Customer Reviews

Mastering the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

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Are you the polite type? If so, there's great potential here for you.

Mastering the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense is aptly titled and surely has helped many people. It's worth having it in cassette form even though most of us prefer CD. The lessons work far better in audio than in writing. But please read my warning below as I don't think this will be a worthwhile purchase for everybody.

You know how some people use well-honed tactics to put you on the defensive? For example, some people in our society are not very ethical. Some are even con-artists, each using their own set of manipulation techniques. And then there are others whose natural response is to be polite. I'm one of those, and we're the easy targets normally. So when you put a reasonable question to the first type, they might launch into a preemptive attack that will surprise you, take you aback, and throw you off. Or they might even begin the conversation with tactics such as making accusations.

The reason why material covered in this book is essential if you're the polite type, like me, is that such unethical people are highly skilled at their tactics. Do you get angry and argue with them like pigs rolling in mud? Like me, probably not. This is territory where they excel and we'll in the end feel worse off if we get into an emotional argument. When it happens, there simply isn't time to think up proper approaches.

We don't want to get stuck rehashing this over and over later in our minds, dreaming up "if only I had said" responses. The author, Elgin, has done the thinking for us and created the lessons. I'm not going to write spoilers, so I won't explain the lessons themselves. We need to listen to these tapes multiple times to understand and truly incorporate appropriate and skillful responses until they become automatic.

In some ways this book is inspiring. We can fight back right at the moment of attack and not only maintain our dignity, but discourage unethical people that are highly skilled at dirty attack tactics from doing them repeatedly to us.

I think it important to give a WARNING because this book might not help. Here's my experience: I got this book many years ago (from Amazon), listened, got inspired, and... nothing happened. The gall, dirtiness and skill that some people employ with their verbal attacks overwhelmed me anyway. The book was no help then.

It took at least a couple years for me to sense it was me, not the book that failed. Finally, I listened again and again because I understood it will take time to learn. Responding to well-honed attacks, coming right when one least expects them, takes a great deal of practice. I am now perhaps half way to the skill level I desire and far from where I started.

This is similar to learning martial arts - I am not making an overstatement. We polite people really have to practice and practice. Don't worry; the nastiness from others will come over time. We can't control when attacks will occur. We can go many weeks without a true verbal attack sometimes. The point is we can never stop "practicing." Re-listen to this cassette tape series. The 6 cassettes is enough material to earn a black belt in verbal defense, but ONLY with a whole lot of practice over years.

Therefore, this cassette series is intended to help one over the very long term and does not help much with an immediate problem at hand. One would not listen to the 6 cassettes just to figure out an immediate problem. However, it is a worthy goal to become so good at responding to verbal attacks without losing dignity in the process. One gains self-respect and the esteem of others.

For those familiar with the "Gentle Art" series this audio offers an added dimension in understanding and incorporating the skills of gentle art communication into your own vocabularly. An essential part of the Gentle Art communication skills are tone of voice and stresses that are placed on each word and this audio is exceptionally helpful in demonstrating the content that is being discussed. It will also serve as an excellent introduction to the material for anyone who enjoys audio books.

i found the book interesting enough to give a few hours to...because Elgin's really studied this carefully, but what really struck me loud and clear as i read on is that she misses the most OBVIOUS (and most emotionally healthy, or martically artistic) option for how to deal with verbally aggressive/abusive people: TO GET AWAY FROM THEM! (and she forgets that SAYING NOTHING...i.e. not engaging...is a form of verbal communication too.) the "presupposition" (she loves that word) she completely misses is that people don't always HAVE to stay (stuck) in verbally abusive relationships, and she never really suggests, either subtly or overtly, that people can leave. her basic unspoken assumption is that you should stay and learn how to spar better verbally so as not to be verbally taken advantage of and trampled. (rather a conservative point of view for a "modern" feminist, wouldn't you say?)

one other thing that irked me: she often suggests that in times of real emotional attack the best verbal mode to enter into is "computer" mode. psychologically, what she's suggesting is to pull one's emotions out of the interaction...to basically emotionally detach from the situation...and become an analytical computer that lacks a self. the people who have really mastered this art into the marrow of their personalities have earned a label in psychology: that of schizoid personality disorder.

i hate to say it, but i think this book is really a big crock, and while i did find parts of it engaging, as i think analyzing interactions to be fascinating, as a self-help book, which is really what it is, i found it to be USELESS!

other gripe: she makes FAR TOO MANY stereotypes about men's and women's patterns of verbal interaction, and while she makes occasional attempts to demonstrate that such stereotypes are not always so, she still regularly falls back into them, suggesting she has an emotional bone to pick of her own.

and finally, a saying i love, that applies here: "don't argue with idiots...they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience..."

While the title and beginning of this audio book suggest a focus on verbal combat/conflicts, the content is important and applicable in a much wider scope of situations. It is very impressive the range of topics covered in this relatively brief presentation. While the audio format allows greater clarity when explaining tone of voice and voice stress issues, for those that are more visual, I strongly suggest taking notes. This audio book offers great ideas toward helping you communicate whatever it is you want to say. Some of the topics covered include matching your sensory style to your audience, preventing reflex arguments, making your voice more pleasing (without spending considerable time or money), giving feedback (positive and negative) in a way it will be best received, and, of course, disarming verbal attacks (without pissing off your attacker).