When I Say No, I Feel Guilty (47 page)

None of us who profess to be therapists is presumptuous enough to assume that beneficial changes in behavior and thinking between two people occur only in
our offices or with our advice. What we really see (at least initially) in our offices are the coping interactions that don’t work very well between people. We don’t see the productive interactions between people which they work out on their own … and they do work out their conflicts without our help. With apologies to those more sensitive souls in our professional ranks, even though we therapists do help and really earn our keep, we are not absolutely essential or indispensable for the process of healthy behavior change to take place. The sum of all my personal and professional experience tells me that two people can cope with the common everyday conflicts that they cause for each other, and cope well with them. The major stumbling block for coping well with our conflicts in living with each other is set up when we interfere with another person’s decision-making process, when we routinely manipulate our fellow man’s wants by making him feel anxiously threatened, guilty, or ignorant. If you find yourself coping poorly in conflict, particularly with someone you care for, you might try asserting your wants in place of being manipulative, asserting your wants without taking away the dignity and self-respect of your equal and then see what happens.

Some learners, both from the lay and professional ranks, have been intrigued with the idea of projecting what implications, negative and positive, being systematically assertive might have for society in general, implications for how we live our lives or even for how we relate to things like General Motors (or Rolls-Royce). They ask what could happen to society and the way it currently operates socially, politically, economically, legally, if large numbers of people become more assertive and stop being responsive to manipulation of their behavior. While feeling quite comfortable in saying “I don’t know,” I can also emphasize that my only concerns within systematic assertive training and therapy lie at both end points of human society—the individual and the species. As a psychologist I am truly concerned only with the relations in conflict between two people, the smallest social unit, and at the other end of the continuum
with the state of mankind as a dynamic, still evolving species. Everything in between these polar points is arbitrary and negotiable, and probably of no consequence one way or the other for mankind in the long run. If through politics, religion, affluence or excess, we overpopulate, we will automatically be regulated. Nature allows us no choice but to suffer the consequences of our actions. If through pollution, the pill, prejudice, war, famine, or disease, we depopulate our environment, we will automatically regrow as we have in the past. I have implicit faith in our
tried and tested
genetic heritage for the survival of our species, but little faith in my own survival except in how I choose to cope with other individuals. I have faith in mankind, but not in other individual men to make decisions concerning my well-being. I am my own judge. You are your own judge. You decide. If you want to.

Suggested Technical Readings

ALBERTI
,
R. E
., and
EMMONS
,
M. L
.
Your Perfect Right
. San Luis Obispo: Impact, 1970.

BATES
,
H. D
., and
ZIMMERMAN
,
S. F
. “Toward the Development of a Screening Scale for Assertion Training.”
Psychological Reports. 28
(1971), pp. 99–107.

EDWARDS
,
N. B
. Case conference: “Assertive Training in a Case of Homosexual Pedophilia.”
Behavior Research and Therapy, 3
(1972), pp. 55–63.

HEDQUIST
,
F. J
., and
WEINHOLD
,
B. K
. “Behavioral Group Counseling with Socially Anxious and Unassertive College Students.”
Journal of Counseling Psychology, 17
(1970), pp. 237–242.

KRUMBOLTZ
,
J. D
., and
THORESEN
,
C. E
., eds.
Behavioral Counseling: Cases and Techniques
. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969.

MCFALL
,
R. M
., and
LILLESAND
,
D. B
. “Behavioral Rehearsal with Modeling and Coaching in Assertion Training.”
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 77
(1971), pp. 313–323.

———,
R. M
., and
MARSTON
,
A. R
. “An Experimental Investigation of Behavior Rehearsal in Assertive Training.”
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 76
(1970), pp. 295–303.

MACPHERSON
,
D. L
. “Selective Operant Conditioning and Deconditioning of Assertive Modes of Behavior.”
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 3
(1972), pp. 99–102.

RATHUS
,
S. A
. “An Experimental Investigation of Assertive Training in a Group Setting.”
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 3
(1972), pp. 81–86.

RUBIN
,
R. D
.,
FENSTERHEIM
,
H
.,
LAZARUS
,
A. A
., and
FRANKS
,
C. M
., eds.
Advances in Behavior Therapy, 1969
. New York: Academic Press, 1971.

SAGER
,
C. J
., and
KAPLAN
,
H. S
., eds.
Progress in Group and Family Therapy
. New York: Brunner-Mazel, 1972.

SALTER
,
A
.
Conditioned Reflex Therapy
. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1949.

WOLFE
,
J
. “The Instigation of Assertive Behavior: Transcript from Two Cases.”
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, I
(1970), pp. 145–151.

———,
The Practice of Behavior Therapy
. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1969.

———,
Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition
. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1958.

———, and
LAZARUS
,
A. A
.
Behavior Therapy Techniques
. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966.

YATES
,
A. J
.
Behavior Therapy
. New York: Wiley, 1970.

Glossary of Systematic Assertive
Skills

BROKEN RECORD

A skill that by calm repetition—saying what you want over and over again—teaches persistence without you having to rehearse arguments or angry feelings beforehand, in order to be “up” for dealing with others.

Clinical effect after practice: Allows you to feel comfortable in ignoring manipulative verbal side traps, argumentative baiting, irrelevant logic, while sticking to your desired point.

FOGGING

A skill that teaches acceptance of manipulative criticism by calmly acknowledging to your critic the probability that there may be some truth in what he says, yet allows you to remain your own judge of what you do.

Clinical effect after practice: Allows you to receive criticism comfortably without becoming anxious or defensive, while giving no reward to those using manipulative criticism.

FREE INFORMATION

A skill that teaches the recognition of simple cues given by a social partner in everyday conversation to indicate what is interesting or important to that person.

Clinical effect after practice: Allows you to feel less shy in entering into conversation while at the same time prompting social partners to talk more easily about themselves.

NEGATIVE ASSERTION

A skill that teaches acceptance of your errors and faults (without having to apologize) by strongly and sympathetically agreeing with hostile or constructive criticism of your negative qualities.

Clinical effect after practice: Allows you to look more comfortably at negatives in your own behavior or personality without feeling defensive and anxious, or resorting to denial of real error, while at the same time reducing your critic’s anger or hostility.

NEGATIVE INQUIRY

A skill that teaches the active prompting of criticism in order to use the information (if helpful) or exhaust it (if manipulative) while prompting; your critic to be more assertive, less dependent on manipulative ploys.

Clinical effect after practice: Allows you more comfortably to seek out criticism about yourself in close relationships while prompting the other person to express honest negative feelings and improve communication.

SELF-DISCLOSURE

A skill that teaches the acceptance and initiation of discussion of both the positive and negative aspects of your personality, behavior, lifestyle, intelligence, to enhance social communication and reduce manipulation.

Clinical effect after practice: Allows you comfortably to disclose aspects of yourself and your life that previously caused feelings of ignorance, anxiety, or guilt.

WORKABLE COMPROMISE

In using your verbal assertive skills, it is practical, whenever you feel that your self-respect is not in question, to offer a workable compromise to the oilier person. You can always bargain for your material goals unless the compromise affects your personal feelings of self-respect. If the end goal involves a matter of your self-worth, however, there can be
no
compromise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clinical-experimental psychologist M
ANUEL
J. S
MITH
is the author of
When I Say No, I Feel Guilty
, which has sold over two million copies. A therapist in private practice and assistant clinical professor of psychology at UCLA, Dr. Smith has done research in social psychology, learning, phobic states, psychophysiology and sexual functioning. His work has appealed in various professional publications including
The Journal of Experimental Psychology, Psychology Report, Current Research in Human Sexuality
, and
Experimental Methods and Instrumentation in Psychology
. He is a member of The American Psychological Association, The Society of Psychophysiological Research, The Western Psychological Association and the California State Psychology Association, and has lectured widely in his field. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1934, Dr. Smith received both his B.A. (1959) and M.S. (1960) degrees from San Diego State College, and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles (1966). He and his wife live in Los Angeles.