Validation Addiction

Seeking validation is a natural and normal part of human behavior. We seek to be validated on what we say, and do, and even how we appear. Children can experience having healthy validation at home and school, or they can have a lack of validation, or even experience being invalidated. The way a child was raised has a huge impact on how he or she seeks validation as an adult. Seeking validation as a young adult or as an adult becomes obsessive when the validation-seeking behavior becomes unconscious and has a pattern, and perhaps a repetition, which may have some negative consequences. The author has labeled that behavior Validation Addiction. The unconscious need for validation in a compulsive or addictive way could have serious consequences on relationships, and careers. Some people who act out this way are masking depression or anxiety, or perhaps have developed this addictive behavior in lieu of alcohol, which may have been a problem in the family of origin. Treatment for this condition will only begin when the person recognizes there is a problem. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and perhaps medication with an approved anti-depressant are suggested methods to reduce the occurrence of this behavior and hopefully replace it with a more appropriate behavior.

There is a difference between being someone other people like and being defined by what others think. Some people are so addicted to approval that their lives spiral out of control creating discontent, depression, and alienation. Recovering approval addict Dawn Owens identifies all the ways craving approval can negatively impact our lives, and offers sound, biblical strategies to overcome them. Using her own and other’s stories as relatable examples, Owens shares the journey to an identity found only in Christ.

Validation—recognizing and accepting your child’s thoughts and feelings, regardless of whether or not you feel that your child should be experiencing them—helps children develop a lifelong sense of self-worth. Children who are validated feel reassured that they will be accepted and loved regardless of their feelings, while children who are not validated are more vulnerable to peer pressure, bullying, and emotional and behavioral problems. The Power of Validation is an essential resource for parents seeking practical skills for validating their child’s feelings without condoning tantrums, selfishness, or out-of-control behavior. You’ll practice communicating with your child in ways that instantly impact his or her mood and help your child develop the essential self-validating skills that set the groundwork for confidence and self-esteem in adolescence and beyond. “...There is valuable advice here. This approach takes mindfulness, patience, and a long-term vision, but parents who are able to help their children trust their emotional landscapes will have an easier time of scaffolding to higher reasoning, in addition to more secure relationships with their youngsters. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW, Rebecca Raszewski, University of Illinois Library, Chicago

Validation—recognizing and accepting your child’s thoughts and feelings, regardless of whether or not you feel that your child should be experiencing them—helps children develop a lifelong sense of self-worth. Children who are validated feel reassured that they will be accepted and loved regardless of their feelings, while children who are not validated are more vulnerable to peer pressure, bullying, and emotional and behavioral problems. The Power of Validation is an essential resource for parents seeking practical skills for validating their child’s feelings without condoning tantrums, selfishness, or out-of-control behavior. You’ll practice communicating with your child in ways that instantly impact his or her mood and help your child develop the essential self-validating skills that set the groundwork for confidence and self-esteem in adolescence and beyond.

There is an epidemic of insecurity in society today. Many people suffer from an unhealthy need for affirmation. They are not capable of feeling good about themselves. For some the quest for approval becomes an actual addiction, as they seek self-worth from the outside world because they can't find it within themselves. Joyce Meyer understands the need for seeking approval from others to overcome feelings of rejection and low self-esteem. The good news, she says, is that there is a cure. God provides all the security anyone needs. Her goal is to provide a pathway toward freedom from the approval addiction.

This Special Issue presents some of the main emerging research on technological topics of health and education approaches to Internet use-related problems, before and during the beginning of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The objective is to provide an overview to facilitate a comprehensive and practical approach to these new trends to promote research, interventions, education, and prevention. It contains 40 papers, four reviews and thirty-five empirical papers and an editorial introducing everything in a rapid review format. Overall, the empirical ones are of a relational type, associating specific behavioral addictive problems with individual factors, and a few with contextual factors, generally in adult populations. Many have adapted scales to measure these problems, and a few cover experiments and mixed methods studies. The reviews tend to be about the concepts and measures of these problems, intervention options, and prevention. In summary, it seems that these are a global culture trend impacting health and educational domains. Internet use-related addiction problems have emerged in almost all societies, and strategies to cope with them are under development to offer solutions to these contemporary challenges, especially during the pandemic situation that has highlighted the global health problems that we have, and how to holistically tackle them.

This book focuses on the similarities and differences between substance and non-substance addictions. It discusses in detail the mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment of substance and non-substance addictions, and addresses selected prospects that will shape future studies on addiction. Addiction is a global problem that costs millions of lives tremendous damage year after year. There are mainly two types of addition: substance addiction (e.g., nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, heroin, stimulants, etc.) and non-substance addiction (e.g., gambling, computer gaming, Internet, etc.). Based on existing evidence, both types of addiction produce negative impacts on individuals’ physical, mental, social and financial well-being, and share certain common mechanisms, which involve a dysfunction of the neural reward system and specific gene transcription factors. However, there are also key differences between these two types of addiction. Covering these aspects systematically, the book will provide researchers and graduate students alike a better understanding of drug and behavioral addictions.

This book analyzes the scientific evidence for the addictive properties of food. It covers of all subjects pertinent to food and addiction, from basic background information on topics such as food intake, metabolism, and environmental risk factors for obesity, to diagnostic criteria for food addiction, the evolutionary and developmental bases of eating addictions, and behavioral and pharmacologic interventions, to the clinical, public health, and legal and policy implications of recognizing the validity of food addiction.