Assertiveness Training and Empowerment
By By Doris Jeanette, Psy.D.
Empowering yourself might seem like an impossible task at times. Especially when you get stuck in old behaviors which do not grow corn. Could it be possible that there is a way to empower yourself that is effective and fun?
Recently I interviewed a young Indian man on Live at the Edge, my radio show, who was seeking empowerment. He tried NLP, positive thinking and all the latest trends like The Secret. He searched high and low on the Internet to better his life. He studied, spent a lot of money and worked hard at everything he found. Yet, he always found something was missing in every approach and every technique.
In truth, your solution is always missing if you are looking outside yourself in techniques, secrets or answers. The answers to your problems and your self esteem and your self actualization is inside of you, not outside of you. So you need to search for teachers, mentors and programs that plug you into your inner strengths and do not give you "their version of the so-called answers."
After many years he found his answer. Assertiveness Training turned out to be exactly what he was looking for. Would you like to know what AT gave him that none of the others gave him? Assertiveness Training gave him a sense of worth. Wow!
Assertiveness Training is a behavior therapy approach which was very popular in the 1970's and 1980's in the USA. I was trained in Assertiveness Training at the Behavior Therapy Unit at Temple Medical School in 1975 during my Post Doc. My major supervisor was Dr. Joe Wolpe, who was called the "father" of behavior therapy. Joseph Wolpe's book, The Practice of Behavior Therapy, has many examples of how he successfully used Assertiveness Training as a behavior rehearsal technique to improve self esteem, reduce anxiety and empower people to become mentally healthy and emotionally healthy.
Assertiveness Training consists of using behavior rehearsal. This means you practice being assertive over and over again until you can be assertive in a situation instead of being aggressive or passive. After Assertiveness Training you have a better sense of self-worth because you have learned a new way to express yourself. You know you have a right to assert yourself and you know how to do it! This gives you empowerment all the way into your inner core. This means you have more confidence in yourself! This is quite different from getting an answer from the outside!
Click here to learn more about Assertiveness Training: Live at the Edge. Listen to the current show while you are answering your e-mail or download it for later. It is an audio morsel to teach you more. (You can also download the earlier show in the audio library with Aery Prabhakar who is bringing Assertiveness Training to India. Click on the library link. )
ANOTHER WAY you can learn Assertiveness Training is through my Holistic Psychology Mentoring program. One of the many holistic psychology principles you will learn is Assertiveness Training. You do not have to be in Philadelphia to join the mentor program. Anyone in the world who has Internet access and a phone can join in the fun. Notice you get discounts on all events and products by joining the program.