56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A solid guide, August 22, 2001
This review is from: You Can't Say That to Me: Stopping the Pain of Verbal Abuse -- An 8-Step Program (Paperback)
Elgin states in the beginning of this book that this is the work that her whole "Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" series has been building up to. I would agree, in that this is a solid guide for those suffering from verbal abuse.
There's nothing in this book that will make you jump up and shout "Eureka! That's the solution!" But the truth is that there probably is no such solution.
What you WILL get from the book is a practical framework that you can build on to improve the situation. And, almost as important, to help you avoid the trial-and-error of trying out ways that don't really help in the long run.
I might have given this book 4 stars, but one other thing makes me push it up to 5: the attitude the book encourages toward the verbal abuser. Other books for victims of verbal abuse engender a lot of negative feelings, sometimes to the point of hate-mongering. This book, however, helps you manage the situation without encouraging ill-will.
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56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good advice, but do think about the options, July 10, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: You Can't Say That to Me: Stopping the Pain of Verbal Abuse -- An 8-Step Program (Paperback)
I just wanted to echo the words of the reader from Minneapolis who pointed out that the concept promoted here, that anyone can be successful with this method, is wrong, is dead right! In other words, great book, and well worth trying very hard at. But - be aware as you read this that there are people with something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder who cannot change because they are unable to experience empathy. And empathy is fundamental to "real" human relationships, fundamental to having someone understand how something feels to you. I suffered for too many years trying to make this approach work. It did me a lot of good, I admit, but it didn't change my abuser's behavior. He stopped doing certain things and started doing others. And I felt so terribly guilty about that, when in fact he really was whacked out and incapable of change. Thank goodness I finally found a therapist who specializes in abuse to help me figure this out. So please - read this book and try it. It can do you a world of good. But also be aware of the limitations of being able to change someone else. The only real goal should be changing yourself, which is great. And if they don't change then, it's time to leave, because nobody but nobody can or should put up with continuing abuse.
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44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To review this book you need to read it., January 19, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: You Can't Say That to Me: Stopping the Pain of Verbal Abuse -- An 8-Step Program (Paperback)
From reading the reviews, some of the reviewers haven't read the book, it is obvious. Many of the complaints actually agree with the perspective of the book.
For example someone complains that the book is about "mastery of slick responses to throw the attacker off guard." That is not what the book is about. None of the responses are slick, none of the responses have to do with throwing anyone off guard. None of them are about fighting, instead they are all about relationships.
Or the complaint that Elgin simplifies it all to "the pain is all in your head" -- Elgin is one of the few people who really believes that verbal abuse can kill you and it is terrible to have to endure. She never simplifies it to "it is all in your head, you can just learn to ignore it" -- in fact she teaches the exact opposit.
I think that many of the reviewers are just reacting against books in this genre -- the same reason that Elgin wrote the one great book of its kind for normal people trying to deal with these problems while in the midst of them (her other books deal with related issues, but this one book is for the non-professional in real life home situations).
What she does is go over how you can deal with abuse from people who are not mentally ill and with whom you deal in day to day and family relationships -- all recognizing that verbal abuse is a feedback loop, something many people do not know. The books teach how you can dampen the feedback loop instead of intensifing it, and by dampening it, control and remove it from relationships.
My mother found this book invaluable for dealing with some people who had her at her wits end.
Consider that when there is abuse in a situation not controlled by mental illness you can do one of two things: you can intensify the situation or you can defuse it. Elgin, in an eight step program of solid steps and approaches, goes over how to train yourself to recognize and defuse verbal violence without blaming yourself and without minimizing the harm that verbal abuse causes people.
The techniques work. Over forty years of implementation and practice demonstrate that they work. In my practice I've given about fifty or more copies of her books for that very reason. The thing that marks this book from all of her others is that it is a program for teaching normal human beings how to use the techniques and how to escape the prison of abusive verbal loops that can destroy otherwise valuable relationships.
If there is hope, then this is the book.
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