Consensual validation

In Harry Stack Sullivan's theory, the process by which a person checks the meaning of their symbols and perceptions against those of others and so arrives at shared, communicable meanings. It is the route from private, parataxic experience to the syntaxic mode. Sullivan saw it greatly enlarged in preadolescence, when a close friendship with a chum of the same sex first lets a child compare their view of the world freely with someone who matters to them; in treatment it is the means by which distorted perceptions are corrected.