The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety

Advanced Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills 215

Now start with the lowest-ranked situations and do four things:

1. Write your script (“I think ... I feel ... I want”).

2. Rehearse your script.

3. Identify the time and place you want to use it.

4. Commit yourself to making your assertive statement on a specific date.

When you’ve completed your first assertive goal, evaluate what worked and what needs improve-
ment. For example, do you need to be firmer, with less arguing or excuse making? Whatever you
learned from your first step, incorporate it into the preparations for the second-ranked situation.
Keep moving up the hierarchy. As you do, you’ll find your confidence and skill growing. And your
relationships will become gradually more rewarding.

COPING WITH RESISTANCE AND CONFLICT

We looked earlier at how to improve your ability to hear others. But what happens if someone isn’t
listening to you? The answer is in the following five conflict management skills:

1. Mutual validation

2. Broken record

3. Probing

4. Clouding (assertive agreement)

5. Assertive delay

mutual Validation

When people aren’t listening to you, one of the most common reasons is that they feel invali-
dated. They don’t experience that they’re being heard, so they keep pouring on their arguments
and assertions. You can short-circuit the problem with mutual validation. Validating someone
doesn’t mean agreeing with them. It means, instead, that you understand their needs, feelings, and
motivations. You get it—you see how the other person could think and feel that way.
Thus mutual validation means you acknowledge and appreciate their experience, you under-
stand where they’re coming from, and then you validate your own experience as well. Here are
some examples:

 “I understand that it’s scary to take a financial risk like this; you have every right to

be cautious. On my end, I feel a pressure to make some higher-yield investments so