A note from the Editors – For those living with a pituitary disorder, the road to diagnosis and treatment is rarely straightforward — and the emotional toll of feeling unseen, dismissed, or misunderstood along the way can be just as significant as the physical symptoms themselves. In this article, we explore the concept of validation: what it means, why it matters so deeply for the pituitary patient community, and how a simple but genuine act of being truly heard can make a profound difference in health outcomes, relationships, and quality of life.
From Linda M Rio, PWN contributor and mental health professional – Humans at our core are inherently social creatures whose psychological well-being is deeply influenced by the reactions of others. With the ever-increasing advent of AI into almost everyone’s lives it has become even more important to understand the difference between a human response and one generated electronically. One of the most powerful social experiences we can have, whether in a therapeutic setting, personal relationship, or everyday interaction is the experience of being validated by another human being. This is something AI programs try to replicate but cannot do completely. Essential to health and part of the human existence is the feeling of being acknowledged and accepted. The importance of this concept is at the core of almost all who are trained in psychotherapy. The humanistic psychologist, Carl Rogers, wrote about what he termed “unconditional positive regard” which he defined as, “the therapist’s complete and non-judgmental acceptance, caring, and support of the client, regardless of what the client says or does in the therapy session (Rogers, 1959) The importance and impact of such acceptance and validation cannot be overstated for those with pituitary disorders especially.
Acceptance and validation are particularly relevant to the pituitary patient population because of the often-elusive nature of these disorders. A recent article in PWN highlights this. The article by Dr. Lewis Blevins, The Differential Diagnosis: Why thousands of pituitary patients wait a decade for a diagnosis, and what you can do to make a difference, demonstrates how important it is for healthcare providers to truly hear what patients are describing. This means hearing not only what patients are describing but also hearing underneath words and behaviors of potentially underlying clues to more than mere surface diagnoses or quick fix solutions. The subtilties of communication can often hide what patients are trying to express in terms of potentially essential symptoms that might be overlooked by medical or mental health professionals not attuned to not truly hearing what their patients are trying to convey. Validation takes effort on the part of the listener whether as a medical or mental health provider, spouse, friend, or family member. At its core, validation is the process of recognizing and affirming that a person’s internal emotional distress, physical pain, or symptom expression is understandable to the listener. Validation is also a relational phenomenon. When someone feels understood, they are more likely to engage in open communication, trust others, and feel connected in interpersonal contexts.
Validation is not, however, the same as agreement; it does not require that the validator believe the physical or emotion symptom is real, only that they understand why and how it might be experienced from the person’s subjective perspective. Validation recognizes one’s personal and perhaps unique experience. Validation involves the process of communicating to another person that what is shared truly makes sense and is understandable. When one feels validated, it fosters emotional regulation, relational connection, and self-understanding in the patient. In the case of signs and symptoms of pituitary disorders this also mean clinicians acknowledge these with professional curiosity that then leads to independent validation using medical testing and extensive patient history that furthers diagnostic accuracy.
Barriers to Validation
Publication of a recent meta-analytic systematic review of over 40 studies shows that medical providers perceived 17% of clinic patients as “difficult.” What did the physicians consider difficult? The definition of “difficult”, used here was associated with patients who sought help for chronic pain, personality disorders, and other mental health conditions. Patients in this category were also more likely to suffer depression and anxiety. Providers who had less experience were more likely to consider a patient “difficult” than those seasoned professionals.
On the patients’ side, those who had difficult encounters in medical and/or mental health settings reported more unmet expectations related to their consultations and were less satisfied (and perhaps less likely to continue treatment, be compliant with medical treatments, or discontinue treatment all together). Pituitary disorder patients were not specifically mentioned in this study however, the literature supports the high frequency of mental health conditions and many patients report years to decades before obtaining a proper diagnosis of a pituitary tumor or other neuroendocrine disorder as Dr. Blevins mentioned in his article. And, even some pituitary disorders even after proper diagnosis, surgery, and/or medical treatment can continue to elude and challenge the best physicians making ongoing treatment challenging for the providers and patients alike. A patient does not need to be told they are “difficult” to pick-up non-verbal signs of frustration and intolerance from physicians, nurses, and staff. It can be hard to feel validated when you are perceived as difficult. One of the goals of Pituiitary World News is not only to provide accurate, up-to-date information but its very existence is intended as validation for those whose symptoms and struggles may have been ignored or missed previously. Many patients describe being near tears when finally finding articles, podcasts, videos that describe what they have been searching for and finally feeling hope that an answer to their search has been found. It is unfortunate that the search is so often long and that patients, themselves, must find potential answers through internet searches.
How validation helps
When an individual’s emotional state is acknowledged rather than dismissed or minimized, it can significantly reduce inner psychological distress. Studies indicate that receiving validating responses is associated with decreased negative emotions and increased positive affect. For example, participants who received validating feedback after disclosing anxiety or pain reported less worry and more positive feelings than those who received invalidation. Emotionally invalidating environments, by contrast, often escalate emotional intensity and distress. Invalidating messages, such as minimizing feelings or suggesting the person is “overreacting”—can intensify negative affect and undermine emotional stability.
I will share an experience from my own life. A few years ago, I needed to undergo a hip surgery. I have a history of having a complication during medical procedures where my heart rate drops dramatically. In layman’s terms I have a very sensitive vagus nerve response that has on a few occasions led to my heart stopping or nearly stopping, or at the very least fainting and losing consciousness. So, when approaching a surgery, I get nervous that my doctors understand this tendency. When I explained my history to my doctors and nurses prior to my hip surgery they seemed to dismiss my concerns. I even came into pre-op with a printed list of my history and asked the nursing staff to notate this. Following surgery, I was discharged the same day in spite of becoming dizzy when initially getting up in the recovery room. That night at home I became faint, eventually collapsing unconscious on the floor causing my family to call for an ambulance. What was supposed to be a same-day procedure became four days in the hospital because I continued to faint with each attempt to get up. Eventually, I went home and recovered but was left feeling quite upset with the hospital staff for not hearing my warnings. Just recently I had another procedure in the same hospital. This time however, the doctor looked me in the eyes, said he’d thoroughly read my history and had consulted with my other physicians before deciding to do this procedure. The nurses also made eye contact, repeated to me what they knew about my prior history, put a brightly colored, “fall risk”, wristband on my arm, and carefully asked me to get up cautiously, and asked me again if I was feeling physically stable before being discharged.
The point of this story is how dramatically different each of these experiences were for me and how in the first I felt very invalidated as opposed to a much more positive experience the second time. In Dr. Blevins’s article he writes about the number of patients who unfortunately do not receive proper diagnoses of a pituitary disorder, often due to professionals not looking for underlying causality and only treating symptoms. Pituitary disorders are also not a common diagnosis and sometimes quite difficult to detect. Sometimes good treatment versus bad isn’t only about technical expertise of the providers but their ability to truly listen, make eye contact, and show curiosity about the patient’s concerns. Validation is a very human skill.
The Benefits of Validation
When a person feels validated, there is an emotional reaction that occurs. Emotion regulation refers to the ability to manage and respond to emotional experiences in adaptive ways. Chronic invalidation has been tied to poorer emotion regulation capacity, whereas validation appears to promote better regulation by reducing the intensity and volatility of emotional responses. Many things can contribute to emotional dysregulation including a history of childhood abuse/neglect, poor socioeconomic support, and frequent medical visits with negative and even traumatic results.
For those with a heightened emotional sensitivity or dysregulation, validation can be particularly powerful. Research finds that when emotions such as shame and sadness are validated, especially in those with emotion regulation difficulties, there is a notable increase in positive emotional experience. Clinician empathy and validation in health-care settings have been shown to influence patients’ self-reported health outcomes. Large, multisite clinical trials suggest that patients who perceive higher empathy from health professionals report better physical and mental health statuses over time, even after controlling for other health variables.
This implies that validation and empathy in care relationships may support healing by fostering a deeper sense of being understood and cared for, which can improve compliance, reduce stress, and enhance overall health perceptions.
Validation in Relationships
Validation fosters the feeling of emotional safety in relationships. When partners, friends, or family members validate one another’s feelings, they build trust and therefore greater intimacy. Validating responses communicate care and belonging, which are foundational to healthy relationships. Family members often do not understand the impact that a pituitary disorder can have not only on one’s physical self, but emotional state as well. The signs and symptoms are often hidden so therefore hard to relate to especially when medicine may not even have detected it yet. It is often left to the patient to explain what is also frequently hard to put into words. This is where sites such as PWN, books, educational pamphlets from pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, social media, and support groups can assist in supporting not only patients but their families as well.
By contrast, environments where emotions are regularly dismissed can lead to increased conflict, distance, and emotional withdrawal. Research in interpersonal communication highlights that validation reduces conflict, encourages emotional openness, and increases psychological safety between individuals.
Validation from others can help individuals internalize a sense of worthiness and compassion toward themselves which can be thought of as one’s relationship with themself. This is a process of learning to self-validate, and is particularly important for individuals who have experienced emotional neglect or chronic criticism. Over time, external validation can reinforce internal standards of empathy and self-acceptance. Sometimes pituitary patients will ask,” Why me?”. This is especially common among those whose early childhood experiences were negative and/or abusive, since they often learn from such upbringing to blame themselves rather than abusive/neglectful caretakers. Diseases, illness, maladies and more can happen to anyone and personal causality has certainly not been found in cases of pituitary diagnoses. Validation helps individuals organize and make sense of their internal experiences, which contributes to greater self-awareness and acceptance. When someone receives consistent validation over time, they learn to accept their emotional responses as legitimate rather than something to be ashamed of or overwhelmed by.
In an age of ever-increasing interaction and reliance upon AI and other technology it is important to never forget that humans still have very human needs. Human-to-human connection is a part of basic needs for survival. In all professional as well as more personal relationships, it may become ever more important to receive validation for being human. And, in most cases, validating another person’s needs, pain, fears, excitement, etc., takes just a little effort, but the rewards can be great. Even, perhaps especially in the face of a major life challenge such as a major physical disorder, validating one’s right to feeling scared, confused, frustrated, angry, elated (getting a positive result) and much more can not only help in the emotional as well as physical healing process, but can leave all with a greater sense of just being a good human being.
REFERENCES
Jackson, Jeffrey, Kuriyama et al (2026). The prevalence and characteristics of difficult patient encounters: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of Internal Medicine. DOI:10.7326/ANNALS-25-01882
Kuo, J. R., Fitzpatrick, S., Ip, J., & Uliaszek, A. (2022). The who and what of validation: experimental examination of validation and invalidation of emotions. Borderline Personal Disord Emot Dysregul.
Nicola, M., Correia, H., Ditchburn, G., & Drummond, P. D. (2022). Defining pain-validation: importance of validation in reducing stresses of chronic pain. Front Pain Res.
Reme, S. E. (2015). Partner validation in chronic pain couples. Scand J Pain.
(2025). Association between patient’s clinician empathy and health outcomes. Patient Educ Couns.
Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science (Vol. 3, pp. 184–256). McGraw-Hill.
“Linda is in private practice in Westlake Village, California, and can be reached atLinda M. Rio, M.A., LMFT (805) 619-0950
The book The Hormone Factor in Mental Health is available through Amazon.com and other major booksellers.Order your copy here.
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© 2026, J D Faccinetti. All rights reserved.