Comment by Aurornis

My partner and I have been through this cycle. Something happens, she interprets it a certain, very specific, way and then has an adverse emotional reaction.

In the early days of our relationship I would try to explain to her why her emotion doesn't 'make sense'. That just made things worse. Much worse. When she helped me understand that she needed me to validate that what she was feeling was legitimate - based on her interpretation of the events - she was able to let go and consider other interpretations.

Note that this "letting go" almost never happened in the moment, but only after the emotions abated and she had time to process the entire situation. We're talking hours, not minutes.

You’re collapsing two distinct claims. The first, that real-world communication is messier than clinical frameworks, is obviously true but doesn’t do the work you need it to. The second, that acknowledging someone’s emotional experience is “infantile” because “nobody needs someone to agree that the emotion they experienced is the emotion they experienced,” is empirically false.

People frequently do need that. That’s basically what dismissive attachment styles and invalidating environments produce: people who aren’t sure their own internal states are real or legitimate. “I can see why that hurt” lands very differently than “that shouldn’t have hurt.” The former isn’t agreeing the other party was wrong or the reaction was proportionate. It’s communicating “your inner experience makes sense to me.”

The implicit endorsement concern is real but overstated. Skilled communicators navigate this constantly. “That sounds really frustrating. What do you think was actually going on there?” validates the frustration while opening space for reexamination. The failure mode you’re pointing at is when someone only validates and never probes, which is just conflict avoidance.

The “overly academic” framing is doing some rhetorical work here. These distinctions come from observing what actually helps people versus what entrenches them. Therapists, mediators, and anyone who’s gotten good at difficult conversations know the difference intuitively. It’s not academic. It’s practical.