This is the Very Real Pandemic of Our Times. It's the Human Condition. It's Potentially Fatal. What is External Validation Addiction? What Causes it? How Does it Manifest? What are the Consequences? Who is Affected? What Can We Do About It?
Validation addiction rules our lives, subconsciously and consciously
External validation addiction is the disease of our times, yet no-one is talking about it despite pretty much everyone being affected by it. It may be the predominant psychopathology of all times. Why is that?
It's because our parents and society programmed our minds into having the condition, so why would they want to point out that in truth it is them that are dysfunctional, not us! They were most likely unconscious of what they were doing. They were asleep. That would be the kind view. They told us as young children that we were not good enough (thinking that it was in our best interests to do so) and we then spent the rest of our lives trying to subconsciously prove our self-worth or trying to buy our way into worthiness and love. We forgot that we were born worthy, unique, loveable, and equal. We forgot who we are. The United Nations Declaration states that "Humankind owes to the child the best it has to give." The world creates the child, and the child creates the world." Once a child forms a belief, it becomes the lens through which the child views life unless things change. We are born fine, then life, society and our parents de-fine us, then we are re-fined by de-conditioning. Thought is very much the 'sixth sense' and thought is always historical. Our mind then takes data through the six senses and this becomes our filtered experience. Children are born unconditionally loving and abundant manifestations of life. Society then conditions this out of us: We become emotionally disabled until we reset our thinking. Society makes our souls suffer.
Our search for validation is just our coping mechanism for unbearable emotional pain and it reflects our sense of the lovelessness of the world. The brilliant Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote two thousand years ago that "The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things."
External validation addiction comes from our deepest human needs and fears: Of being unloveable, unloved, unworthy, that we will be abandoned and that therefore we will die. External validation addiction is a survival response. It's a trauma response.
External validation addiction underpins many mental illnesses and addictions. The causes, consequences, and recovery processes of the various types of addiction that are encompassed by external validation addiction are all the same. They may be deadly.
Most of us don’t even know that we have this addiction: It's ubiquitous in our modern world. It's encouraged by marketing strategies, making you insatiable, keeps the consumerist economy afloat, fuels our 'Hustle Culture' and you are rewarded with accolades for pursuing it throughout your life: Until you burn out, when you are unceremoniously dumped on the scrap heap and replaced with the next external validation addict that comes along. And we are legion. We are whipped to the bone and crucified.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote "Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anaesthetising security of being identified with the majority."
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."
After working in the NHS for two decades doing trauma work and reconstructive surgery, performing 14,000 operations, and being acutely aware of the politics in the system due to competing egos and having egocentric mentors I felt empty, unfulfilled, lost, stuck, purposeless, and desolate. I lost my joy. My smile disappeared, like all the other grey expressionless, pained and sad faces that I saw on the London Underground every day and at work. Both my father and stepfathers died suddenly. I was diagnosed with severe depression, generalised anxiety disorder, and severe childhood trauma, and that I had been affected deeply by these lifelong. I had no idea. Neither did anyone else. My life crashed. I hit rock bottom.
That was in fact the very beginning of my true life. I am in recovery from external validation addiction. I have a very strong academic background, with a medical degree, a PhD in Natural Sciences from University College London, and several other higher degrees including a Masters of Arts in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge, and a ridiculously long CV of accomplishments, published articles, books, prizes, awards, scientific journal editorial roles and was invited to lecture as faculty at massive world leading international conferences , yet I was not taught any wisdom during those decades. I could never achieve enough, because I didn't feel enough.
I have spent the last four years dedicating my life to personal transformation, philosophy, positive psychology, timeless Truths, spirituality, getting well, and acquiring an accredited qualification in Transformative Life Coaching (TLC), which encompasses all of these areas of wisdom, so I feel qualified to discuss addiction to external validation: Especially as I have found that much of the medical community is totally ignorant about it or are too afraid to speak about it, despite it being rife within medicine, and it being the fastest growing addiction amongst doctors.
I have rebuilt the foundations of my life with the rocks that were thrown at me by others who also suffer from external validation addiction but who don't know that they do.
My Truth is your Truth. It's everyone's Truth. There is no story. You just don't know it until you take your own journey. Come walk with me. I know the way.
Recovery means recovering the you that you were meant to be, your true Self: This is the essence of transformation and Enlightenment.
Doctor Gabor Maté, psychologist, physician, and author, self-confessed work, shopping and validation addict and perhaps the foremost medical authority on addiction, and a truly compassionate human being, wrote: “Misplaced attachment to what cannot satiate the soul is not an error exclusive to addicts, but the common condition of mankind.” It's the human condition.
How can you overcome this all pervasive addiction, and be who you truly are? This is my purpose. It is why I was born. This is my Truth: To serve you on your own journey to wellbeing, real love, joy, peace, purpose, compassion, wisdom, meaning, True Personal Power, and freedom.
We have all been crucified by our parents, the world and each other. It's time for your own resurrection don't you think? You are worthy of it. If you are ready, let me be your guide. We all need an Enlightened Witness in our lives.
We were made for more than the childish squabbles that characterise every interaction in the world at every level, from the individual to wars. As it says in the Bible Matthew 7:1-5 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. First, remove the plank out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye.” The choice is: Speak your Truth and live in the sunlight, or hide your Truth and live a life of lies in shame and fear. The Truth is so much more interesting than the fiction. It's your choice to stay asleep, keep pointing a finger (while your three other fingers are pointing back at you) or wake up to who you really are... It's time to invoke your 'God Mode', drop your ego, and live as your highest Self...
What is external validation addiction?
Confucius wrote “What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.” Why do you act so big, when you are not so small? Eckhart Tolle said “The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.” Osho said “Fame is foolish, it is pointless, meaningless. Even if the whole world knows you, how does it make you richer? How does it make your life more blissful? How does it help you to be more understanding, to be more aware? To be more alert, to be more alive?” Arthur Schopenhauer, the brilliant German philosopher, wrote "We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people... Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame."
We are born intuitive. Our soul whispers to us, quietly speaking of our true purpose, our blueprint. The most amazing thing that can happen in life is to catch a glimpse of what the Universe has been dreaming for us. Sadly our parents and society had other much smaller plans.
External validation addiction is the craving for other people's attention and love, or acclaim through accomplishments: That you are getting your feelings of self-worth based on sources outside of yourself. Why are we all so addicted to people, accolades, and material things? We can't take them with us. As Plato said "Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?"
Bernadette Devlin wrote that "To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else."
As human beings, we grow through challenge, not accolades. Elbert Hubbard wrote “God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.” Khalil Gibran wrote "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
We are just copying our parents' coping mechanisms for the trauma that they received. As James Baldwin wrote "Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."
Dale Carnegie said "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." The more we seek love from outside ourselves the more we go into survival mode and live in constant fear. Jim Carrey said: “I wish everyone could get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that's not the answer.” There’s nothing like getting everything you want in life to realise it’s not for you. Lord Byron wrote “Fame is the thirst of youth… Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.” A million likes on social media will never be enough if you don't like your Self. Plato said with his typical wisdom "The greatest wealth is to live content with little."
Coach Irv Buzzer said in the film 'Cool Runnings' that "A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it." As St. Francis of Assisi wrote "What you're looking for is where you're looking from." You are the goal, the desired end-point, the pinnacle. Your saviour is you. Until we realise that we are enough, no gold medals, mansions, Oscars, immaculately manicured social media pages, nirvana at a Tibetan retreat or transcendence in a jungle will fill the hole in your soul. None of those things will change who you are. You are enough: Already. Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in 'Fight Club' said "The things you own end up owning you... It's only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything." The great paradox of our dysfunctional Dystopian society, riddled with a pandemic of mental illness, is that we want all the material gains, accolades, and 'likes' on social media and yet we want to have the same freedom that only comes through non-attachment to material having and longing. And with each passing day that collective cognitive dissonance grows. Something is going to give... As Jack Sparrow said in 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' "Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate." Vanity is in vain. As the Marquise de Merteuil said in the film 'Dangerous Liaisons' "Vanity and happiness are incompatible."
Immanuel Kant, perhaps the greatest Western mind of all time, wrote "Give a man everything he wants and at that moment everything is not everything." Immanuel Kant presents a thought-provoking perspective on the nature of desire and satisfaction. This quote highlights the inherent paradox of human desires and the pursuit of happiness. Kant suggests that even if we were to fulfil all of someone’s desires and provide them with everything they want, it would not necessarily lead to complete fulfilment, joy, or contentment. This quote challenges the notion that material possessions or external circumstances alone can bring true happiness, emphasising the importance of inner fulfilment and the limitations of materialistic pursuits. You may ask "But what's wrong with that?" Exactly: QED.
Schopenhauer wrote "The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness... Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money... It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain... Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame." Imitation love is insatiable.
If we don't know who we are we will never find abundance or external validation. Epictetus wrote "Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly." The order to how to live is BE, then do, then have: Never the other way around.
What is the alternative to external validation? It's internal Self-validation. For this, the cultivation of wisdom is required. Plato said "There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, and lovers of gain."
Epicurus wrote "Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." You would be well to heed these words in a world that always tells you to achieve or want more. Max Lucado wrote "A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." John C Maxwell wrote "A great leader's courage to fulfil his vision comes from passion, not position... A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way."
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote "Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anaesthetising security of being identified by the majority."
External validation is nothing new. Epictetus, the Stoic Greek philosopher who was born into slavery but came to be one of the most brilliant philosophers of all time, wrote about how the world works and how to live "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has... To live securely, to be happy, to do everything as they wish to do, not to be hindered, not to be subject to compulsion." Epictetus taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events and people are beyond our control; he argues that we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. This is the only way to find peace and joy.
It's not your fault. Everyone is the same. As Khalil Gibran wrote “You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.” We are all doing this. The world is full of terrified 7-year-olds (our egos). I mean everyone. You. Your partner. Your neighbours. Your friends. Your colleagues. Our doctors. Our politicians. Our 'leaders'. Aristotle said “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.” We are living and dying in Neverland, without ever waking up or growing up. And we are miserable. We are Peter Pan on Prozac. We live and die as asleep terrified egos, seeking egoic conflict everywhere we go and jostling for righteousness as a sleight for own own perceived failings. Who are you to judge, criticise or gossip?
As Rumi wrote:
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about."
The ego judges. The soul radiates compassion. The trauma that we were subjected to from the emotional abuse of being in a dysfunctional family made us put on an armour, so our hearts closed to the world. We became unconscious and our behaviour has been dictated by our deepest fears. We live in our own personal hell. Those fears are that we are unloved, unloveable, unworthy, that we will be abandoned and that we won’t survive. This is the human condition. This is you. It's all of us until we wake up So we all go through life as our petrified 7-year-old selves. In fear. This fear leads to hate and conflict. This is the basis of all interpersonal problems and even war. But it needn't be this way...
In this article I will use the term validation addiction for brevity, but it's important to remember that the basic problem is an insatiable desire for validation of who we are as human beings from an outside (external) source. It is sometimes know as 'approval addiction', but I feel that this term is less precise and doesn't take the generalised cause of the dis-ease into account.
Unlike Narcissism, validation addiction happens primarily because of childhood trauma and is characterised by crippling insecurity, poor self-image, low self-esteem, self-hatred, distorted thinking or believing that we are not 'enough'. Childhood trauma is when you have to choose survival over your dreams. It's what happens to you in the absence of an empathic witness. We never felt seen, heard or valued for who we were as children. We never had an 'Enlightened Witness.'
As validation addicts, we aren't capable of handling a normal, healthy relationship most of the time, until we recover. We need to get well psychologically and emotionally. We need to heal our wounds we stop making sources of external validation (work, accolades, and people) into our 'qualifier'.
Socrates said “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Are you done with fighting the old? Let's build anew.
As with all addictions, according to the guru of addiction, Dr Gabor Maté and author of the game-changing book on addiction 'In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts', validation addiction is characterised and manifested as with any addiction, which is "Any behaviour that a person enjoys, finds relief in, and therefore craves in the short term but suffers negative consequences in the long term, and doesn't give up despite the negative consequences."
How Childhood Trauma Leads to Addiction by Dr Gabor Maté. Credit to After Skool
The Archbishop of Canterbury recently said that "Everyone is a mess." Are you waking early, every morning, in an existential panic? According to the Wall Street Journal, a study of 400 people has shown that 75 percent of overachievers have suffered childhood trauma. This is not widely known. According to the landmark book on trauma 'The Body Keeps The Score' by Bessel van der Kolk, nearly half of childhood trauma survivors numb their feelings with addiction.
Dr Gabor Maté goes further, saying that "90 percent of people are addicts. 10 percent are lying to themselves. It is not why the addiction it is why the pain? The more egotistic and successful we become the less happy we become... Addiction is not a disease or a human choice, it's an attempt to escape suffering temporarily. What people need is not judgement, they need help to be healed from their trauma. Is it possible for people to heal from trauma sufficiently that they don't have to keep escaping in their addictions to relieve their suffering of their trauma, then yes thats entirely possible. The question is under what conditions is that possible?” He advocates that the conditions are all to do with compassion. Dr. Gabor Maté says that "Only when compassion is present, will people allow themselves to see the Truth."
Dr Gabor Maté on the Five Levels of Compassion After Childhood Trauma
Dr Maté also says that anyone who says that they should only be in one fellowship in recovery are in denial. Health systems neglect the role that trauma exerts on our bodies and our minds. Medicine fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today's dysfunctional fear-based culture of scarcity conditions our minds, stresses our bodies, burdens our immune systems, causes physical disease and undermines our emotional balance. Medicine fails to give compassion. Shannon Mullen, anthropologist, echoes Dr Maté “In a way, we’re all addicts by nature.”
Addiction is the coping mechanism that we use to live in our dysfunctional Dystopian society. It is a disease and not a choice or moral failure, despite the total ignorance of the tabloid press, much of the legal system and even many doctors and medical institutions, who are centuries behind the data. There is an almost total lack of compassion despite every household in the UK having someone affected by mental illness: It's the killer disease that no-one talks about, that can affect anyone at any time. You could wake up tomorrow and it's you. It could be you already and you don't even know it. Currently the institutions that are supposed to care for our welfare only seem to have guillotines available as a tool to remedy the situation through decapitation, whilst touting resoundingly hollow words about compassion. Elyn Saks, professor of law, psychology, and psychiatry says that "Stigma against mental illness is a scourge with many faces, and the medical community wears a number of those faces." This lack of compassion is criminal. Einstein said "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of Truth."
Joel Osteen, pastor and author, reminds us “You were never created to live depressed, defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed or unworthy. We were created to be victorious.” You can be. I have been shown the way. I would love to show you, if you are ready. Hurt people hurt people, unconsciously; Healed people heal people, consciously.
There are fewer and fewer trained psychiatrists who have knowledge and experience about addiction due to dwindling government investment in this area. It is not because there is no need, but it is such a stigmatised dis-ease that no-one wants to talk about it or support it. Fortunately there is a new breed of informed psychiatrists coming through, many of whom are in therapy themselves, which is a really good thing, who have a more holistic approach and who understand and value the Transformative journey. The answer is not solely psychiatric treatment (this numbs the pain): You need a therapist who has experience in this area, especially personal experience.
The 'wounded healer' is the one who is best to guide you on your journey of recovery. You can't learn about this in books - it has to be a lived experience. This is the only road to wisdom. Anything else feels patronising and irrelevant. To optimise your journey a Transformative Life Coach (TLC) may be your guide: I know this path well. When the student is ready the teacher appears. I am here to serve you. I will rise you up to a cosmic viewpoint on your life so that you can make choices with clarity from a place of love rather than fear, avoiding the pitfalls along the way. You need an 'Enlightened Witness'.
What causes validation addiction?
Addiction to validation begins in childhood when our emotional needs weren't met. We created a false self (the ego, or the 'mask') based on what got us love and validation. Our parents and society conditioned us through subconscious programming to feel unloved, unlovable and unworthy. This was the result of an unvalidated dysfunctional childhood, hence my use of the term external validation addiction: As we didn't get unconditional love as children from our parents we spend the rest of our lives seeking it from anyone or anything that might make us feel better through 'imitation love' or we attempt to numb our emotional pain via various addictions. This is where patterns of self neglect, self-betrayal and self-abandonment begin. This is childhood trauma. This is my real narrative. And it's yours. Trauma is trauma. The impact of this can be as extreme and lethal as the trauma of war, with PTSD being a common association of validation addiction. Many studies have shown that returning army veterans who develop mental illness are those who had experienced childhood trauma: Childhood trauma was the determining factor.
No amount of imitation love will be enough if you didn’t get real love as a child. If your primal needs of unconditional love are not met as a child you cannot get enough substitute gratification as an adult to replace it. This results in endless cycles of insatiable cravings and disappointment. Adult cravings can never satisfy our unmet infantile needs and our experience of childhood and adolescence creates a false identity, the ego. Instead of primal needs being satisfied we experience primal pain. This makes us scream, silently. To experience a rebirth we must feel our initial pain and face it head-on (or rather heart-open) as that is where our growth and wisdom are buried alive.
We idolise and demonise our dysfunctional parents in turn and they acted out an unconscious 'emotional hit-and-run' on us, sometimes many times, leaving us with a disproportionate share of emotional trauma that they may not even remember. This is worsened by the fact that we are unable to access our own feelings as we closed down in order to protect ourselves emotionally. We lived in 'Existential Crisis' for decades as we either couldn't access our own feelings or we felt overwhelmed (or both). These were the only psychological choices that were available to us. Our parents did not take accountability and as children there was no way that we could have been aware of any of this. Our parents were 'emotional dumpers' of trauma on us and we were 'emotional carriers' of emotions that we could not feel or express and so we buried them deep inside as our only, and dysfunctional, option. The dumper (the parent) doesn't carry the trauma: The dumping is toxic - it is trauma. It is only when we go into therapy and recovery that we can possibly even begin to detoxify the experience of our childhood and digest it.
Our trauma is born out of the battleground created by our parents and 'civilised' society at large between the two competing survival needs of attachment and authenticity. In order to feel loved, we sacrifice our authenticity in favour of attachment in order to survive. Our soul becomes fragmented as well as our psyche. We put on a mask as we feel that we can't be loved for who we are.
Attachment Versus Authenticity by Dr Gabor Maté
We are all victims of victims in the vertical transmission of trauma. Carl Jung wrote "Every Mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother and every mother extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter." All we can do is keep our side of the street clean, do the difficult inner work to recover our true Selves, and be compassionate to others.
Our own Self-judgement (due to the constant chastising voice of our inner critic, which is the psychological voice of our parents that has been drummed into us, after we leave home; as well as the constant judgement from our frankly Dystopian world) perpetuates validation addiction. Paul Coelho, writer and author of The Alchemist, said “Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
Robin Sharma said “If you want to improve your life and live with all that you deserve, you must run your own race. It doesn’t matter what other people say about you. What is important is what you say to yourself, being comfortable in your own skin. Be true to you. That’s a key source of happiness.” Ignore the others. It's only what you think that creates your inner experience.
Eckhart Tolle wrote “Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
In his briliant latest book, 'The Myth of Normal', Dr Maté describes how virtually all disease is actually a natural reflection of life in an abnormal culture, as we grow further and further apart from our true Selves. He also shows us the compassionate pathway to reconnection and healing.
How does it manifest?
Like all addictions, validation addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful. Validation addicts fear rejection, judgement, or disapproval from others to the point that they try to avoid rocking the boat at all costs. If you are addicted to approval, what others think of you is often more important than your own needs.
Yung Pueblo wrote “I was never addicted to one thing, I was addicted to filling a void within myself with things other than my own Self-love.” Addiction gives you the wings to fly then it takes away the sky. The author Taylor Jenkins Reid said “Praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even.” This is validation addiction.
Dr Gabor Maté wrote “That may be being a workaholic, retail addiction, sex and love addiction or drug or alcohol addiction to name but a few. There is very little to separate addicts, from drug addicts to work addiction. We are all on a continuum. Addicts seek to numb or escape or obtain relief from their pain. It is a hell-bound train. It’s a one-way ticket. Addiction medicine is palliative medicine. Most addiction patients will die from their addiction. Addiction kills. The sense of guilt is fathomless. It is within us to resist or succumb. It has to come from the individual. The one constant is pain. How does one soothe souls inflamed and tormented by invalidated childhood experiences? There is scarcely a happy ending. Addictions always originate in pain. Whether felt openly or hidden in the subconscious. They are emotional anaesthetics.”
Validation addiction may present as any of the following:
Depression, generalised anxiety disorder, and PTSD. One in 5 adults and 1 in 6 children suffer from severe mental health problems. Fear of criticism is overwhelming and all-consuming.
A workaholic is a person who works compulsively to avoid their buried unbearable emotions from resurfacing. But like a football held under water, emotions are always buried alive and it's only a matter of time before they bubble up and drive you into insanity. Up to 10% of people in general are dangerously addicted to work. 75% of high achievers are driven relentlessly by childhood trauma, and are completely unaware of this. There is far greater than a 50% burnout rate in many professions. Despite your success and your accolades, you never feel that you are enough.
See the very bottom of this page for links to Workaholics Anonymous.
Psychologists report that up to 10% of Americans have a dangerous addiction to work
Addiction to success and a subconscious self-selecting preference for ego-based professions
According to official statistics, 36% of us surgeons in the UK have trauma symptoms. 12% of us have PTSD (that's pretty much the same percentage as returning Vietnam vets), 60% have burnout and up to two thirds of surgeons in certain subspecialties within surgery are mentally ill. We can't come forward and seek treatment as we are decapitated by the institutions that govern us if we do. Diversity and inclusion should include everyone, including those with mental illness. One in five surgeons are alcoholics. We have a five times higher suicide rate despite our resilience. Isn’t it time that we cared for those that care for us? 75% of us superachievers have suffered childhood trauma and emotional abuse as children. As doctors, we can be patients too. We are human beings. Medicine is a closed loop that doesn’t learn from failure. It is the institutions that go under the guise of civil society that Jean-Jacques Rousseau understood that: “Man is naturally good, and that it is from these institutions alone that men become wicked.” Those institutions, like our parents, can't see that they are the cause of our problem. And yet, like our parents, they chastise us. Is it surprising that in this environment surgeons are so ill with validation addiction? We deal with life and death situations daily, wear a mask and operate in a 'theatre.' And no one cares for us. We are condemned when things go wrong, even when we have done the right thing. Things go wrong because we operate on people, not machines. The response to surgery varies from individual to individual.
Addiction to validation from people
This may be in the form of validation from praise when accolades are awarded. People will say "I am proud of you" and that gives you temporary relief. You may suffer from sex or love addiction: This is the fastest growing addiction amongst doctors and other professionals as it allows you to function until it doesn't... Sex and love addicts, like all addicts who are not in recovery, make a beeline for each other. The consequences are always catastrophic. Sex and love addiction is as misnomer as it's not about sex or love: It's about getting validation as a human being as a result of childhood trauma. The causes and consequences of substance and behavioural addictions are the same. All addictions ultimately have serious consequences including death if people are not diagnosed and do not engage with recovery. Shanon Adler wrote “Dignity will only happen when you realise that having someone in your life doesn’t validate your worth.”
Other behavioural addictions
These include, but are not limited to, gambling, shopping, eating disorders, extreme sports, gaming, social media and internet addiction. Dennis Prager, author said “People can become addicted to fame, money, and attention as deeply as they become addicted to drugs.”
Alchohol and substance addiction
Losing perspective of the messenger
We lose our ability to discern, as we are so overwhelmed with not getting validation that we can't zoom out and look at the person, their lives, or their patterns of behaviour to see if their opinion holds value or applies to us and our lives. We become enmeshed with toxic people without realising it.
Blame culture, the 'aspirin metaphor', the 'drowning person' metaphor and a stark warning
If you are someone who is fulfilling a validation addict's perceived needs by offering them some form of validation and then you stop meeting their needs, they will think that the pain that they then feel is all your fault. You merely gave them temporary relief of the pain that they had carried from childhood trauma. It's like giving someone an aspirin for a headache then when the aspirin wears off they blame the headache on the person who gave them the aspirin.
Everyone feels like they are drowning right now. When someone comes along in a boat the drowning person capsizes it then blames the person in the boat for not rescuing them, even though they are now drowning too.
Run a mile from toxic people, who are also validation addicts, who do not want to help themselves and wake up. No one else can save you if you don't want to save your self. They will become obsessed with getting you back in to their lives to meet their own needs regardless of your own or, if they can't have you, will try to destroy you in order to provide some kind of meaning to their dysfunctional life. They may manifest as internet Trolls. Sadly their hatred always boomerangs back to them. It so tragic when you have clarity on what I outlined above: No-one should be trying to drown anyone else in order to 'save' themselves. The only thing that will save you is to do the inner work of personal transformation.
This stems from not feeling good enough, fear of being judged, and is particularly the case when we have overcritical parents. We become disconnected from our authentic Self and our own needs.
Chronic 'people pleasing' and difficulty saying no to people's desires and needs
As a validation addict, saying no can feel terrifying. You find it to be easier to say yes to things you don’t want to do, rather than face the fear of someone being mad at you. This ‘Fawn’ fear; response stems from lack of self-esteem and deep-rooted feelings of not being worthy. People's thoughts or opinions of us dictate our own choices, so we live their lives instead of ours. You go along to get along and don't express your own opinions. You would rather go along with almost anything than rock the boat! This can put you in unpleasant, risky, or even dangerous situations.
Being overly apologetic
This is another ‘Fawn’ fear response that results from fear of conflict. When you are an approval addict, you are always apologising, even when you have done nothing wrong. You are so preoccupied with the idea of offending someone that you might even apologise when you bump into the doorframe, a piece of furniture or to an animal! Does this sound familiar?
Lacking boundaries
When we never learned to separate the needs of others from our own, because it was never mirrored to us by our parents.
Sabotaging healthy relationships
Childhood trauma can lead to the 'comfort in chaos' illusion; or to becoming the Olympic champion of abandonment: "I will abandon you before you abandon me, in order to protect myself from the pain of abandonment."
Perfectionism
Brené Brown wrote “Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis… If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.”
Procrastination
Fear of not getting validation keeps us paralysed (taking no action).
Having low self-esteem
Approval addicts depend on their esteem from others, and often do not have their own inner sense of self-worth, resulting in low self-esteem. When others are mad at you or disapprove, this can feel devastating if you are an approval addict because it feels like your value is at risk. The inner dialogue in your mind is overly focused on your anxieties, fears, and doubts about yourself. (“I’m not good enough” “I’m so stupid” “Why is everybody looking at me, they must think I’m ugly” “He must think I’m weird”).
Because you have such low self-esteem, you paradoxically feel that you need to be the best at everything you do.
You attempt to control others
This may be surprising, as you may not think of yourself as controlling. However, approval addicts will often try to control others’ thoughts, emotions and behaviour in order to gain approval from. or access to, them. This is one of the four core elements of being codependent, which is closely linked with approval addiction. They may manipulate and lie in obsessive ways. They get extremely hurt when people don’t do what they expect them to do. They are consumed by emotion. People and things that are external to us operate largely outside of our control. You’re creating a situation in which your happiness depends on something over which you lack control. That will never work.
You try to portray yourself in the best possible light
This involves you only disclosing things about yourself that you feel will be viewed positively to the public and you lie about who you are and what you do. You try to hide or minimise things about you that you fear others may judge negatively, not like or might find toxic. You base your worth on external things like the car you have, how many followers you have, what clothes you wear, how you look, and your career etc. There is no you if you take those things away. Even the person in the photos doesn't look like the person in the photos. Epictetus wrote "It takes more than just a good looking body. You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it." If you have no heart and soul, you have no beauty.
You seek 'fame'.
Fame is a trap. Elvis started as his higher Self and ended up as a bloated ego. And I love Elvis. But he ended up dead, thanks to his ego. The thing about fame is that it’s a moving target. It’s addictive, and you can never get enough of it. Fame is a want that’s unending — like living life on the hedonic treadmill. (And everyone knows that treadmills are where happiness goes to die). Even if you do manage to hit some magic number of followers that was always your goal, the achievement ultimately feels hollow. Because it carries no meaning, in and of itself.
You give up a valuable resource: Your Real Power.
When you choose to tie up your sense of security, happiness, etc. in something external, you’re ceding power to it. You’re granting it a level of authority and control over your life, which is risky. On a fundamental level, you are choosing to disempower yourself. And that rarely ends well. Shakti Gawain said "When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for authority, validation, and approval from others, we give our personal power away."
You are terrified of rejection and abandonment
People who are addicted to approval tend to rely on others’ opinions for their self-worth, so being rejected is one of the scariest things that can happen to them and they may try to project onto you. If they get rejected, even small sleights, they respond in a way that is totally disproportionate and obsessive in a way that destroys them. If they get rejected, they flip out. This invalidates them. They do insane things just so that they can be accepted by others. Validation addiction can lead people down a very dark path, becoming severe alcoholics, drug users, joining with people that they would never associate with normally due to their desire to be accepted or their fear of rejection from their own 'tribe.' Need I say more?
Obsession with your appearance or cosmetic surgery
You are obsessed with getting people to express romantic or sexual interest in you. This is your way of getting validation about how attractive you are to the opposite sex. Your favourite subject is you. Yet there is not much left of you that is really you. Cara Delevigne said "I worked hard to be accepted by the fashion community in ways beyond my physical appearance. In no time, though, I found myself surrendering to the industry's approval process. I felt like I needed validation from everyone. As a result, I lost sight of myself and what it meant to be happy, what it meant to be successful."
You often play the victim despite being a persecutor.
You tell stories, lies, gossip, and manipulate others. You're looking for both attention and validation that it's "not your fault" when you should be accountable and responsible for your behaviour as an adult.
Who is affected by validation addiction?
Eckhart Tolle says that the primary addiction of human beings is to people. In short, everyone is affected by validation addiction.
This is where I see it the most: You are a high achiever in everything that you do, a professional, possibly a doctor or lawyer, a corporate leader, a financier, an actor, someone who's appearance is very important to them, or someone in the public eye: What I would call the 'ego-based professions'. These self select for people who want to be admired, because of their subconscious low self-worth, and hence the higher suicide rate in these professions.
They hold themselves up to impossible standards and then beat themselves up if they don't quite reach them. They can never reach them as they are by definition impossible for anyone. They fail way above where others think that they have succeeded but in fact have not. It's ok to fail: Everyone does. It's part of being human. It's what we do next that matters and the decisions we take make us who we are.
What can we do about validation addiction?
Realise that you are whole, unbroken, loved, lovable and worthy exactly as you are, and that you are not your ego. You are ok. All is well. Accept, love and forgive your Self. Become your own best friend. Validate your Self. Nathaniel Brander, politician and jurist wrote so eloquently “If my aim is to prove I am ‘enough’, the project goes on to infinity because the battle was already lost on the day I conceded the issue was debatable.” To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly. Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare. They should not be mistaken for love: That was our mistake as wounded children as we could not know otherwise. When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn or prove, then anything is possible. When you align your personality with your purpose, no one can touch you. Rumi wrote “Love is the bridge between you and everything.” It's time to be the light for all those that are struggling. And that’s pretty much everyone. It’s time for your resurrection so that you can guide others to doing the same. Everyone is full of fear and pain. You have a real purpose now.
Compassion. Sadly this is missing from so many institutions that are supposed to care for us and our professions. This is because they are unconscious and don't know how to be compassionate. They live in fear for their own survival but don't know how to, or are not awake enough, to change.
Psychotherapy - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT, which challenges unhealthy assumptions), Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT) and psychodynamic therapy (which uncovers our deepest fears, which are the roots of emotional suffering). Healing from being addicted to validation will improve your relationships, your mood and your peace of mind. The best part is, you’ll be able to rely on yourself for your self-worth and learn to love yourself even when others don’t approve of you. Therapy can help a person who wants to stop obsessively needing approval by allowing them recognise and break old patterns of interacting with others. Therapy can address painful family of origin relationships, help you heal from childhood trauma and abandonment, and change negative thought patterns about self-worth.
Psychiatric treatments including medication for depression and anxiety.
Trauma therapy such as Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR).
12 Step recovery programmes - people often start with Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), which originated 90 years ago after discussions between Carl Jung and Bill Wilson, or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) but then realise that those are not their primary addiction, they are simply ways of numbing the pain of not feeling validated as a human being. They then move on to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) and Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACA), which are growing very rapidly in their fellowship numbers, due to how deeply they dive into your egoic thinking and how they guide you to being open, honest, vulnerable and clear about your childhood trauma, so that you can finally let it go and realise that it was not your fault..
Spiritual approaches.
Be forgiving, compassionate and gentle with your Self. Give your Self the gift of time - it's invaluable. Let nature take its course. It knows how to heal you. Trust the process. Allow your Self to feel.
Learn to set healthy boundaries. This is as much for your own protection as anyone else's. A boundary simply states what you are OK with and what you are not OK with. It’s good to stand up for yourself, set healthy boundaries and learn to say no. Saying no and standing up for your Self is liberating!
Seek validation from your Self. Seek alignment with your own core values, beliefs, and principles rather than the opinions of others. This will require you to spend some time thinking, journaling, and reflecting on what matters most to you..
Unconditionally loving relationships with your Self and others. You deserve to give yourself the approval that you so desperately seek from others. With help, you can break those old thought patterns and learn to love your Self, which will improve not only your relationships but also your life.
Take off your mask: Be authentic: Allowing your Self to be vulnerable: Brené Brown said “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage.” Carl Jung said “The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.” “Half of life is lost in charming others. The other half is lost in going through anxieties caused by others. Leave this play, you have played enough” (Rumi).
Assertiveness training to improve your communication style using techniques such as Transactional Analysis.
Recover from any other addictions. Limit or stop caffeine if you are anxious. Stopping smoking, drinking and bingeing on food will all feel quite natural when you are in recovery. It's amazing how these have all been normalised as coping mechanisms but they are all prone to addiction. It's ok not to do any of these!
Sleep well, spend time in nature and eat healthily.
Don't watch or follow the 'news' - It's generally negative, half-concocted sensationalist dehumanising 'stories' and soul-destroying poison, based on fear and false-narrative with no interest in the actual Truth. Truth is far more interesting. As William Shakespeare wrote (who wasn't a tabloid hack) "Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Realise that joy comes from within. Shift your focus. What lights you up inside, regardless of what anyone else thinks? What intrinsically motivates and drives you?
Create. This brings you into presence, gives your life meaning, gets you closer to who you truly are, and you can be of service to others. Being of service takes the you out of you.
Get rid of social media - it's all become a space for little ego 'King Babies' and validation addicts puffing their chests, and toxic Trolls in denial and projection. Studies show a link between seeking approval from others, low self-esteem, and social media addiction. Social media use can trigger a cycle of continuously seeking out approval online and self-doubt that can impact impact self-esteem. Break the cycle. Don't feed the beast. Get away from your iPhone: Put it down! It feels amazing when you realise that you have done the inner work and that it’s not your responsibility to do it for others, however much they try to project their inner mess on you. Only we can decide if we want to get well.
"Refuse to be the daisy. And start being the sun" (Emily Dickinson). The daisy turns itself towards the sun for nourishment and, with sunlight, it blossoms. By refusing to be the daisy, you refuse to be dependent on anything other than yourself to flourish. Be the sun instead: Not needing anything or anyone to keep shining.
Transformative Life Coaching (TLC): The journey that you will take will be highly individualised to your needs. It's about forming an intimate relationship with your highest Self - the real you. You need to realise that you are not your ego. Your ego is who you think you are. You are not a validation seeker either, your huge 'King Baby' ego is the one doing all the validation seeking and is subconsciously running your life. The real you does not care for validation, the ego thrives off of it. So what you need to do is to deflate that ego daily. The path back to living a conscious life on our own terms is about connecting back to ourselves, becoming whole, integrated and authentic again, creating a life of true purpose that is meaningful to us based on loving rather than fearful choices. Your path will involve some or all of the above methods and treatments. This is why I found having a coach to be essential. You will save your own life, through the choices you make. But whereas you always went it alone before as you didn't trust anyone, having a guide can save you a lot of time, unnecessary detours and blind alleys and mistakes, and help keep you on the path. That may well mean that some people won't understand, agree and may be very upset that you won't meet their selfish needs because you wont be playing a role they intended for you any more: That's ok. You do not need to be for everyone. When people don't approve it doesn't mean that you are wrong. Disagreement is natural and healthy. Let them go if you wish. Break the habit by allowing your self not to be for everyone. Explore life. Surround your Self with loving compassionate people, not dangerous toxic people any more. Your soul will thank you for it. Say goodbye to your fears and your pain. You are worthy, loved unconditionally, and your true purpose will satiate your soul. You need a shift from fear to love. From pain to peace. From conflict to miracles. From victim to creator. It’s all the same thing. Think about what YOU want that brings you peace, love, joy and real purpose. All is well. And all shall be well. Click here for The Ultimate Guide To TLC.
Who will you choose to run your life? Your wounded inner child or your higher Self?
What is the prognosis of validation addiction?
Through these various approaches, the fear, excruciating emotional pain and the shame resulting from childhood trauma may be processed and released. As with any addiction, a lifelong commitment to recovery is required. The choice of whether you cross that bridge into recovering your Self is yours. You are not alone. We are legion.
Winston Churchill said "The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible." Joseph Campbell said “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” This is where we are going. Break the cycle of intergenerational trauma: Epictetus says "Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant." He continued “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
Byron Katie said “If I had a prayer it would be this: God spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen."
Sending you love, light, and blessings.
Please let me know if you would like to join our 'VOICE for men' group: 'Vulnerability & Openness Is a Choice Ensemble', where you can find your strength, courage, and authenticity, by dropping your egocentric fears and instead communicate openly with vulnerability. We are co-creating this space. It will change your life. It will empower you. This community is a safe space for men to connect and discuss philosophy, spirituality, positive psychology, awakening to Self-realisation, wisdom and timeless Truths, to share our experience, strength and hope, and to find solutions to our pain and fears. Our meeting is free to join. There is no script, just sharing. Click here to read my article on 'VOICE for men' to find out more:
Email me: hello@transformativelifecoach.co.uk
Olly Alexander Branford MD, MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
My gift is to be your guide. Let me know if you would like to continue this conversation...
Email me: hello@transformativelifecoach.co.uk
“Transformative life coaching uniquely creates and holds the space for you to see your self afresh, with clarity, and step into new ways of BEing, which will transform how you perceive and intuitively create your world. My work is to guide you to raise your own conscious awareness to the level that you want to achieve.” Olly Alexander Branford
My coaching themes and services - I work 1:1 and in groups with men who are looking for: Transformative Life Coaching, Transformational Coaching, Life Coaching, Personal Coaching, Positive Psychology Coaching, Recovery Coaching, Trauma Informed Coaching, Work Addiction Coaching, Workaholism Coaching, Addiction Coaching, Mindfulness Coaching.
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Hello,
I am very pleased to meet you. Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my website for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching. I am here to serve you.
See you soon,
Olly Alexander Branford MD, MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD
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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have published over 50 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for four years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.
Workaholics Anonymous
While not technically a form of treatment, this Twelve-Step program can be helpful in providing support and guidance from other workaholics who are also trying to recover from work addiction.
The Workaholics Anonymous Literature: