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 is all about helping people
to know that there really are situations where they
have a perfect right to defend themselves from
bullying attempts made by others. Once people realize
that it is okay, and even proper for them to stand up
for themselves; to allow themselves to feel angry when
they are taken advantage of, they tend to find that
actually defending themselves is not so hard.
Assertive behavior basically consists of the following
steps:
- realizing that you have been dominated, or taken advantage of
- feeling the angry feelings (directed towards the dominating partner,
and/or to yourself for allowing yourself to be
dominated
- deciding to act to put a stop to the domination
- acting on your conviction (which involves finding a way to demand your
rights be respected, while also being polite and civil
about it so as not to become aggressive yourself)
- waiting for your dominating relationship partner to escalate his or her
bad behavior, so as to put you back in line and force
you to submit again and then
- resisting the urge to submit again in the face of escalation.
There is a certain inertia to how people relate to one
another in relationships. A dominant partner is used
to getting his or her way, and a submissive passive
partner is used to giving the dominant partner his or
her way. This pattern feels normal to both partners
and any change will leave both partners feeling
unsettled.
Expect to feel weird when you decide to become
assertive and change the pattern, and also expect that
your partner will feel weird too and will generally be
motivated to act so as to reassert the old comfortable
pattern. Because the normal amount of domination is no
longer working, most dominant partners will "up the
ante" and try coming on stronger so as to try to power
you into submission. Don't fall for this. If you can
stand your ground for a while, both of you will get
used to the new pattern of you being assertive.
Most of the time it is healthy and useful to assert
yourself. However, you should be aware that there are
some situations where attempting to assert yourself
can get you harmed or killed. In order for assertion
to work to change relationships, both partners have to
be reasonable people at some level, and to minimally
respect one another. Some abusive partners do not
operate this way, and will not stop escalating their
violent behavior in response to assertion until the
newly assertive partner is dead.
If you are in a relationship with this sort of abusive
person, you are better off simply leaving the
relationship outright rather than trying to change it.
Use community resources (such as family, domestic
violence shelters, court issued restraining orders and
reporting to the police when incidents occur) to help
protect yourself. Read more about abuse here.
Assertiveness training is not just for passive-acting
people; it is also of great use to people who are
habitually aggressive towards others, but only as a
component of a larger program of Anger Management.
Passive-oriented people generally feel badly about
their passive position; they are motivated to make
changes and happy when they realize that they have a
right to do so. In contrast, angry or bossy
aggression-oriented people tend to be happy with their
dominant position in relationships, even if they are
not happy people in general. Aggressive and dominating
tactics work for them (or so they think) and they are
seldom motivated to change on their own.
Assertiveness training makes intuitive (if
frightening) sense to passive-oriented people; it
seems to have little to offer to aggressive types.
Therefore, assertiveness training must be supplemented
with other interventions (and often serious
consequences) if it is to get through to the
aggressive person.
Source: Jolyn Wells-Moran
link
Related: Assertiveness Communication
Skills Training Courses
For more information on our assertiveness training
seminars contact us here. |
