Great article, and your points all make sense. It's a great framework for getting creative feedback.

I do think less experienced designers tend to equate their own self worth to the work they produce. Reviews become a personal attack, and the designer can get defensive. It takes some time to treat the work as it's own thing; yes, you should defend and nurture it, but your value is greater than any single piece of creative output.

I also think your technique for slow thinkers is important for all designers. It's easy for us as designers to fall into design-speak or platitudes to try to head off feedback. It's ok to say, "I need to think on that" or "Let me get back to you tomorrow," instead of jumping into design language to try to prove our point in the room.

Lastly, some clients feel like they need to change something to get value out of the designer. These clients are harder to reason with since their end goal is not a better product or design, but only putting their mark on the design. They feel like accepting the design without forcing a change means they aren't doing their job.

If I detect a client like this, I tend to try to steer them into a less critical area of the design where they can feel like they made their mark. Then I try to start an ongoing dialogue to hopefully move them to think about the end user's needs and work with them to make them feel part of the process.

Thanks again for the article!