Assertiveness Training By By Ms Jai Bapat Counseling Psychologist

1. Assertiveness Communication
By Miss Jai Bapat
Counseling
Psychologist
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2. What is Assertiveness
Express your views clearly and articulately
without being aggressive.
Give other people an opportunity to express
their opinions letting them dominate a
conversation
Having the courage to express your own
feelings and thoughts when its appropriate.
It is a communication style that can be
useful in job or academic interviews,
presentations, public speaking etc
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3. Benefits of being Assertive
Feeling More
confident
Being able to relax
more
Having greater
awareness of own
needs and a greater
ability to meet them.
Being able to create
personal and
professional goals
instead of putting
everyone else first or
getting distracted.
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4. Rights and Responsibilities
The fist three principles
are expressed as Rights.
The fourth principle is
expressed as
Responsibility.
•The right to express your
feelings and opinions.
•You are entitled to express your
feelings and opinion in a
reasonable manner
•Other people are entitled to
express their feelings and
opinions in a reasonable manner
and to be treated with respect.
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5. 2.
The
right
to say
“No”
• You can say No if
you are asked to
do something and
you don’t want to
do.
• Other people are
entitled to say
“No” sometimes if
you ask them to
do something
they do no want
to do.
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3. The
right to
make
mistakes
• Its Ok to
make
mistakes.
No one is
perfect.
• Its ok for
others to
make
mistakes.

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4. The
responsibil
ity for
making
decisions
• You are
responsible for
making your
decisions – other
people do not
need to take
responsibility for
your life.
• other people are
responsible for
making their own
decisions- you do
not need to take
responsibility for
their lives.

8. Effective Communication
 Listening effectively: There are many reasons why
listening effectively can help you to express yourself
and be more effective in getting across your view points
and wishes.
 Ingredients of Good Listening:
a. Giving your full attention.
b. Focusing on what the other person is saying.
c. Ask appropriate questions
d. Commenting on what they are saying in a constructive
and positive way.
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9. Three Core listening skills
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• e.g. Ever since I
had the accident
I had found I
need much more
sleep.
• Paraphrase: The
accident had left
you tired.
Paraphrasing

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• Feeding back the main
points in what
someone has said.
• E.g. Take a left from
the signal and then
take right from the hill.
• Summarizing: Left
through the signal and
down the hill then
right.
Summarizing

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• Showing that you
understand the
significance of what
someone is saying to you
• E.g. when my kids went to
university I spent a lot of
day not knowing what to
do and tried getting on the
routine tasks.
• Reflecting: when children
went to university it left a
gap in your life.
Reflecting

12. Types of Assertiveness
 Non-assertive behaviour
I am not ok,you are ok
 Assertive behaviour
I am ok,you are ok
 Aggresive behaviour
I am ok,you are not ok
 Manipulative behaviour
I am not ok,you are not ok
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13. Difference between these three
concepts
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14. Where Assertiveness Stands
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15. Negative attitude and passive
behaviour
 Lack of self confidence and low self
esteem
 Lack of self respect
 Self putdowns
 Negative feelings and thoughts about
yourself
 Feeliings of inferiority compared to
others
 Like others to be in control of people and
situations
 Feel guilty towards others
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16. Negative attitude and
aggressive behaviour
 Lack of self confidence and low self
esteem
 Lack of respect towards others
 Put others down
 Feelings of superiority
 Like to be in control of people and
situations
 Disinterested in others’ thoughts and
feelings
 Feel angry towards others and are quick
to blame them
 Don’t listen to or ask questions
 Dismissive of feedback7/25/2015 Feel Confident, Be Confident 16

17. Negative attitude and
manipulative behaviour
 Lack of self confidence and low self
esteem
 Lack of self respect and lack of respect
for others
 Mistrustful and suspicious of others’
motives
 Negative feelings and thoughts about
self and others
 Feel very wary towards others
 Dishonest and indirect
 Twist what others have said
 Undermine others’ self esteem
 Depressed and demotivated22-01-205 Feel Confident, Be Confident 17

18. Positive attitude and
Assertiveness
 Self confidence and high self esteem
 Respect for self and towards others
 Take responsibility for self
 Motivated to do a good job
 İnterested in others’ feelings and
thoughts
 Ask questions
 Honest and direct
 Listen to others
 Ask others for feedback
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20. How to Develop a
Conversation
• Build positive relationship
• Note that 30% of our communication is
verbal, while 70% is non-verbal
• Develop non-verbal assertive behaviours.
These are about your voice tone, gestures,
eye contact, facial expression & posture
(“social signalling”)
• Non-verbal behaviours definitely influence
your impact on others
• For example; look directly at another person
when addressing them
 Create an environment of mutual interest
and respect
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21. Expressing yourself
 Taking ownership of your thoughts feelings and
opinions
 Assertive body language
 Expressing criticism
 Being clear about your needs & rights, asking for
what you want, saying no to what you don’t want
 Using direct, open & honest communication,
taking responsibility, respecting others & not
violating their rights
 Others will feel comfortable, know where you
stand & respect you for your honesty
 Your needs get met, you experience less stress
& more satisfaction with life in general
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22. The skills of helping the person to commit to
changing his/her behaviour from non-assertive to
assertive.
You will need action planning skills at this stage of
the counselling process.In particular, you need to
help the person set clear objectives;a mnemonic
which can be useful is SMART.
This stands for:
 Specific
 Measurable
 Achievable
 Realistic
 Time oriented
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23. Problems in Assertiveness
Training
 The first major problem for assertion
training involves negative evaluations of
assertive people by others
 Confusion between assertion and
aggression
 Problem involves transfer of training,the
difficulty experienced by trainees in
generalising assertive from the training
context to real-life situations
 Finally some of the difficulties in applying
assertion training outside the training
context may be due to intuitive training
procedures that are inadequately based
in research
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24. At the end….
Assertiveness is really about
 Knowing what isn’t & what is assertive
communication, and what it will & will not do
 Ceasing opportunities to be more assertive
 Recognising the value in being assertive
 Increasing the prospect of your rights,
feelings, needs & wants being met
In all ….
 Assertiveness contributes to your academic
success, and it helps fulfil your career & life
ambitions
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25. Thank you
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