Assertiveness Training Seminars
The goal of our Assertiveness Training seminar is to enable participants to learn to express their rights, requests, opinions, and feelings honestly, directly, and appropriately without violating the rights and self-esteem of others.
Each
Assertiveness Training Institute training
seminar begins with a self-assessment that
enables individuals to understand their personality.
We delve into each person’s strengths,
weaknesses and stress areas to help people understand
what makes them “tick.” We then
begin the process of enabling participants to
understand how to
communicate
more effectively with others. Through various
activities and assertiveness training exercises, participants
then begin to recognize other communication
styles and the best way to communicate to them.
Here is when the process of becoming more assertive
truly takes shape – by understanding the
needs of other communication styles, participants
learn how to express their opinion and stand
up for their interests regardless of who they
are dealing with.
For more information on our
assertiveness training seminars
contact us
here.
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Assertiveness Training suggests that there are
essentially three different ways that people can
relate to one another.
They can be:
1) aggressive
2) passive
3) assertive.
Most people come to assertiveness training already
understanding what aggression and passivity mean, but
they don't understand assertiveness at all, at first.
Aggression is about dominance. A person is aggressive
when they impose their will onto another person and
force them to submit, in effect invading that person's
personal space and boundary. Violence may be used in
this effort, but it is not a necessary component of
aggression. Passivity, on the other hand is about
submission.
Passivity occurs when a person submits to another
person's dominance play, putting their own wishes and
desires aside so as to pay attention to fulfilling the
wishes and desires of their dominant partner. They may
not like being dominated (most people don't), but it
seems like the smart thing to do at the time (perhaps
to avoid the threat of violence or other coercion).
Aggression is about domination and invasion; it is
fundamentally disrespectful of relationship partner's
personal boundaries. Passivity is about submission and
being invaded; it is fundamentally disrespectful of
one's own personal boundaries.
In contrast to these two fundamentally disrespectful
positions, assertiveness is about finding a middle way
between aggression and passivity that best respects
the personal boundaries of all relationship partners.
Assertive people defend themselves when someone else
attempts to dominate them, using any necessary method
(including force) to repel the invasion attempt.
Though they can be strong people who are capable of
aggressive domination attempts, they never act in an
aggressive manner, however, because they know that to
do so would cause them to disrespect their
relationship partner's boundaries. Another way to say
this is that assertive people use aggression
defensively, and never offensively.
There are many classic examples of assertive behavior
in history that you can draw upon for guidance and
inspiration. The examples of Gandhi and Dr. Martin
Luther King come to mind readily, however. Both were
leaders of oppressed, invaded groups who were
dominated by an upper class (British colonials in the
case of Gandhi, and the American white establishment
in the case of Dr. King). Both leaders came to a
realization that submission to the ruling powers was
no longer working and that something drastic had to
happen. Both leaders chose a path of non-violent
resistance - this is what makes their behavior
assertive rather than aggressive and what separates
them from run-of-the-mill freedom fighters everywhere.
Their commitment to non-violent resistance is what
made them great. Both leaders demonstrated and
protested against their oppression by the powers that
held them down, but did so in a manner that respected
the people wielding those powers to not themselves be
violently targeted or oppressed. Both stuck to their
posture of assertive protest despite becoming targets
for escalating violence against their person, their
families and the people they represented. In the end,
both succeeded in making important reform occur, even
if only imperfectly. They were able to make change
occur through assertion, and you can do it too.
It is very hard for people used to acting passively to
understand how to act assertively, however. Many
people new to assertiveness training mistake
aggressiveness for assertiveness. This is because
their baseline position is passivity, and they
literally cannot conceive that there is any
alternative to just giving in to the demands of others
other than to "fight fire with fire", usually in the
same violent manner that their dominant partners model
for them. Such newly "assertive" people will start
yelling and screaming back at people who have
historically yelled and screamed at them, not
realizing in their newly empowered angry state that by
acting in this way, they are going far beyond what is
necessary for defending themselves, and may enter into
the realm of becoming themselves abusive and
dominating.
This beginners mistake is probably inevitable, and
certainly okay to make as a temporary and transitional
stage towards better learning how to become assertive,
but no one should linger there unnecessarily long. To
do so is to substitute aggression for passivity, and
to become a bully yourself.
Source: Mark Dombeck
link
Related: Assertiveness Communication
Skills Training Courses
For more information on our assertiveness training
seminars contact us here. |
