Customer Reviews
The Original And Still The Best! - By: Sharon Eden, 24 Nov 2008 
Writtenin an easy & reader friendly style, Ann Dickson's guide to developing your assertiveness is a seminal work. The first of its kind & still highly relevant & the best. Recognise yourselfin its pages & discover how to stand morein your own ground & create your life rather than let others do it for you!
I met the author and it changed my life - By: N. Shelton, 12 Jan 2008 I had to read this book before attending an assertiveness course at work run by the author
The book & the course inspired me to change my job (not what my employers hadin mind by sending me on it I imagine)
move house 200 miles, join a gym & lose 2 stonein weight
and learn to say no which is why i went on the coursein 1st place
The book is not a classic introspective self help guide - it helped me to make difficult decisions by better understanding what types of people I surrounded myself with/ was surrounded by & how very differently I was able to deal with different types of people over similar issues. I achieved more consistencyin my reactions to people & events & I
other people's positive reactions to this helped consolidate this
READ IT! Men as well as women.
A rare find of a book. - By: , 09 Sep 2005 The lower number of stars given by other reviewers appears to be by way of comment on self-help booksin general rather than this particular one. I think that is a great shame because it gives a misleading impression of the quality of this book.
The topic is covered thoroughly, addressing all the issues that I had encountered with the problem & alerting me to several more than I hadn't even recognisedin myself but once pointed out were clearly present. It then provides an understanding & intelligent account of how & why the issues come about & most importantly, ways to deal with them.
It isn't a book that you can read & the problem is solved. It involves putting the ideas into practice & that takes effort & time. However, even after the first read I felt supported & more confident, just by understanding the problem. It made sense of issues that I had previously spent a long time piecing together & had still not understood & it is clear that the author has a deep understanding of the problem & significant experiencein dealing with it.
I have sent copies to most of my close friends as it is so comprehensive as to be useful even to people who are, on the face of it, quite assertive & confident.
I also recommend it equally, despite the title, for men as well as women.
Life changing, if you want it to be - By: , 18 Jul 2005 
I was recommended this book when I was attending counselling sessions for depression a few years ago, & found it a geat help.
A few of the author's suggestions seem a little out-dated & take on a rather 80s feminist slant, but aside from that, the book really does have some great, down-to-earth advice. I have already recommended it to countless friendsin need of a pick-me-up. Read this book, & take it all in, to get back the self respect that you deserve!
Probably the best self help book, but that's not saying much - By: Mr. Stephen Booth, 12 Apr 2003 
I bought this book on a recommendation from a councellor. She said that dispite the title it was useful for men as well as women.
Having read it, I have to say that of all the Self Help/assertiveness books I've seen it's probably the best. However that's not saying much. Like many such books it's very focused on the idea that all that's needed for you to become happier & more assertive is that you change yourself. Such a view may workin many situations but it's not the universal panacea it's made out to be, sometimes the root cause of the problem is outside yourself. For example I have yet to see such a book competantly deal with a situation where there is an unequal power relationship, where no matter how asseritve you try to be if the other person is setin their ideas then you're stuck with what they say. Sometimes it's not a failure to just walk out.
If you're going to buy a Self Help book then by this one, but realize that it's not a guarenteed solution.
