Staying Well With the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense
Author: Suzette Haden Elgin
List Price: $7.98
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ISBN: 1567310818
Publisher: MJF Books (July, 1997)
Sales Rank: 210,707
Average Customer Rating: 4 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 3 out of 5
Not Bad But Could Be Better
This book consists of Elgin's system of verbal behavior as a guide to better health, suggesting that mental health can affect physical health. Most of the information in here is repeated from previous Gentle Art series. Avid followers of Elgin's elegant Gentle Art system will be disappointed by the paucity of new material.For those who have never read any of Elgin's books, starting with her earlier writings will be a better investment.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Very practical advice on defusing verbally abusive situation
I really LOVED this book. One of the things it did differently from many self-help books is provide clues to help you recognize verbal abuse. Since its mostly sneaky manipulative people are the ones verbally abusing, its not that easy to tell, which is one of the worst problems. Susan Elgin provided a many examples to show tone, verbage and other clues. Just that much alone solved a lot of my problems for me.The next section showed different styles of defusing the verbal abuse. This is also really good because different people can more easily use different styles. In each case the interaction was carefully taken apart, so that you can get the idea behind the theory.
The last thing I really liked about the book was the acceptance of the idea that some people really are not going to cooperate on defusing. There are some people that thrive on hostility and fighting. Although I can usually bore people away with the lesser defense, her last-ditch defense is absolutely stunning.
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