I can’t remember exactly how I found this book but this is one of the most underrated psychology/self-development books In my opinion. This is a pragmatic book, it spends very little time on theory. Most of the content are examples of exercises the author performed with his students, or accounts of personal experiences of his students after they applied the assertiveness techniques to their lives.
Most good content flows from author to author like a river, you can spot the trace of influence through time. When I say no, I feel guilty, however seems to be like an island. I haven’t seen it’s ideas laid out anywhere else in the self-development community. At least not clearly and with such great examples. This book makes the best points if you read it with context. That’s why I won’t try to summarize it but instead, share some of my favorite accounts.
What is assertiveness ?
The theory and verbal skills of systematic assertive therapy are a direct outgrowth of working with normal human beings, trying to teach them something about how to cope effectively with the conflicts we all have in living with each other. My initial motivation for developing a systematic approach for learning to cope assertively began with my appointment as a Field Assessment Officer at the Peace Corps Training and Development Center in the hills near Escondido, California, during the summer and fall of 1969. During this period, I observed with dismay that the traditional techniques—fancifully known as the “armamentarium”—of the clinical psychologist (or of any theraputic discipline for that matter) were quite limited in that training setting. Crisis intervention, individual counseling or psychotherapy, and group process including sensitivity training or growth-encounter group methods did little to prepare relatively normal Peace Corps trainees for coping with the everyday human interaction problems that most veteran volunteers had met overseas in their host countries. Our failure to help these enthusiastic young men and women became apparent after twelve weeks of intensive training and counseling when, for example, they were given their first dry-run demonstration of a portable insecticide sprayer. Squatting on their heels in a dusty field to simulate a group of rural Latin American farmers were a motley bunch of PhDs, psychologists, a psychiatrist, language instructors, and veteran volunteers dressed in straw hats, shorts, sandals, GI boots, tennis shoes, or bare feet. As the trainees proceeded with their field demonstration, the ersatz farmers showed little interest in the insecticide sprayer and great interest in the strangers coming to their village fields. While the trainees could adequately answer questions on agronomy, pest control, irrigation, or fertilization, not one gave a believable answer to questions that the people they wanted to help would probably ask first: “Who sent you down here to sell us this machine? Why do you want us to use it? Why do you come all the way from America to tell us this? What’s in it for you? Why do you first come to our village? Why do we have to grow better crops?” And so forth. As each trainee tried, in exasperation, to talk about the insecticide sprayer, the ersatz farmers kept asking questions about the trainee’s reasons for coming to them. Not one trainee, as I recall, assertively responded with something like: “Quien sabe … Who knows the answers to all your questions? I don’t. I only know that I wanted to come to your village and meet you and show you how this machine can help you grow more food. If you want to grow more food, maybe I can help you.” Without such a nondefensive attitude and assertive verbal response when they found themselves in the indefensible position of being interrogated for suspicious motives, most of the trainees had an unforgettable, embarrassing experience.
While we had taught them adequate language, cultural, and technical skills, we had not prepared them at all for assertively and confidently dealing in public with a critical personal examination of their motives, wants, weaknesses, even their strengths—in short, an examination of themselves as persons. We had not taught them to cope in a situation where the trainee wanted to talk about agronomy and the ersatz farmers (as the real campesinos would) wanted to talk about the trainee. We had not taught them how to respond in such a situation because we didn’t then know what to teach them. All of us had vague ideas about the situation but none of us helped much. We did not teach the trainee how to assert himself without having to justify or give a reason for everything he does or wants to do. We had not taught the trainee how to say simply: “Because I want to …” and then leave the rest up to the people he was going to try and help.
In the few weeks remaining before they took their oaths and departed, I experimented with all sorts of theraputic training variations and improvisations with as many of the trainees as were receptive. As the final week drew nearer, the number of trainees who avoided me grew. None of the ideas off the top of my head showed any results then or even any promise, but I did make one important observation: the trainees who coped least well with critical personal examination behaved, in dealing with other people, as if they could not admit failure—they seemed to feel they had to be perfect.
This same observation was made again during my clinical appointments in 1969 and 1970 at the Center for Behavior Therapy in Beverly Hills, California, and at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda, Behavior Therapy in Beverly Hills, California, and at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sepulveda, California. In treating and observing patients whose diagnoses ranged from normal or mild phobias to severe neurotic disorders, and even with schizophrenics, I found that many of them had the same inadequacy in coping as did the young Peace Corps trainees, although to a much greater degree. Many of these patients seemed incapable of coping with critical statements or questions about themselves from other people. One patient in particular showed such a marked resistance to talking about anything to do with himself that four months of traditional psychotherapy produced only a few dozen sentences from him. Because of his mute withdrawal from other people and his obvious anxiety at being around other people, he was diagnosed as a severe anxiety neurotic. On a hunch that he was simply an extreme case of the Peace Corps trainee syndrome, I switched from “talking” about him to talking about the people in his life who gave him the most trouble. Over a period of weeks, I learned that he was both terrified of and hostile toward his stepfather, a person who related to him in one of two ways—he either criticized or patronized. Our young patient, unfortunately, knew no other way to relate to his stepfather except as the object of criticism or patronage. Consequently, in the presence of this authority figure, the patient was all but mute. His almost involuntary silence, produced by his fear of being criticized and his knowledge that he was unable to defend himself, became generalized and was employed with anyone else who had the least amount of self-assuredness. When I asked this fearful young man if he would be interested in learning how to cope with his stepfather’s criticism, he began to talk to me as one person to another. We worked experimentally on desensitizing him to criticism from his stepfather, his family, and people in general Within two months, this “mute neurotic” was discharged, after leading a group of other young patients out on a drinking spree and then generally raising good-natured hell on their ward when they returned. At last report, he was enrolled in college, dressing as he pleased, doing much of what he wanted to do in spite of any protests from his stepfather, and with a good prognosis of not being rehospitalized. After this successful but novel treatment, Dr. Matt Buttigtieri, Chief Psychologist of the Sepulveda VAH, encouraged me to try these treatment techniques with similar patients and to develop a systematic treatment program for nonassertive people. During the spring and summer of 1970, the assertive therapy skills described in this manuscript were clinically evaluated both at the Sepulveda VAH and at the Center for Behavior Therapy with that master clinician and colleague, Dr. Zev Wanderer. Since that time, these systematic skills have been expanded and used by myself, my students, and my colleagues to teach nonassertive people how to cope effectively with other people in a variety of settings. These assertive skills have been taught in university, county, and private outpatient clinics, university training programs and classes, graduate and undergraduate psychology programs, weekend training seminars, and professional workshops, as well as in probation, social welfare, prison, rehabilitation, and public school training programs, and the results have been reported on in professional meetings. Whether we choose to call the people who can benefit from systematic assertive therapy everyday people who have difficulty in coping verbally with others, as in the case of the Peace Corps trainees, or neurotic, as in the case of the young “mute” patient, is to me irrelevant. What is relevant and important is learning how to cope with life’s problems and conflicts and the people who present them to us. That, in a nutshell, is what systematic assertive therapy is all about and why this book was written. The assertive skills described in this work are based on five years of my own and my colleagues’ clinical experiences in teaching people to cope. By writing about the theory and practice of systematic assertive therapy it is my aim to help give as many people as possible a better understanding of what often happens when we feel at a loss in coping with one another … and what we can do about it.
Practicality over Theory
Almost twenty years ago, in college just after being discharged from the army, I met an honest, gutsy man. Joe was a young professor then and I was one of his students. He taught psychology when I met him, and still does. He taught it in a tough, opinionated, open style. He left his students none of their naïve notions about the discipline of psychology. He refused to give the expected explanations for morbidly interesting aberrations or even for mundane normalities of the human mind, behavior, or motivating spirit. In place of complicated theories on why we behave in a certain way, he stressed simplicity. For him, it was enough to describe how things worked psychologically, and that they did work, using simple assumptions, urging us to let it go at that. He held the firm, scholarly belief that 95 per cent of what is pandered as scientific psychological theory is sheer garbage and that it will be a long time before we really know our basic mechanics well enough to explain completely most of what we see.
The merit of Joe’s argument is as compelling now as it was twenty years ago … and I agree with it! Long-winded technical or mystical explanations are often intriguing and even literary, but not only are they unnecessary, they actually complicate without adding a jot to our understanding. To use what psychology does have to offer, it is more important to know what will work, not why it will work. For example, in treating patients, I find that it is typically useless to concentrate a lot on why a patient is in trouble; that tends to be academic masturbation and can go on for years with no beneficial results. It may even be harmful. It is much more beneficial to concentrate on what the patient is going to do about his behavior rather than to understand why he behaves as he does!
It’s not about the problems, but how to cope with them
As I came to know Joe over the years as a close friend and a fellow expert on human behavior, it turned out that he had the same problems with other people that I did, and in about the same proportion. As I gradually got to know more and more experts on human behavior in psychology and psychiatry, I found that they too had problems in coping. The title of “Doctor” and the knowledge that went with it did not exempt us from experiencing the same problems we saw in our relatives, neighbors, friends, and even in our patients, no matter what their occupation or education. Like Joe, like other psychologists and nonpsychologists, we all have problems with other people. When our husbands, wives, lovers are unhappy about something, they have the ability to make us feel guilty without even talking about it. A certain look does it, or a door closing a bit too loud announcing an hour of silence, or a frosty request to change the television station. Joe once complained to me, “I’ll be damned if I know how they can do it, or why I respond that way, but somehow I finish up feeling guilty, even when there’s nothing to feel guilty about!” Problems are not limited to those provided by our mates. If parents and in-laws want something, they have the power to make their grown sons and daughters feel like anxious little children, even after they have children of their own. You and I know too well what the gut response is to a mother’s silence over the phone; or an in-law’s disapproving look; or a prompt from Mom or Dad like, “You must be very busy lately. We never see you any more,” or “There’s a nice apartment for rent in our neighborhood. Why don’t you come over tomorrow night and we’ll all look at it.” As if having to cope with those stomach-knotting conflicts was not enough to make us wonder about ourselves, we also have problems with people outside our families. For example, if the auto mechanic does a poor repair job on your car, the garage manager has the knowledge to explain in great detail why your radiator still overheats after you paid $56 to have it fixed. In spite of his ability to make you feel ignorant about your car and rotten for somehow not taking better care of it, there is still the nagging uneasiness that an honest day’s work for a day’s pay does not apply here. Even our friends cause problems. If a friend suggests something to do for an evening’s entertainment that doesn’t appeal to you, the almost automatic response is to make up an excuse, you have to lie so your friend doesn’t get his feelings hurt, at the same time feeling like a guilty sneak for doing so! No matter what you or I do, other people can cause problem after problem. Many of us have the unrealistic belief that having to live with problems day after day is an unhealthy or unnatural lifestyle. Not so! Life presents us all with problems. It is entirely natural. But very often, as a result of the unrealistic belief that a healthy person has no problems, you may feel the lifestyle we are all caught up in is not worth living. Most of the people I get to know well from therapy sessions develop this negative belief. But it is not the result of having problems, it is the result of feeling inadequate to cope with our problems and the people who present them. In spite of similar feelings in myself when I cope poorly, the sum of all my experience as a psychologist rebels at the idea that human beings are some genetically obsolete species designed for an earlier age when things were simpler. Rubbish! I do not accept that we are losers who cannot happily live our everyday lives and cope adequately in this industrialized, urbanized, sanitized space age. Instead, I have a different, more hopeful outlook from my own experience; from my professional reading; from what I was taught and my own teachings; from my research in the laboratory and in the clinic; from training people to cope with life’s problems; from going out into the community and having to hospitalize hundreds of people against their will simply because they did not know how to cope with other people; and from clinically treating the mildest to the most bizarre and dangerous psychiatric disorders. Placing all these experiences in perspective with a naturalistic observation of the thousands of other humans encountered in my lifetime prompts a sounder and more realistic conclusion: not only is it natural to expect that we will have problems in living, it is also natural to expect that we all have the ability to cope adequately with these problems.
The Broken Record
One of the most important aspects of being verbally assertive is to be persistent and to keep saying what you want over and over again without getting angry, irritated, or loud. Most often, to communicate effectively in a conflict situation, you have to be persistent and stick to your point. Nonassertive people tend to get bogged down in excess verbiage and give up easily when someone tells them “why,” shows them “logically,” or gives them “reasons” for not doing what they want to do. In learning how to be persistent, the nonassertive person must not give reasons or excuses or explanations as to “why” he wants what he wants; he needs to ignore guilt-inducing statements. One verbal skill that teaches people how to accomplish all of this simultaneously is a technique first used in assertive therapy by my close colleague Dr. Zev Wanderer, who gave it its descriptive title: BROKEN RECORD. By practicing to speak as if we were a broken record, we learn to be persistent and stick to the point of the discussion, to keep saying what we want to say, and to ignore all side issues brought up by the person we assert ourselves to. In using BROKEN RECORD, you, the learner, are not deterred by anything the other person may say, but keep saying in a calm, repetitive voice what you want to say until the other person acceeds to your request or agrees to a compromise. The purpose of BROKEN RECORD training and rehearsal is not to teach you to speak like a broken record, but to teach and reward persistence, no matter what words you use. To see how you can accomplish this result, let’s look at a very simple real life BROKEN RECORD dialogue in a commercial situation. Dialogue #1 Carlo and the supermarket clerk The following BROKEN RECORD dialogue is one reported by Carlo, a Chicano community relations worker. Carlo received instruction from me as part of a staff development program in effective communication. During the fourth session, Carlo reported that on the previous Saturday he had done the week’s marketing for his wife and when he returned home, he could not find his meat purchases. Since his father was at the house for dinner, Carlo asked if he would like to accompany him to the supermarket to get his meat purchases back. Setting of the dialogue: Upon entering the supermarket with his father in tow, Carlo spoke to the clerk at the checkout counter about his missing purchases. CLERK: Yes? CARLO: When I was here earlier, I bought three steaks, a roast, and two chickens with my other groceries and when I got home, the meat was missing. I want my meat. CLERK: Did you look in your car? CARLO: Yes, I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: I don’t think I can do anything about it. [Evasion of responsibility] CARLO: I understand how you might think that, but I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: Do you have your cash register receipt? CARLO: (Handing receipt to clerk) Yes, and I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: (Looking at the receipt) You have six meat purchases here. CARLO: That’s right, and I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: Well, I don’t have anything to do with the meat department [Evasion of responsibility] CARLO: I understand how you feel, but you’re the one I paid my money to and I still want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: You will have to go to the back and see the meat manager. [Evasion of responsibility] CARLO: Will he give me my meat? [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: He’s the one to take care of it [Evasion of responsibility] CARLO: What’s his name? CLERK: Mr. Johnson. CARLO: Call him up here, please. CLERK: Just go in the back, you’ll find him. [Evasion of responsibility] CARLO: I don’t see anyone there, please call him up here. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: Go in the back, he’ll be there soon. [Evasion of responsibility] CARLO: I don’t want to go in the back and wait around forever. I want to get out of here quick like, please call him up here. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: You’re holding up the line, all these people want to be served. [Guilt induction: don’t you care about other people?] CARLO: I know they want to be served, just like I want to be served. Please call the meat manager up here. [BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: (Looks at Carlo curiously for a few seconds, walks over to the girl in the check-cashing booth, speaks to her and walks back to Carlo) He’ll be here in just a minute. CARLO: Okay. After a few minutes, the meat manager, Mr. Johnson, walks up to the checkout counter and taps the checkout clerk on the shoulder. CLERK: This customer lost his meat purchase. JOHNSON: (To Carlo) Where did you lose it? CARLO: Here, I never got it from you, and I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: Do you have the cash register receipt? CARLO: (Handing it to him) Yes, and I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: (Looking at the slip) There are six items from the meat department. CARLO: Right three steaks, a roast, two chickens, and I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: Did you look in your car to see if they fell out of the bag? [Ignorance and guilt induction: you have to be checked up on and are not responsible.] CARLO: Yes, and I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: Is there any other place you could have dropped them? [Ignorance and guilt induction: you are careless.] CARLO: Yes, here. And I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: I meant besides here. CARLO: No, and I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: Most people who say they lost their purchases remember later that they left them somewhere else. Why don’t you come back in tomorrow if you can’t find them? [Ignorance and guilt induction: you don’t have a good memory and made a mistake!] CARLO: I understand why you feel that way, but I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: It’s getting late and we’re ready to close the store. [Guilt induction: you are keeping me from going home on time.] CARLO: I understand how you feel, but I want my meat. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: Well, I can’t do anything about this myself. [Evasion of responsibility] CARLO: Who can? JOHNSON: The store manager. CARLO: Okay. Call him over here. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: He is very busy right now. Why don’t you come back on Monday and talk to him? [Guilt induction: he is a busy, important person and you shouldn’t bother him with a little problem like this.] CARLO: I understand how you feel, but I’m very busy right now myself. Call him over here. [BROKEN RECORD] JOHNSON: (First silently looking at Carlo for a few seconds) I’ll go talk to him and see what I can do. CARLO: Okay. I’ll be here waiting for you. Mr. Johnson walks to the back of the store, disappears in a doorway, and then reappears a few moments later in the window of a business office overlooking the merchandise displays. He starts a conversation with a man seated behind a desk. The man behind the desk says something. Mr. Johnson shakes his head and points to Carlo. The man stands up, looks at Carlo, and speaks again. Mr. Johnson replies, shaking his head. The man speaks again and goes back to his desk. Mr. Johnson disappears from the window and moments later walks up to Carlo. CARLO: Well? JOHNSON: We are very sorry this happened. Why don’t you go back to the meat counter and pick out what you lost. CARLO: Right, thank you. JOHNSON: Next week we are having a sale in the meat section. Some very good buys. CARLO: I’ll tell my wife about it, thanks. While picking out the meat replacements, Carlo’s father expressed his approval of the way Carlo had dealt with the supermarket staff. He kept saying with amazement in his voice, “If that were me, I would have been looking for the meat in my pockets, underneath the seat in the car, in the closet at home and in the attic!” Driving home, Dad asked Carlo how he was able to do what he did. With some modesty, but no lack of confident self-respect, Carlo replied; “It’s just something I picked up in a course on being assertive at work. If you want, I’ll teach you it.” In Carlo’s dialogue with the supermarket clerks, you can see how he repeatedly told them, via BROKEN RECORD, what he wanted, his main goal, the replacement of his meat purchases. When other minor goals arose in the discussion, Carlo did not hesitate to use BROKEN RECORD to communicate his immediate wants to the clerks. For example, when told to stand around and wait until they got to his problem, Carlo repeatedly asked that the person who could resolve the problem be brought to him. The purpose of BROKEN RECORD, Carlo had learned, is to transmit a message repeatedly to the person he asserts himself to: “I will not be put off, I can do this all day if necessary”—no matter what manipulative ploys the other person may come up with. The idea of persistently, verbally asserting ourselves, which BROKEN RECORD teaches us, goes hand in hand with most of the remaining verbal skills described. As you will see in the dialogues to come, the things said in being assertive are said over and over again until the desired result—the cessation of someone’s manipulation, a material goal, a workable compromise, a therapeutic effect upon our-self, or the regaining of our self-respect—is achieved.
Example Dialogue
Anne, a young, attractive woman, purchased her first pair of calf-length boots specifically to wear to several parties during the holiday season. Midway through the first dinner party, the heel on the left boot fell off. This defect infuriated her at the time and prompted her to vow that she was going to get back the money that she had paid for this shoddy merchandise. Setting of the dialogue: Two days later, she walks up to a clerk of the shoe department. CLERK: Can I help you? ANNE: Perhaps, but I’d prefer to speak to the manager of the shoe department [FOGGING] CLERK: He’s busy right at the moment. Do you have a complaint? ANNE: I’m sure he is busy, but I’d still like to speak to him. [FOGGING and BROKEN RECORD] CLERK: (Silent for a moment) Let me see if I can get him for you. ANNE: Good, I’d like to see him. [BROKEN RECORD] (Clerk disappears into doorway behind counter for a few minutes and then reappears and speaks to Anne) CLERK: He will be with you in just a minute. ANNE: (Looking at her watch) Thank you. (Five minutes pass. Anne approaches the clerk again and speaks to her.) ANNE: What is the manager’s name? CLERK: (Looking distressed) Oh! He’s Mr. Simon. ANNE: I would like you to tell Mr. Simon that I still want to speak to him. If he will not see me now, I want to know when he will see me or when I can see his supervisor. [BROKEN RECORD and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] CLERK: (Quickly disappears into room behind counter. She reappears a few moments later followed by Mr. Simon. Mr. Simon walks up to Anne and speaks.) MANAGER: (Smiling) What can I do for you? ANNE: (Showing manager defective boots) I want a refund on these boots I bought from you last week. They are defective. The heel fell off the first time I wore them. MANAGER: (Examining boots) Umm … This has never happened before to any of this line of boots. (Possibly implying: “What did you do to them?”) ANNE: I’m sure that this has never happened before, but it has happened now so I’m really not interested in the other boots you sold. I am only concerned about this pair and I want my money refunded. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: (Putting boots back in bag) Well, we like to see if we can fix anything defective before we make a refund. Let me send these to our repairman and we’ll see what he can do. ANNE: I’m sure that you would like to see if you can fix them before refunding my money, but I’m not interested in getting them fixed. I want my money back. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: It’s not our policy to accept damaged merchandise for a refund. ANNE: I’m sure that is your policy, but these boots are unacceptable and I want a refund on my account. [FOGGING and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: (Looking curiously at Anne) You say you just wore them once? ANNE: Yes, and I want a refund. [BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: Were you dancing in them? ANNE: I don’t understand. What is it about dancing that is bad for these boots? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] MANAGER: Well, some people mistreat boots when they are dancing. ANNE: I’m sure that’s true, but are these boots constructed so poorly that they shouldn’t be danced in? [FOGGING and NEGATIVE INQUIRY] MANAGER: No … You should be able to dance in them. ANNE: I’m very glad you told me that. It convinces me that this is shoddy merchandise. I want a refund. [SELF-DISCLOSURE and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: I’m sure we can get them fixed perfectly for you. ANNE: I’m sure you feel that way, but when I pay this much money for merchandise and it is defective, it is totally unacceptable to me. I want a full refund to my account. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: But we can’t do that. ANNE: I’m sure you really feel that way, but I want a refund and not repaired boots for my money. [FOGGING and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: Well, let me see what I can do. (He walks away. Anne looks at her watch, and then looks around her. Behind her is another woman holding a pair of boots with one seam torn and an elderly woman in a sable coat sitting a few feet to one side. Noting that both women are paying attention to her confrontation with the manager, Anne begins to feel a little sheepish and embarrassed. This feeling is quickly dispelled when the older woman in the fur coat leans forward and says softly to her: “Stick to your guns, dear. Don’t let him get away with it.” After a few minutes, the manager reappears and walks up to Anne and speaks to her.) MANAGER: I realize this is inconvenient to you, but I just spoke to our repairman. His shop is in the Wilshire district. If you take them to him now he can repair them immediately. That would save you a wait of a week if we sent them down. ANNE: I can see that, but I am totally uninterested in having these boots repaired. I will only accept a full refund on my account. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: But we can’t make a refund. The manufacturer won’t allow us to make a refund that way. ANNE: I’m sure the manufacturer won’t allow a refund. But I’m not interested in whether or not the manufacturer makes a refund. I want you to make the refund. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: But that’s the problem. If the manufacturer won’t reimburse us I can’t give you a refund. ANNE: I’m sure you do have a problem with the manufacturer. But that’s your problem, not mine. I am not interested in your problems with the factory. I am only interested in you making a total refund. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: But if we make a refund we will lose money. ANNE: I’m sure you will lose money, but that doesn’t interest me at all. I only care about getting a full refund to my account. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] MANAGER: I cannot make a refund. I don’t have the authority. ANNE: I believe you, so I would like the name of your superior who can make a refund. [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] MANAGER: (Silent) ANNE: Will you give me his name or shall I get it from somebody else? [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] MANAGER: Let me see what I can do. (The manager disappears into the stockroom behind the counter for a minute, reappears, and speaks to Anne.) MANAGER: We don’t do this as a regular procedure, but if you will give me your sales slip, I will send a refund voucher for the boots up to Accounting. ANNE: Thank you. (Turns and smiles to the young woman behind her holding another pair of defective boots.) Anne was not a regularly enrolled student in an assertion class or a patient in therapy when she learned to be assertive. She was a nonassertive colleague who learned these skills and attitudes in bits and pieces from me during discussions over lunch or at social functions, and she put them into practice over a period of months. Curiously enough, Anne became very proficient in all the verbal skills on her own without benefit of the coached practice sessions that seem to better suit most novice learners. This particular interaction with the sales manager was the first of many successful experiences Anne has reported as she has gradually learned to be more assertive with other people. Like many other learners, Anne has undergone a major personality change; she has become more persistent, much less sensitive to criticism, acquired an ability to better cope with her errors, been less anxious about problems and conflicts with other people (less flight coping), and showed much less anger and aggressiveness (less fight coping) to people close to her. When I recently asked her to tell me about the one thing she valued most from her assertive learning experiences, she skimmed over these positive emotional changes within herself and emphasized her changed attitude toward herself and other people and the gain in general self-confidence that was produced from an ability to recognize and cope with manipulation by others. Let’s now look at the other side of the coin, an employee who assertively copes with a customer with a legitimate grievance.
Example Dialog on saying NO
The most difficult situations in which to learn to be assertive are those involving people we truly care about—our equals, like parents, friends, lovers, and mates. An equal relationship has the least a priori structure of any of the interactions you can have with another person. When conflict with an equal arises, how “should” you cope with it?
As one of the first training exercises for students or patients to learn to be more assertive with people they presumably have equal relationships with, I have them role-play a situation in which a friend, co-worker, cousin, brother-in-law, etc., tries to borrow their car and uses a lot of manipulation to achieve that goal. Lending something like your car when you really don’t want to is a common problem. Many learners complain of their inability to cope in this situation. You also may feel that either you have to lend your car to keep peace or the relationship will be destroyed, or you will have to show some anger before the other person will believe that you won’t lend them your car. To extinguish feelings of anxiety in this type of situation, I first have learners practice assertively and empathically saying “No” to a request from an equal, perhaps a coworker who is an associate but not necessarily a close friend. Setting of the first dialogue: You are on a coffee break at work and your co-worker, Harry, approaches you and sits down. HARRY: Boy, am I glad to see you! I got a real problem and I was afraid I couldn’t get anyone to help me out YOU: What’s the problem? HARRY: I need to use your car this afternoon. YOU: Umm. That is a problem, but I don’t want to lend out my car this afternoon. [FOGGING and SELF-DISCLOSURE] HARRY: Why not? YOU: I agree you need it, but I just don’t want to lend out my car. [FOGGING and BROKEN RECORD] HARRY: Do you have someplace to go? YOU: I may want it myself, Harry. [SELF-DISCLOSURE] HARRY: When do you need it? I’ll get it back on time. YOU: I’m sure you would, but I just don’t want to lend out my car today. [FOGGING and BROKEN RECORD] HARRY: Whenever I asked to borrow your car, you always lent it to me before. YOU: That’s true, I did, didn’t I? [NEGATIVE ASSERTION] HARRY: Why won’t you lend it to me today? I always took care of it before. YOU: That’s true, Harry, and I can see you’re in a jam, but I just don’t want to lend my car out today. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and BROKEN RECORD] Up to this point you are simply coping with a manipulative co-worker who wants something you have—a car, some time off, part of your work schedule, the last parking sticker, the newest typewriter in the office, or any one of a hundred things someone may try to talk you out of. In most cases, the co-worker is not malignant in intent but just someone who wants something you have and really doesn’t give a damn how you feel: a conflict where most learners have no difficulty in refusing to give reasons to justify or explain their behavior to the other person. Most people, however, have greater difficulty in not giving reasons for what they want to do to their friends, family, etc. To get learners to be able to cope with such anxiety-producing and therefore more difficult situations, I have them change Harry, at this point in the dialogue, from just a co-worker into a good friend and coach them on how to cope with such a friend’s manipulation through assertively disclosing their own feelings of worry. HARRY: Look, I’m a good driver and I’ve never done anything to your car. YOU: That’s true, Harry, I just worry when I lend my car out, so I don’t want to go through that hassle again. [FOGGING and SELF-DISCLOSURE] HARRY: You know that I won’t damage your car! YOU: You won’t. I know that and it’s dumb for me to feel this way, but I do. [FOGGING and NEGATIVE ASSERTION] HARRY: So why won’t you lend me your car? YOU: Because I don’t want to have this worry. [SELF-DISCLOSURE] HARRY: But you know I won’t do anything wrong. YOU: You’re right, Harry. It’s not you, it’s me that’s the problem. I just worry when I lend out my car. So I’m not going to lend it out. [FOGGING and SELF-DISCLOSURE] HARRY: Well, you should do something about that. YOU: For instance? HARRY: See a shrink or something. I don’t know! YOU: Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I will, maybe not. I’ll see. Many learners report that for their own self-respect they want to be able to say “No” to a good friend occasionally and mean it! The difficulty in achieving this expectation with their friends is that they have a near-perfect history of always saying “Yes” to requests; consequently their fiends always expect to get the car. Some learners have asked me why not simply go up to Harry, come right out and say: “Look, Harry. You get too pushy at times. Sometimes you can use my car and sometimes you can’t. Don’t always expect to get everything you want out of me,” and let it go at that? The route you take depends, as the Cheshire Cat pointed out to Alice, a good deal upon where you want to go. If you want to change your friend’s long-term manipulative behavior, then changing your own behavior toward him over a period of time is probably most efficient. If you want the more immediate satisfaction of venting your irritated feelings upon Harry for his manipulation of you in the past having it out with him then is the most efficient course. You may not be able to do both: tell Harry off for how shabbily he has treated your feelings in the past and still keep his friendship—unless he is a very, very close friend. That sort of emotional catharsis works fine in sensitivity groups but typically does not transfer to the real world with our bonafide, everyday relationships—a unilateral sensitivity group doesn’t work. Harry has to first want to join your therapy group before he will accept your emotional venting. Another difficulty with coming right out and telling Harry that “Maybe you can have my car and maybe not” is that it will probably confuse the hell out of Harry as well as get him angry. Harry will not have the vaguest notion of what your problem is and will wonder why you are taking it out on him now; after all, he never stole your car, did he? He always asked to use it and you said yes. If you didn’t want him to have it, why didn’t you say so before, instead of making a big deal of the whole issue now? The problem for most learners, and perhaps yourself if you are like them, is simply this: at times you would feel comfortable in lending something out depending upon the circumstances and other times you just don’t want to, no matter what the circumstances. Any other solution to this problem beside changing your own behavior to suit each decision you make borders on trying to control other people’s behavior for your own convenience. If you, like most novice learners, have this problem of being assertive to close friends, you need to make up your mind on what you want to give your friends as you go along and assertively cope with the consequences of each decision; instead, for example, of asking Harry to control his behavior for you by guessing beforehand if you will lend him the car or not—making him read your mind! It’s your responsibility to make that decision, not Harry’s. It’s your car. What happens to it depends upon you! Other alternatives are open to you and your friend Harry besides lending him your car. At the end of the previous dialogue, you might help Harry with his problem in other ways. You could suggest someone else who might lend Harry a car, or even suggest that Harry try again tomorrow or later in the week to see if your car is available then, or a variety of other compromises. At this stage of practicing to be assertive, most learners ask the obvious question: “Do you mean that I should never give a friend a reason for what I want to do or why I want to do it?” To this question, I give them this obvious answer: “If you and your friend have the same specific goal and are working together on it, two minds are usually better than one in figuring out ways to solve a problem. However, we are covering situations where there is a conflict and there is no apparent common goal. You want one thing and your friend wants something else. Give reasons for what you want and your friend will come up with equally valid reasons for what he wants. Giving reasons during conflict to justify or defend a viewpoint is just as manipulative as giving reasons to attack that viewpoint. Neither of these routes is an honest assertive I want that can lead to a workable compromise of interests to quickly resolve the conflict.”
Being Empathic towards hidden anxieties
Manipulation used to control your behavior (or that you use to control your mate’s behavior) is generally not malicious or malignant, but a result, as we have seen, of our childhood training on how to cope when we feel uncertain. In my clinical experience in treating nonassertive patients who use lots of manipulation to control other people’s behavior, I have observed that the manipulator often has hidden anxiety agendas about special things. These anxiety agendas are often recognized by the manipulator, but he or she has no acceptable or “proper” way of dealing with these fears, let alone communicating them to close relations; after all, no one “should” be anxious or afraid or have neurotic hangups, “should” they? For some people, these hidden anxiety agendas are only expressed on the level of their feelings. This type of patient has trouble verbalizing what it is specifically that makes him or her anxious. They can’t put their finger on what makes them nervous, what they are afraid will happen if you do a “certain” thing. Therefore they must control and limit your behavior even if they cannot say specifically why it is necessary to do so. Older patients I have seen in conflict with their adult children often have hidden anxiety agendas about being left alone or financially dependent, especially if their own spouse is physically debilitated or has passed away. These hidden anxiety agendas can sometimes be coped with by the patient, with the help of assertive, emotionally supportive adults like the patient’s adult offspring. Many times these hidden anxiety agendas unfortunately are expressed by the most demanding and rigid but “kind” manipulation of children by elderly parents. Younger patients who show manipulative coping with their mates often have their own hidden anxiety agendas centering around their futile dependence upon their mates to shield them from reality and to make them personally happy. These unfortunate people have anxieties about their own sexual attractiveness, anxieties about their mate’s love for them and flirting with possible sexual partners, anxieties about being an effective parent, anxieties about their own personal achievement and frustrations, anxieties about their own human limitations, even anxieties about being anxious. In short, the majority of nonassertive people I have seen in clinical settings have a passive or manipulative posture; they are not always cruel bastards or bitches with malignant intent, but mostly anxious, insecure people who are coping the best way they know how. Because of the possibility of hidden anxiety agendas operating within close relationships, I suggest to learners that they be assertive with empathy when dealing with people they care for, with the emphasis on being assertive! You can increase the level of communication with your possibly passive or manipulative partner by using a combination of all of the assertive verbal skills to exhaust any manipulation and prompt your partner to be assertive, to say what he or she wants, in place of passivity or manipulation, even if it is said to you in a very critical manner. By coping assertively yet empathically, you are more likely to express your own point of view without taking away your partner’s self-respect, at the same time prompting your mate to examine any hidden desires or anxieties that are interfering with close communication.
Example Dialogue. Replacing manipulation with assertiveness in a marriage
Jill has been married to Jack for three years. During the first eighteen months of their marriage, their sex life was satisfactory, but after that initial period, their love-making gradually declined through the following year to a very low ebb and then for the past four months to zero. Jill still loves her spouse and wants the closeness they had when first married and courting. Jill has learned to be assertive, has practiced diligently to desensitize herself to becoming anxious and defensive about herself. She has, after much practice, learned that she is truly her own ultimate fudge; she does some things well, others horribly, can evaluate her own success as well as her mistakes and failures, and knows she is ultimately responsible herself for making any changes she wants in her life situation. Setting of the dialogue: Jill speaks to Jack on a Sunday morning after they are through reading The Times. (Jack could just as easily be the assertive initiator of this dialogue instead of Jill. In the dialogue, I have tried to indicate the mood and emotional state of actual couples in therapy sessions using the nondefensive, assertive communication process.) JILL: Jack. I’ve been thinking. Whether we like to admit it or not, we’ve got a sex problem. [NEGATIVE ASSERTION] JACK: Not again. We’ve been over this so many times. Do you have to bring it up now when we were in such a good mood? JILL: You’re right. I nagged and cried and got mad at you in the past to get you to make love, but I don’t want to nag you now. I just want to see things from your viewpoint. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: (Sarcastically) That’s a switch. JILL: It is, isn’t it? When something like this happens I feel like we are drifting apart from each other. We haven’t had sex now for close to four months. [FOGGING and SELF-DISCLOSURE] JACK: (Defensively) I love you, but I’ve been just too beat and tired lately. With all that overtime at work and everything I’m just not in the mood lately. JILL: I’m sure you are pooped lately, Jack (instead of: “For four months!” or “How come you are working overtime so much lately?”), but it seems to me that something else is happening too. I think I am doing something that is turning you off having sex with me. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and NEGATIVE ASSERTION] JACK: You don’t turn me off. You’re super in bed. JILL: Maybe I’m okay once we get to bed but I think we are drifting apart in a lot of ways, and I think I’m doing things that turn you off me generally, outside of bed. [FOGGING, BROKEN RECORD, and NEGATIVE ASSERTION] JACK: (Turning back to his paper) Naa, you’re fine. JILL: I probably am in a lot of ways you can think of, Jack, but aren’t there some things that I do that really bug you? [FOGGING and NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: (Still defensive) Nobody’s perfect. All married couples don’t like things about each other. JILL: I’m sure other couples have problems too, but are there some things I do, even little ones that don’t mean much, that get under your skin and irritate you a little? [FOGGING and NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Well … (thoughtfully) there are a couple of things that you do that annoy me. JILL: What is it that I do that annoys you? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: It’s kind of hard to be specific.… Just little things … like you asking me if I put out the trash late at night after you reminded me to do it at six o’clock. JILL: Anything else? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Yeah. Like when I help you with the house-cleaning, you always come along afterwards and find something wrong. JILL: (Astonished) Do I do that …? (Slow smile) Yeah … I do that … anything else I do that bugs you? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY, NEGATIVE ASSERTION, and NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: (Getting in the spirit of it) Yes. It’s not even like you don’t trust me to do things. It’s more like you are looking for things to pick on. JILL: It’s beginning to sound that way to me too … what else am I doing that makes me look like I’m trying to find fault with you? [NEGATIVE ASSERTION and NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Isn’t that enough? JILL: That’s a big chunk of things for me to think about, but I’d still like to hear more of what I do that upsets you. [FOGGING and SELF-DISCLOSURE] JACK: Okay, you remember when we had only one car? JILL: Yes. JACK: Whenever I was late picking you up, you bitched and moaned for twenty minutes on how you were abused. JILL: That was stupid of me to take my frustrations out on you, wasn’t it? (Instead of: “What did you expect? You were always late and never remembered!”) [NEGATIVE ASSERTION-INQUIRY] JACK: (Silent, with his jaw clenched) JILL: (Prompting from where Jack left off) I guess I didn’t give you much leeway then, did I? That was a crappy way to behave. [EMPATHIC NEGATIVE INQUIRY and NEGATIVE ASSERTION] JACK: (Getting angry) You sure as hell didn’t. It makes me mad as hell even now just thinking about it. And that’s another thing. Whenever you started bitching and moaning and getting mad, I was just supposed to sit there and take it. JILL: How did I screw up there? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: You could get mad whenever you wanted. That was okay for you to do. But when we were first married and I got mad back at you, you started crying and screaming and ran away into the bedroom and cried for hours until I came in and apologized. JILL: (With empathy and maybe some embarrassment) I did, didn’t I? That was a bitchy thing to do. I could get mad, but you weren’t supposed to. I tell you what. Let’s make a pact. If I get mad, so can you and vice-versa, and nobody has to apologize afterwards, okay? [NEGATIVE ASSERTION and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: (Cautiously) Okay … but why not apologize? JILL: ’Cause that makes it like it’s wrong to just get mad and blow off steam. JACK: Okay, but I think I might be getting the short end of the stick on that. JILL: How am I giving you the short end of the stick? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: You get mad at me an awful lot more than I get mad at you. JILL: I think that’s true too … so I tell you what we can do. I’ll try not to pop off at you for every little thing that irritates me if you let me have it when you get mad at me. How’s that? [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: Isn’t that going to make you frustrated just like it did me? JILL: Maybe … but I’ve got a good memory. I can bring it all out later and blast you with it. [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: That’s another thing. You always bring up things where I screwed up.… Where you think I screwed up … again and again and again. Why don’t you just say what you don’t like and then drop it? It’s like you are trying to punish me. I’m no little kid you are trying to potty-train, I’m a grown man. JILL: I guess I do that, don’t I? It’s awful hard for me to look at some of the shitty things I do to you, Jack. [NEGATIVE ASSERTION-INQUIRY and SELF-DISCLOSURE-NEGATIVE ASSERTION] JACK: (Sympathetically) Do you want to stop? JILL: (Confused) I don’t know. I guess I want to continue, but it’s hard for me to look at myself like this. [SELF-DISCLOSURE] JACK: (Silent again) JILL: I feel like crying … but if I cry now, I’ll screw everything up like I did before. That’s my cop-out all the time. (Long pause) How about some more coffee until I feel better, okay? JACK: Okay. (After coffee) What do you want to do? JILL: It’s still hard for me, but is it okay if we still talk about it? JACK: Sure, if you really want to. JILL: I do and I don’t, you’re going to have to help me. JACK: What do you want me to say? JILL: I wish you were my therapist and you could tell me what to say. JACK: (Angrily) Did he tell you to do this? JILL: He suggested it. But it makes sense to me if it can clear the air between us. I think I’ve been chopping you down whenever you did something I don’t like. I want to see if I can handle what you don’t like without flinching so much. If I’m not so damned uptight when you feel like bitching maybe we can start sharing things again. JACK: (Fleeing) Now I want some coffee! (Comes back in after a few minutes looking angry and lights a cigarette) JILL: What is it about me doing this that upsets you? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: I don’t like being a guinea pig for you and your psychologist’s experiments. JILL: I can understand that. How about coming in and talking to him with me? [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: No. JILL: Do you want a divorce? JACK: Of course not. JILL: If we keep on like this and things don’t get better between us, then I don’t know what to do. I’d like to work things out right here like this if we could. If you don’t want to come in for counseling and you don’t want to try something like this, what can we do? [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: I don’t like it. JILL: You don’t have to like it. All I want you to do is try it with me. [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: This is just like before. I’m the dumb shit and you’ve got all the answers! JILL: What am I doing that makes you feel like a dumb shit? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: It’s like you’re screwing around with my mind. JILL: Do you want to stop talking about it? [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: No. You and that goddamned shrink have pissed me off. JILL: Okay. What have we done that pisses you off? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: You make me feel like I’m the patient not you. You’re just coming on with this assertive therapy crap he taught you. JILL: That’s true, I am. I don’t know any other way to get through to you, but I’m not going to do it if you don’t want me to. [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: Why can’t you leave well enough alone? JILL: I don’t want to. Maybe I want us to be like we were before, or better or different … (Frustrated) I don’t know exactly what the hell I want. [SELF-DISCLOSURE] JACK: Well, I feel like you are pulling a sneaky trick on me. JILL: I probably am, but I don’t know what else to do. What can I do? Do you really want to go on like this? [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: What’s wrong with the way we are? JILL: (Angry and slipping back to her old style) Plenty! Do you want me to list all the stupid things you ever did? JACK: That’s what’s wrong. You and your big mouth. JILL: (Still angry) This is exactly what I’m talking about. All we do is fight or I bitch and you shut up. I don’t want to live like this anymore. JACK: (Exasperated) Neither do I! JILL: Then give it a try for Christ’s sake! It won’t kill you! JACK: (Exhausted) What do you want us to do? JILL: (Recovering her composure and silent for a few minutes) Nothing if you really don’t want to. [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: I don’t like this. JILL: I can buy that, but will you give it a try? If you say “No,” we don’t do it. [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: If it gets too heavy, we stop? JILL: It’s up to you. If you don’t want to do it with me, it would just be a waste of time … like me bitching at you before. Just to get you to do what I want instead of working together to see what each of us wants. [FOGGING] JACK: Okay. (Note: At this point, without Jack’s consent, further close communication does not exist.) JILL: Do you want to do it later? Tomorrow or next week? [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: Let’s try it again. JILL: Where did we leave off? JACK: I’ll be damned if I know. I was pissed off at you trying this on me. JILL: Okay. Let’s start there. Can you put your finger on what I was doing that pissed you off? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: You made me feel like you had all the answers. JILL: How did I do that? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: You were so damned cool and slick. JILL: Like I was putting a fast one? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Yeah! JILL: What was I doing that made you feel like I was pulling a fast one? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Like everything I was saying went right by you. You didn’t blink an eye … at least until you started crying. JILL: I thought I was copping out then. [SELF-DISCLOSURE] JACK: It wasn’t the same kind. When you cry and run off, I can tell you are mad at me. This time you were just crying. JILL: What is it about my crying and being mad at you that’s different. [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: When you cry like that, I get pissed off at you and then I feel guilty. JILL: How do I make you feel guilty? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: I don’t know. I know for sure that what you are doing is pure bullshit, but you still make me feel guilty … and then I want to apologize even when I’m still pissed at you. JILL: That’s a cop-out on my part.… I shut you off and make you swallow your anger when I cry and run off.… Like I’m saying: “What a rotten, slimy bastard you are for treating me so bad. Poor defenseless me.” [EMPATHIC NEGATIVE ASSERTION] JACK: When you do that it confuses the hell out of me. I hate your guts and I still kiss your ass. Christ, what a mess. JILL: Do you want to stop? [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: (Still angry) Hell no! JILL: What else? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: When that happens, I really feel like a snot-nosed kid who needs his diapers changed. JILL: (Prompting from where Jack leaves off) I make you feel like a little kid and not a grown man? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Yeah. JILL: What other things do I do that make you feel that way? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Just little remarks you make like “I have to do everything around here!” or “You never do what’s important. You only do things you are interested in!” JILL: I do say things like that. I guess I’m just bitching in general, but when I say it that way it sounds like I don’t respect you, is that it? [FOGGING, SELF-DISCLOSURE, and NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: That’s exactly the way it sounds. JILL: Can you ignore me when I do that? [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: I try to, but I just burn inside. JILL: Then how about blasting me when I say those things and telling me to shut my stupid mouth. [WORKABLE COMPROMISE-NEGATIVE ASSERTION] JACK: Come back at you? JILL: Absolutely. JACK: (Depressed) Sometimes I just get so fed up with you I don’t even want to fight. JILL: Yeah, you do that and I accuse you of sulking. I’m not going to stop bitching, but if you blast me when I get way out of line like that even if you don’t feel like it, it may help. [FOGGING, NEGATIVE ASSERTION, and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: (Cautiously) Okay. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll try. JILL: What else is it that I do that turns you off me? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: If anything goes wrong, everyday normal things, I always get the feeling that you blame me for them. JILL: (Curious) That I really don’t understand. What is it that I do that makes you feel like I’m blaming you when things go wrong? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: I don’t know how it happens. If you don’t like something about the apartment and bitch about it, somehow I feel that it’s my fault. I should have been more careful in looking at the apartment before we leased it. JILL: (Prompting from where Jack left off) It sounds like somehow I dump the responsibility for everything that happens on you, is that it? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Yes. It’s like I’m responsible for every little thing that happens. They’re not big things, but after three years there are an awful lot of things that go wrong, and that’s tiring. Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to come home at night because something else is going to happen that I’m responsible for. JILL: I understand. What else do I make you feel responsible for? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: I don’t know. A lot of things. Like if you get bored, I feel like I’m responsible for you getting bored. JILL: (Prompting where Jack left off) I make you feel like you are responsible for entertaining me. Is that it? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Exactly. It’s like I have to watch what I say or do in front of you so you don’t get upset, or I can’t be myself and just flop down and relax. I always have to worry about you and are you okay. JILL: (Prompting from where Jack left off) You’re saying that I’m too dependent on you for things. (Thoughtfully) It’s probably true. What else am I doing that makes you feel like you’re responsible for me? [FOGGING and NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: Sometimes I feel like you can’t do anything on your own without me. I always have to be involved. If I really don’t want to do something and tell you how I feel, you give me the cold, silent treatment. I’m not supposed to dislike things you want to do. It’s like I don’t have a life except with you. You would bitch if I did anything without you except go to work. I think you would go to work with me if you could find a reason to do it. Sometimes I even feel like this is not a marriage but another job and I work for you. Even about sex.… Sometimes I feel like I owe you it instead of wanting to make love, and I resent it! Do you realize that in the three years we have been married, I haven’t been out for an evening of fun with my friends except to go fishing and you always bitch when I do that? JILL: (Losing her cool and a bit exasperated) God, do we have a problem! JACK: That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I tell you how I feel, and you don’t listen to what I’m telling you. You just throw up your hands and dump it all on me. JILL: (Lighting a cigarette and thinking for a moment) I see your point. (Smiling a queasy smile) I’m not doing this very well, am I? [EMPATHIC FOGGING and NEGATIVE ASSERTION-INQUIRY] JACK: (Defensively) You asked for it. JILL: Please, Jack. You’re right. I’m having trouble when you really let me have it, like now, but don’t give up on me. [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: Well? JILL: (Recovering and picking up from where Jack left off) I guess I have been just too damned dependent and demanding, haven’t I? What can we do about it? [EMPATHIC NEGATIVE ASSERTION-INQUIRY and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: I don’t know. You can say: “Go out and have fun,” but if you are sitting home alone and resenting it, I’d still feel guilty and responsible for you. Just saying it won’t work. JILL: That makes sense. I don’t think it would work either. Let’s see what we’ve got. I want us to be closer and share more. The problem is that I shut you off when you share the bad things, the things you don’t like about us. And the worst thing about it is the way I shut you off (tears falling). Jack … I’m sorry. [FOGGING] JACK: (Staying where he is) I’m sorry too. JILL: I guess being close for me only meant good things. I couldn’t cope with the crap you gave me too. JACK: (Smiling and rescuing her) What crap? I’m perfect! JILL: (Smiling) Sure you are. [Friendly, sarcastic FOGGING] JACK: I guess if I had more balls I would have told you to shut your mouth when you got really bitchy. JILL: Maybe … I want you to stick to it when you really want something, even if I give you a bad time. [FOGGING and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: All this is easy to say, but how do we do it? JILL: We could talk more like this to clear the air and see where each other is coming from? How’s that? [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: Okay, but I want you to cut out some of the things that make me feel like I’m a hired hand just to keep you happy. JILL: What things? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: The things we just talked about. JILL: Okay … but keep telling me them when I do them. [WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: That’s not going to get you from hanging around my neck. JILL: What else can I do? [NEGATIVE INQUIRY] JACK: How about getting involved in something besides just staying home. Go to school. Learn a trade. A job. I don’t know. JILL: You’re right. I’ve got to get some things going in my own life, without you. That’s always been hard for me to do, but maybe when you want to get out on your own, I can do one of my own things then. [FOGGING, NEGATIVE ASSERTION, and WORKABLE COMPROMISE] JACK: When do we start? JILL: How about right now? JACK: How about after lunch. I’m starving. JILL: You’re on! Learners have observed from experience, and, as this dialogue points out being machine-like or a “verbal karate expert” is not necessary when asserting yourself to another person. They report that little harm is done if they have trouble communicating what they want or get angry, or say something stupid, or get flustered, or say something they didn’t really want to say, or make a commitment they don’t want to give. Nothing is lost but some time. They simply start again as if nothing had gone on before and continue to say what it is they want—a specific material goal, a behavioral change in themselves or their partner in conflict, or better communication, as in this dialogue.