

Validation Statement – validating a client’s emotions

Discussion #4

“Veronica” is a 15-year-old Caucasian girl who presented as a volunteer for a study of nonsuicidal self-injury. Veronica began cutting herself at age 13 in seventh grade after learning about this behavior from friends. After trying it once or twice, she said, she “was hooked.” Initially she cut herself on her forearms, but then switched to her upper thighs to conceal the injuries. Veronica’s primary reason for engaging in self-injury was to release built-up emotional pressure. Episodes typically occurred after an emotional conflict with her parents or a perceived rejection by a peer. The frequency of self-injury episodes ebbed and flowed, ranging from daily to monthly.

(Cullen, Westlund, LaRiviere, & Klimes-Dougan, 2015)

Link to complete article for reference and further reading/education – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4378692/

A skillset you will need as a crisis worker as well as for your final will be to provide an education statement, validation statement, empowering statement, and a reframing statement (hardest). These types of statements are an important aspect of therapeutic interactions as highlighted back in chapter 3 (pp. 54-56).

In response to Veronica’s crisis, provide four responses for EACH type of statement discussed. The text provides additional examples of these types of statements throughout the text.

1) Validation Statement – validating a client’s emotions, feelings, and reactions in order to help them feel normal or typical for someone experiencing this same type of issue. Helps them not feel alone or abnormal. – 5 points

2) Educational Statement – providing factual information as it applies to the crisis (statistics or frequency of the crisis/response, info to increase a client’s knowledge about the crisis/response, info on coping skills/techniques, etc.) – Must CITE in APA format – 5 points

3) Empowering Statement – clients who have been victimized, violated or feel helpless respond well to empowerment or responses that encourage clients and help present helpful choices that help them take back personal power. – 5 points

4) Reframing Statement – takes a situation or crisis and defines it in a different way. It redefines the situation from a danger to an opportunity as discussed earlier in the text. It is not rationalizing away the problem but highlighting it in a different way so that the client can have a new/different perspective that helps promote healing. – 5 points

Answer preview  Validation Statement – validating a client’s emotions