Assertive Techniques For Resolving Conflicts
Often times, communication does not go the way we would like. Misunderstandings occur, as well as conflicts that damage our relationships and cause us to fall into frustration. In this context, assertive techniques are simple processes that help us protect our rights and not trample on the rights of others.
Knowing and practicing these simple assertive techniques will allow them to fit into our natural repertoire of responses. At first, they will probably seem very artificial to us. However, with time and practice, this feeling will go away.
What is assertiveness?
Assertiveness is a style of communication. An assertive person is someone who is able to express their wants, needs and opinions without hurting their interlocutor. We can better understand this concept by taking into account the three basic types of communication:
- Passive: in this case, the person is unable to express their opinions or defend their rights. She does not display her disagreement, for fear of seeing a confrontation erupt. Her frequent need to please others causes her to feel manipulated and misunderstood.
- Aggressive: here, at the antipodes of passive communication, we find people who address each other in an imperative way, without showing great interest in their point of view. These people try to impose their outlook on things and usually rely on bullying, accusation or anger.
- Assertive: this style of communication is the most appropriate. It is characterized by the ability to disagree and to express one’s own opinions while respecting the point of view of others. Assertive communication is found in people with good self-esteem. It leads to satisfactory interactions for both parties.
Assertive techniques to resolve conflicts
Assertiveness is far from an abstract concept. It can and should be applied in our relationships with others. For this, there is a basic sequence that we can use when we want to approach a conflict situation:
- Start by talking about hard facts instead of generalities. Instead of saying “you don’t spend time with me anymore”, try saying “we’ve only seen each other twice in the last few weeks”.
- Describe how this situation makes you feel, instead of berating the other person and giving them a label. Saying “all of this makes me feel sad” is more appropriate than saying “you are selfish”.
- Make a proposal with concrete terms. For example: “I would like us to choose a day in the week to see each other”.
- Explain how this idea would improve the situation. “ By doing this, we could spend more time together and stop arguing.”
The broken record technique
It consists of repeating your affirmation several times, in a calm tone and without going into provocations.
Assertive techniques: the fog bank
This technique is used when the other person criticizes us or advises us with a single perverse goal, that of manipulating us.
In this case, we will partly agree with our interlocutor, but the final decision will be up to us.
The technique of assertive tuning
In this situation, we will accept our mistakes in behavior, but not those of ourselves. In other words, we will remove the label that the other is trying to impose on us, while accepting our mistakes.
Ignore, another technique
This technique is used when the other person is too irritated or angry. It is therefore a question of ignoring the reason for the discussion and leaving it for another occasion, more conducive to dialogue.
These are just a few examples of the many techniques that exist to bring assertiveness into our lives.
As we see, the key lies in maintaining a calm, tranquil and respectful tone, avoiding getting into provocations but still defending our point of view. With practice, assertiveness can become our best ally when it comes to communicating with others.
Our thoughts What we are talking about in this article is ASSERTIVITY, in other words the ability to be sure of oneself and therefore to be able to say no to each …
