“What have you heard me say?” is a good clarifying way to do this. “I want to make sure that we are going away with a good understanding of each other.” If he comes back with a distortion, you can clarify at that point. “No, I am not saying that you are bad in some way. I am just saying that I need to make this change for the reasons I have said. I hope you can hear it that way and not as an attack on you. Are you clear on that?” There are a lot of different ways to do this, and helping the person correct his distortions can benefit him and also prevent a misinterpretation of what was said.
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