People skills : how to assert yourself, listen to others, and resolve conflicts / Robert Bolton.

"A Touchstone book.".

Includes bibliographical references (pages 280-295) and index.

Part I. Introduction -- 1. Skills for Bridging the Interpersonal Gap -- Communication: Humanity's Supreme Achievement -- The Ineffectiveness of Most Communication -- The Ache of Loneliness -- So Much Lost Love -- A Key to Success at Work -- A Life-or-Death Matter -- You Can Change -- You Will Change! -- Managing Your Resistance to Learning -- Five Sets of Skills -- Summary -- 2. Barriers to Communication -- Common Communication Spoilers -- Why Roadblocks Are High-Risk Responses -- Judging: the Major Roadblock -- Roadblock -- Sending Solutions Can Be a Problem! -- Avoiding the Other's Concerns -- Roadblock Number Thirteen -- Summary -- Part II. Listening Skills -- 3. Listening Is More Than Merely Hearing -- The Importance of Listening -- Listening Defined -- Listening Skill Clusters -- Attending Skills -- Following Skills -- Summary -- 4. Four Skills of Reflective Listening -- Reflective Responses Provide a Mirror to the Speaker -- Paraphrasing -- Reflecting Feelings -- Reflecting Meanings -- Summary -- 5. Why Reflective Responses Work -- Style and Structure in Listening -- Six Peculiarities of Human Communication -- Skepticism Is Best Dissolved by Action -- Summary -- 6. Reading Body language -- The Importance of Body Language -- Nonverbals: The Language of Feelings -- The "Leakage" of Masked Feelings -- Guidelines for Reading Body Language -- Reflect the Feelings Back to the Sender -- A Clear But Confusing Language -- Summary -- 7. Improving Your Reflecting Skills -- Guidelines for ImprovedListening -- Beyond Reflective Listening -- When to Listen Reflectively -- When Not to Listen Reflectively -- The Good News and the Bad News -- Summary -- Part III. Assertion Skills -- 8. Three Approaches to Relationships -- Listening and Assertion: The Yin and Yang of Communication -- Methods for Developing Assertiveness -- The Need to Protect One's Personal Space -- Impacting -- The Submission-Assertion-Aggression Continuum -- Payoffs and Penalties of Three Ways of Relating -- Choose for Yourself -- Summary -- 9. Developing Three-Part Assertion Messages -- Verbal Assertion: The Third Option -- Three-Part Assertion Messages -- Effective and Ineffective Ways of Confrontation -- Writing Three-Part Assertion Messages -- A Voyage of Self-Discovery and Growth -- Summary -- 10. Handling the Push-Push Back Phenomenon -- Surprise Attack -- The Human Tendency to Be Defensive -- The Upward Spiral of Increasing Defensiveness -- A Six-Step Assertion Process -- Summary -- 11. Increasing Your Assertive Options -- Many Varieties of Assertive Behavior -- Self-Disclosure -- Descriptive Recognition -- Relationship Assertions -- Selective Inattention -- Withdrawal -- The Spectrum Response -- Options -- Natural and Logical Consequences -- Stop the Action -- Accept the Feelings -- Say "No!," -- Modify the Environment -- The Danger of Going Overboard -- The Aura of Assertiveness -- Summary -- Part IV. Conflict Management Skills -- 12. Conflict Prevention and Control -- Conflict Is Unavoidable -- Conflict Is Disruptive and /or Destructive -- The Benefits of Conflict -- Realistic and Nonrealistic Conflict -- Personal Conflict Prevention and Control Methods -- Group /Organizational Prevention and Control Methods -- The Dangers of Conflict Prevention and Control -- Summary -- 13. Handling the Emotional Components of Conflict -- Focus on the Emotions First -- The Conflict Resolution Method -- The Conflict Resolution Method in Action -- Four Ways to Use the Conflict Resolution Method -- Preparation for the Encounter -- Evaluating the Conflict -- Expected Outcomes of the Conflict Resolution Method -- Summary -- 14. Collaborative Problem Solving: Seeking an Elegant Solution -- Three Kinds of Conflict -- Alternatives to Collaborative Problem Solving -- Seeking an Elegant Solution Through Collaborative Problem Solving -- Six Steps of the Collaborative Problem-Solving Method -- What This Problem-Solving Method Communicates -- Collaborative Problem-Solving in Action -- Handling the Crucial Preliminaries -- What Do I Do When Collaborative Problem Solving Doesn't Work? -- Applications of Collaborative Problem Solving -- Summary -- 15. Three Essentials for Effective Communication -- In Communication, Skills Alone Are Insufficient -- Genuineness -- Non-possessive Love -- Empathy -- Implementation of the Core Attitudes -- Afterword: Four Steps to Improved Communication -- A Quantified Commitment to Use the Skills -- Select Appropriate Situations -- Undaunted by Occasional Failure -- Prepare Others for the Change -- Skill Training.

Machine converted from AACR2 source record.