I’m studying psychology and looking into forensic psychology which will involve helping victims and criminals. I usually mentally support friends right now before they feel comfortable enough to go into therapy (I’m tagged as the therapy friend) since this helps them with the idea of opening up and getting feedback and it helps me practice.
What I’ve found is my autism heavily effects my empathy and a consequence of this is I usually give advice/ solutions to problems when they need someone to say “that sounds tough I’m sorry you’re experiencing that” or “hey yeah you should be angry that was fucked up!!” I never pick up on this need for validation instead of advice and the constant advice makes them feel like they shouldn’t be having all these feelings and that they’re being unreasonable.
I don’t want to drag this weakness into forensic psychology because there’s a potential for larger consequences if I get it wrong.
How do you tell when someone wants advice vs when someone just wants to hear that something definitely does suck ass?
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It is hard to tell if those people don’t make it do obvious.
The best thing you can recognize it is through their reaction after you’ve said something.
Did they want just attention and validation, or did they want actual advice?
Then you finally know the answer
In my experience, I find the best way to tell is by asking them directly.
However, I usually default to “someone just wants to hear that something definitely does suck ass” haha, even though the urge to give advice can be overwhelming sometimes. It’s taken me a lot of practice and intention to put that urge aside.
Usually people aren’t looking for advice, and if they are, they’ll ask for it anyways.
You can’t always tell right away. But if they keep coming back with the same problem and haven’t made any changes in the meantime, it’s definitely validation seeking.
Better to assume that people always want empathy above all. (Well, not as much as they want a fairy godmother to make the problem go away.)
I offer solutions mainly if I want to, but I try to tailor how I express it to the situation and their emotional needs in the moment. Very often the people who need a solution the most are the most resistant to it. Also keep in mind that it’s almost universal that even if someone appreciates the solution in the conversation, there’s still a high chance that they won’t put it into practice, often it won’t even occur to them to do so. We just have our ruts, practical, behavioral and mental. That’s why if I’m actually trying to get them to put a change into practice, I’ll make my expression more stark and intense, such as heighten the pain points as they say in marketing.
Most of our conversations have way less impact than we like to think they will. But a small number of them have way more impact than we think they will.