Acknowledgement Versus Invalidation, 3
After all, it has also been said that enough communication solves anything: any disagreement can be solved by just continuing to communicate until we understand each another enough. Being truth the way things are, acknowledgement has much to do with truth and invalidation with falsehood, and the therapeutic value of truth and the invalidating effect of falsehoods cannot probably be overstated. And as to the therapeutic value of self−respect, it could be said that self−respect consists of assessing first and then acknowledging the truth about self, to begin with, and to begin from.
On the other hand, invalidation has a wider scope than just lack of acknowledgement, as wide and varied as there are ways to suppress people by planting in them, overtly or underhandedly, the idea that they can’t reach, that they are less, that they are nil. To suppress means to make one less; to make one less it is quite instrumental to persuade one that one is less than one actually is, to wipe out the truth with downward misleading lies. Hence, probably the best way to confront the full scope of what invalidation can be is studying the suppressives: almost anything any suppressive does can be traced back to invalidation. The common denominator of all this being that of shrinking the people’s horizons, their scope, the sphere they are aware of, that they consider they can reach, control, influence, inhabitate. The common denominator being that of making people smaller and smaller, toward zero. It could be said as well that invalidation consists of destroying one’s sense of reality, of certainty, of self−confidence, because destroying one’s sense of reality and certainty and self−confidence is a very effective way of destroying one.