Success with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

uzette Haden Elgin has written many books that all are revolving around the theme of verbal self-defense (conflict management). Amongst those are: "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense", "More on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense", "Last Word on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense", "Mastering the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense", and "Staying Well with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense".

Dr. Haden Elgin is a retired professor of linguistic and successful consultant. From what I am able to see, she uses methods mainly derived from NLP (Neuro-Lingvistic-Programming). This impression is strenghtened with her thanking John Grinder, Virginia Satir and others in the preface of the book.

While the other books mentioned has covered one-on-one confrontations, listening skills, written language, public speaking and other related issues - this volume is aimed at the business or professional life. All the books are higly relevant, and based on the same principles. They cover much of the same ground, which is only natural, since we after all are talking about the common factor of human mis-communication. But, since a good thing can not be repeated too often, I would say it is a place for all the various books. The different angles should help driving the messages home after all!

Even if you don't find the "niche" of business communication and work-place conflicts your number one priority, you can do much worse than reading this book. The methods that are presented are equally adaptable to a bouncer, teacher, police officer, lawyer, security guard or anyone working with people. The way I see it there is good communication, and there is bad. This book teaches you how to reduce the occurrence of the latter, and to have more of the former - simple as that. Not that the methods are always easy... But they are sound - and they work (if you put some work into it)!

Even though it takes some time to get "under the hood" of the Verbal Self-Defense "engine", I urge you to take it for a test drive. These books have been on the arena for some years now, but that does also prove that they present something worthwhile and timeless - understanding why, when and how communication fail, and how we can improve the art of communicating.

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