Assertivness Module 03.pdf

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ASSERT YOURSELF!

ASSERT YOURSELF!

Module Three

How to Think More Assertively

Unassertive Thinking

Our Assertive Rights

How to change your beliefs

Thought Diaries

Behavioural Experiments

Module summary

About this module

Module 3 How to Think More Assertively

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Unassertive thinking

As mentioned in Module 1, one of the factors that can make it difficult for us to be assertive

is our thinking. We all hold beliefs about ourselves, other people and how the world works.

Usually these beliefs came from our experience in the world and made sense to us at the

time. However even though we have moved on from these experiences we may not have

updated our thinking. For example, as a child we may have been taught by our family not to

express sadness because if we did we would be ridiculed. In that situation it would have

made sense for us to have the belief: “expressing sadness is bad and if I do people will make

fun of me”. As an adult however we may still have this belief even though we are no longer

in the same situation. We continue to assume that the belief is true without checking it out.

As a result we may never express our sadness which may result in us being stressed,

depressed and not connected with ourselves and the world. Or alternatively our sadness

may be expressed as anger towards ourselves or other people.

Below are listed a number of typical unassertive thoughts. See if any of them apply to you.

• I shouldn’t say how I’m really feeling or thinking because I don’t want to burden

others with my problems.

• If I assert myself I will upset the other person and ruin our relationship

• It will be terribly embarrassing if I say what I think

• If someone says “no” to my request it is because they don’t like or love me

• I shouldn’t have to say what I need or how I feel: people close to me should

already know

• It is uncaring, rude and selfish to say what you want

• I have no right to change my mind; neither has anyone else

• It will all work out in the end, and anyway it’s not my fault

• People should keep their feelings to themselves

• If I express that I am feeling anxious people will think I am weak and ridicule me

or take advantage of me.

• If I accept compliments from someone it will mean I am big headed.

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Take a minute and see if you can identify any more unassertive beliefs that you have.

Modules 6, 7, 8, and 9 deal with and identify unassertive thoughts associated with saying

“no”, coping with criticism, dealing with disappointment and giving and receiving criticism, so

you may get some ideas from those modules.

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Our Assertive Rights

Many of the ideas now associated with assertiveness training were first proposed in Manuel

J. Smith’s book “When I say No I feel Guilty” published in 1975. This book outlined a ten-

point “bill of assertive rights”. Assertive rights are the rights that we all have as human

beings. Some of these rights are:

• You have the right to judge your own behaviour, thoughts, and emotions, and to

take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself.

• You have the right to say “no”.

• You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behaviour.

• You have the right to judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other

people's problems.

• You have the right to change your mind.

• You have the right to disagree with someone’s opinion.

• You have the right to make mistakes - and be responsible for them.

• You have the right to say, 'I don't know'.

• You have the right to be illogical in making decisions.

• You have the right to say, 'I don't understand'.

• You have the right to say, 'I don't care'.

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An important part of these rights is that they come linked with responsibilities . You will

notice the first point says that you have the right to your own thoughts, behaviour and

emotions, but that you must then take responsibility for the consequences of these thoughts

and behaviours. Often people think they are behaving assertively, but they are ignoring the

consequences of their actions and the rights of others. This would be more typical of an

aggressive style of communication.

See if you can think of any other rights, particularly ones that balance out any unhelpful

beliefs you identified in the last section.

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How to change your beliefs

Identifying your unhelpful beliefs is the first step towards changing them. In fact, for some

people just realising that they have been thinking this way can be enough to help them

change, especially when they realise they have the right to change and think in a different

way.

However, for most people just realising they have been thinking in an unhelpful way isn’t

enough to change the thinking. In Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) one way of

addressing unhelpful thoughts is to challenge them head on. This is also called disputation.

Challenging or disputation works on the principle that most of our thoughts and beliefs are

learned opinions rather than facts. This means that they can be questioned rather than just

accepted blindly, particularly if they are causing us distress.

To challenge or dispute your thoughts means that you examine the evidence for and against

the thoughts. You evaluate them as if you were a detective or a lawyer. You are trying to

get to the bottom of the truth of the thought.

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There are two major strategies that can be used to help you challenge your thoughts. One

is to use a Thought Diary. The other is to set up a Behavioural Experiment. We will take a

look at each of these in turn.

Thought Diaries

It can be difficult to challenge your thoughts in your head as it is hard to remember all the

information and it can get messy and confusing. The best way is to write it all down. To help

you through this process we have a Thought Diary for Unassertive Thoughts. We have

worked through an example to show you the questions that you will need to ask yourself in

order to come up with a more balanced thought. Then we provide a blank one for you to

work through with an example of your own.

The thought diary will ask you to identify the unassertive thought that you are having. In

order to do this you first need to identify the situation you are in. In the following

example the situation could be described as: “I asked my friend to go shopping and she said

“no”. In describing the situation think about what you would have seen if you had been

filming the scene. It is important that you just stick to the facts and don’t start making

interpretations about what this may mean at this stage. For example, you wouldn’t say “my

friend was rude to me” as this is an assumption and an interpretation that we don’t have any

evidence for yet.

Next you need to identify your emotions in the situation, that is, how you are feeling.

Ask yourself:

What emotion(s) am I feeling?

How intense are they? (rate the intensity from 0-100).

In the following example the person feels hurt and annoyed. The ratings are done

individually for each emotion; they don’t need to add up to 100.

You then identify your behaviour and any physical symptoms that you felt. Ask yourself:

What did I do?

What did I feel in my body?

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