A Woman in Your Own Right: The Art of Assertive, Clear and Honest Communication

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I am a psychologist by profession and have for over three decades been working as a trainer and educator. To those who already know of my work through reading one of my books or attending a workshop or lecture, a warm welcome too. Conflict isn’t welcomed by everyone, however, and many of us try our best to avoid it. Instead of speaking up, we keep quiet. We smile, pretend to agree, play along, or turn a deaf ear. Over time we allow ourselves to be reduced to being mere bystanders: both in our immediate environment and in the world at large. In the decades that followed political and cultural shifts in the UK encouraged a more individualistic focus. The core message of assertiveness was gradually weakened, with less emphasis on equality and more on believing you had the right to get what you want, whoever you had to override to get it! I continued to teach my model but with an awareness that it was increasingly countercultural. Honestly? In most situations I'm not really one of those people. I have my bad days like anyone else but mostly I do ok. So the book isn't really aimed at me. I read it knowing this and thinking it would help me to be more effective when communicating with people who might struggle with assertiveness. If nothing else, I thought it would be an interesting read to see that perspective. Then came the section on how to accept a compliment and that one was personally helpful. The section on how to ask your boss for a pay rise was fascinating. The section on loving your own body and accepting yourself was astonishingly uplifting.

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Last year I was approached by a new publisher who proposed a 40th anniversary edition. This gave me an opportunity to update my book in some ways – there is a new section on assertiveness in social media, for example – but much of the material remains as relevant now as when it was first published. We’ve made giant strides towards equality over the decades, but... this advice is even more pertinent today' LINDA KELSEY, DAILY MAIL The conditioning of the past is still deeply embedded in women’s psyches, which means that simply having more equal opportunities doesn’t always translate into the ability to grasp them.

I first read this book some 20 years ago. It quite literally changed my life. I learned how to say what I needed to say at the right time and in the right way. No more misunderstanding, ambiguity, manipulating, martyrdom from myself towards others or them towards me! My commitment and passion have always been to equality, honesty and nonaggression: through both the facilitation of classes, workshops and ongoing courses in an extraordinarily diverse range of contexts and cultures and also through my books, I have attempted to teach and encourage others who are similarly interested in upholding these same values.

When we start learning assertive skills, we are usually unaware of our habitual style of communication. With practice we come to realise what is unhelpful and detracts from what we want to express. We learn to take responsibility for what we want and feel, instead of expecting others to be telepathic. We learn how to be unafraid of our anxiety and work through it to strengthen what we want to say.