The most basic and fundamental human desire is deep connection with others. But ironically, most of us don’t know how to consistently and reliably get it. And worse: most of us unintentionally sabotage it, despite the best intentions.
Here’s what I mean: have you opened up to someone about anything even remotely vulnerable, such as stress, loss, or just struggling through a day—and heard, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” or “Here’s what you should do…”? Most mean well when they reassure or correct. They want to help, to soothe, to fix. But often what the person who’s sharing really needs isn’t reassurance or advice—it’s connection. Too many default to reassuring, comforting, or correcting. It feels like support to the responder, yet it can unintentionally, subtly, and possibly even insidiously create distance. This is why therapists are trained to listen for meaning, emotion, and need. We reflect, we track, we join. Why? Because reassurance, however kind, can often move the vulnerable speaker away from their lived and felt experience.
Reflection, on the other hand, brings the speaker closer to the listener. When the listener mirrors back what the speaker says or feels, with responses such as “That sounds really hard,” “You felt dismissed,” “You were hoping it would go differently,” the listener is conveying, I see you. I’m here with you. That said, it can’t just feel like a technique: the speaker really has to feel the listener’s emotional engagement in their tone, demeanor, gestures, and facial expression. That’s the moment the speaker can feel seen, felt, understood, and known. Thus, it’s the moment we can develop, deepen, and maintain connection.
Accordingly, while it may seem counterintuitive, the reassurance you’re offering can create distance instead of connection. This is why when I meet with clients, I rarely rush to give advice. Instead, I focus first on connecting deeply to their experience through understanding, listening, and reflecting what I’m hearing. This active listening, what my brother calls “seek-to-understand energy,” or pure curiosity, helps people feel safe and supported quickly and effectively. But not only are most people not trained in this, I find it also doesn’t come naturally for many.
The Difference Between Reflecting and Reassuring
When someone we care about is hurting, it’s natural to want to help them feel better. So, listeners often reach for reassurance: “You’ll be fine.” “It’s not that bad.” “You’re doing great.” I find that these responses usually come from caring and kindness, but they can unintentionally shut down the deeper emotional exchange the speaker is actually seeking.
Reflecting, on the other hand, means tuning in and showing that you understand what the speaker is experiencing. Instead of trying to fix their feelings, you’re joining them in those feelings for a moment. A reflection might sound like: “It sounds like you felt dismissed when that happened,” or “You’re really anxious about what’s next, and that makes sense.”
Why Correcting Can Sabotage Connection
When we hear someone say something inaccurate, dramatic, or unfair, the impulse to correct them can be strong, especially if we care about truth or fairness. But correction, even if well-intentioned, often misses the emotional subtext and the deep human need and craving for company and support in their suffering and aloneness.
A common example I face repeatedly in couple therapy is when a partner might say, “You never listen to me.” The literal mind wants to respond, “That’s not true — I listened yesterday!” But that correction addresses the words, not the experience behind them. What the person probably means is, “I feel unheard.” When we correct instead of connect, the speaker can feel even more unseen and invalidated, and the conversation derails into debate or an argument rather than understanding.
A related successful therapy model and addiction treatment
Motivational interviewing (MI: Miller & Rollnick, 2013) is a client-centered psychotherapy approach designed to resolve ambivalence around change and foster intrinsic motivation for change. MI therapists almost never reassure; they’re usually reflecting, validating, and empathizing. That’s because they know that the “righting reflex,” listeners’ natural urge to fix problems through advice, persuasion, or reassurance, often backfires by increasing client resistance and making the speaker feel invalidated or defensive. Research shows that confronting ambivalence with such directive responses leads to poorer outcomes, as it discourages self-exploration and autonomy (Miller, Benefield, & Tonigan, 1993).
Instead, reflective listening, paraphrasing or summarizing what the other person shares, builds empathy, reduces defensiveness, and encourages deeper insight, as evidenced by MI studies emphasizing reflections as a core skill for enhancing engagement and motivation (Miller & Rollnick, 2013; Hettema, Steele, & Miller, 2005). Therefore, we can logically conclude that when friends talk, prioritizing reflection, empathy, and validation over reassurance thus promotes more authentic, supportive conversations that empower rather than advise and/or direct. Additionally, while questions can be helpful, MI underemphasizes questions because they can accidentally prioritize the listener’s agenda over the speaker’s, again compromising connection.
Conclusion
Instead of reassuring those that confide in you with vulnerable and personal issues, I recommend you respond to the emotion underneath the exaggeration: “It sounds like you’ve been feeling unheard lately.” That simple shift transforms defensiveness into dialogue. Correcting may win the point (alas, too pyrrhic of a victory), but reflecting often wins the relationship. Reflecting also empowers the person sharing to lead the conversation and follow the present chain of experience necessary to shift and relieve. Friends often don’t know what to say to each other to help and strengthen their connection, and feel so much pressure to reassure, counsel, and help, but my advice? Learn to reflect instead of reassure unless the speaker specifically requests more solution-oriented responding. As my friend and colleague, Pedro Ostrosky, LMFT reminded me, “Connection instead of (or at least before) correction.”
Pro tip: Since reflecting is a deceptively challenging skill to master, beyond being patient with yourself as you progressively improve in your reflections, don’t inflect your voice at the end of them. They should sound confident, but a little bit tentative at the beginning. An example would be, “If I heard you right, you are really angry about what’s happening at work (no inflection on ‘work’).”
