Customer Reviews

I Hate Conflict!: Seven Steps to Resolving Differences with Anyone in Your Life

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It's the rare person who relishes conflict. Most of us live our lives either avoiding it, which never works for long, or expressing it in counter-productive ways. Even those of us who deal with conflict on a professional basis---I'm a divorce lawyer and mediator---are not immune to the physical and emotional toll that it can take on us (not to mention on our clients). With that in mind, I'm happy to report that Lee Raffel's new book, "I Hate Conflict!", is a useful, accessible, and unthreatening approach to a subject that most people dread. Drawing on a lifetime of hard-earned lessons (including an abusive first marriage), and a long career as a social worker and marriage counselor, Ms. Raffel looks at conflict from a variety of angles, but always with a view to offering sensible advice and real-world solutions. My guess is that she's an excellent therapist, because she has a client-centered approach that comes through loud and clear. The reader feels that he's in the same room with her, engaged in conversation with a wise and caring counselor, a counselor who knocks herself out to make her clients' lives more satisfying and less stressful. I recommend the book.

I have added Lee's book to my Master Bibliography for all of my classes - conflict management, emotional intelligence, leadership, coaching and more.
She is so good at making it easy to understand and follow. This is a very valuable book to have around when you know that conflict conversation needs to happen.

Patricia Clason, www.patriciaclason.com

About 90% of us hate conflict. And that's a big problem, because there's a lot of conflict that comes up in relationships, and if all you do is cave, that's not good for you or the relationship. And here comes Lee Raffel's wise and helpful book to the rescue. For the first time in your life maybe you will get everything you need to be able to handle conflict without avoiding it, to stick up for yourself and have your own voice without sinking into a gut-wrenching fight.

When I picked up Lee Raffel's book "I Hate Conflict" and started reading it, I felt like she must have written it for people just like me. After 22 years of marriage, I found myself, my husband, and our interactions and behaviors on page after page. We were living in a toxic relationship, and our efforts-to-date had been ineffective. I knew there must be a better way for us to relate to each other, but we frequently fell into recidivistic patterns of conflict escalation that threatened to ruin not only our marriage, but also our health and inner peace.

"I Hate Conflict" presented insight into the patterns we were caught in and helped me step back and observe them from a different perspective. It demonstrated how some of the sources of our conflicts were hardwired into us as a result of our upbringing and also how different styles interact.

The constructive strategies that Lee Raffel presented on how to deal with these patterns were simple, yet brilliant at the same time. I saw and experienced how conflict could be a tool to serve me by being a catalyst to deepen my relationship with my husband, clarify my priorities and really help me gain a greater and more profound appreciation for my marriage. Thank you Lee Raffel for writing this book!

Very few people in the world enjoy getting in fierce arguments with their fellow man - and "I Hate Conflict!: Seven Steps to Resolving Differences with Anyone in Your Life" understands this completely. Offering many options to help people resolve their issues and strengthen their relationships with others, it's an ideal guide to anyone who wants a more peaceful resolution to their conflicts. "I Hate Conflict! Seven Steps to Resolving Differences with Anyone in Your Life" is highly recommended to community library self-help collections.

Lee Raffel writes the way I think. She offers clear direction and definitions that are helpful in clinical work as well as in personal situations. Another winner!

"I Hate Conflict" is rich with information around conflict and the people involved in it. Special care is taken for those of us who tend to avoid conflicts. It is difficult for us, who do not like conflicts to like a book about it or to even spend time with this topic. Lee Raffel tries successfully to make it as easy as possible. "I Hate Conflict" is factual, realistic, clear and to the point.


Lee Raffel ends each Chapter with a small amount of homework. It helps for a deeper understanding and more important to get the connection to ones own life.


I do like that she extensively quotes other important books to the subject and in the vicinity of it. Lee Raffel even encourages her readers to read other peoples work.

I do recommend "I Hate Conflict" for reading, reference and for just spending time with it.

Lee Raffel has written a book that helps you to identify your conflict style and how you interact with others who have a different style of managing conflict. This approach goes beyond one-size-fits-all assertiveness training. By reading this book you will be able to accept responsibility for your behavior during conflict and come to understand that conflict, well handled, can lead to a healthier relationship.

Lee's book on Conflict is one of the best I've read. It's practical, very well organized and comprehensive and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I teach one hour seminars on Conflict and found the book to offer many interesting insights to enrich my knowledge base. I love the clarity and clear sense of organization in the book, the categorizations and quick tips as well as the emphasis on personal reflection and journaling. I recommend it to every group I teach it to whether the subject is Conflict, Effective Communication or Dealing With Difficult People and just wanted to share what a wonderful contribution it is to the field of conflict. Managing conflict is a subject where there is so much to know and learn and understand and this book makes an excellent complement to anyone's life skills library. It's an absolute 'must read'. Evelyn Ennor, Holistic Health Educator

Great boook to understand conflict in the home and work place. The best part is taking it step by step to helping yourself overcome the patterns of conflict.