Receive feedback without defending or dismissing
Take in critical feedback completely before evaluating it — and look for the part that is true.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Take in critical feedback completely before evaluating it — and look for the part that is true.
- Why it works: Overcontrolled individuals often have sophisticated and rapid defenses against feedback that challenges their self-model: they find the factual error in the critic’s framing, the ulterior motive, or the exception that proves their approach correct. These defenses are fast and feel like intellectual integrity. The radical openness practice is to deliberately slow the defense sequence and search for the signal in the feedback before rejecting the noise.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Finding the one inaccuracy in the feedback and using it to dismiss the entire message — which is intellectually defensible but produces no learning from feedback that is partially true.
Why it works
Overcontrolled individuals often have sophisticated and rapid defenses against feedback that challenges their self-model: they find the factual error in the critic’s framing, the ulterior motive, or the exception that proves their approach correct. These defenses are fast and feel like intellectual integrity. The radical openness practice is to deliberately slow the defense sequence and search for the signal in the feedback before rejecting the noise.
How to do it
- 1When receiving feedback, resist responding immediately — count to five, or say "thank you, let me think about that."
- 2Before evaluating accuracy, search for the part that is correct, even if only partially.
- 3Write down the feedback as given — not your interpretation of it — and review it 24 hours later when defensiveness has subsided.
What the evidence says
ObservationalFeedback-seeking and openness to criticism are associated with faster skill acquisition and better performance in learning and organizational research; defensive responding is associated with slower skill development and reduced accuracy of self-assessment.
Honest caveat: Feedback research is in professional and learning contexts; the application to RO-DBT’s openness practice is an extension of those findings to therapeutic settings.
- — Ashford, Blatt & VandeWalle (2003), feedback seeking in organizations, Journal of Management
Common mistake
Finding the one inaccuracy in the feedback and using it to dismiss the entire message — which is intellectually defensible but produces no learning from feedback that is partially true.
IX Coach structures feedback sessions so you write down what you heard before evaluating it, and prompts you to name the part that is true before discussing what might be inaccurate.
Practice this with IX Coach →