2018, ISBN: 9780312858124

Little. Very Good. 142 x 209 x 23mm. Paperback. 2018. 320 pages. <br>Improve your personal and professional relationshi ps instantly with this timeless guide to communication, liste… Mehr…

Little. Very Good. 142 x 209 x 23mm. Paperback. 2018. 320 pages. <br>Improve your personal and professional relationshi ps instantly with this timeless guide to communication, listening skills, body language, and conflict resolution. A wall of silen t resentment shuts you off from someone you love....You listen to an argument in which neither party seems to hear the other....Yo ur mind drifts to other matters when people talk to you.... Peo ple Skills is a communication-skills handbook that can help you e liminate these and other communication problems. Author Robert Bo lton describes the twelve most common communication barriers, sho wing how these roadblocks damage relationships by increasing defe nsiveness, aggressiveness, or dependency. He explains how to acqu ire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, an d work out problems with others. These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged sit uations. People Skills will show you: · How to get your needs met using simple assertion techniques · How body language often speaks louder than words · How to use silence as a valuable comm unication tool · How to de-escalate family disputes, lovers' qua rrels, and other heated arguments Both thought-provoking and pr actical, People Skills is filled with workable ideas that you can use to improve your communication in meaningful ways, every day. Editorial Reviews About the Author Robert Bolton, Ph.D., is pr esident of Ridge Consultants in Cazenovia, New York, a firm that specializes in improving human performance in industry, health ca re, education, and government. His staff has taught communication skills to thousands of managers, salespersons, first-line superv isors, secretaries, customer-relations personnel, teachers, membe rs of the clergy, health-care workers, couples, and others. --Thi s text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this t itle. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. C HAPTER ONE Skills for Bridging the Interpersonal Gap I wish I h ad some way to make a bridge from man to man...Man is all we've g ot. Cross Daman in Richard Wright's Outsider COMMUNICATION: HUM ANITY'S SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT When one person communicates to anot her through the medium of language something takes place between them that is found nowhere else in nature. This ability to turn m eaningless grunts into spoken and written words constitutes human ity's most important distinction. Language has made possible the development of those characteristics that differentiate Homo sapi ens from all other creatures. No wonder the German philosopher Ka rl Jaspers claims, Man's supreme achievement in the world is comm unication from personality to personality. THE INEFFECTIVENESS O F MOST COMMUNICATION Although interpersonal communication is hum anity's greatest accomplishment, the average person does not comm unicate well. One of the ironies of modern civilization is that, though mechanical means of communication have been developed beyo nd the wildest flight of the imagination, people often find it di fficult to communicate face-to-face. In this age of technological marvels we can bounce messages off the moon and land space probe s on Mars, but we find it difficult to relate to those we love. I have become increasingly aware of the inadequacy of most commun ication. In our society it is rare for persons to share what real ly matters -- the tender, shy, reluctant feelings, the sensitive, fragile, intense disclosures. It is equally rare for persons to listen intently enough to really understand what another is sayin g. Sometimes people fix their gaze on a friend who is talking and allow their minds to wander off to other matters. Sometimes, whi le the friend speaks, they pretend to listen but are merely marki ng time, formulating what they will say as soon as they discover a way to begin talking. Nathan Miller caustically remarked that c onversation in the United States is a competitive exercise in whi ch the first person to draw a breath is declared the listener. I neffective communication causes an interpersonal gap that is expe rienced in all facets of life and in all sectors of society. Lone liness, family problems, vocational incompetence and dissatisfact ion, psychological stress, physical illness, and even death resul t when communication breaks down. In addition to the personal fru stration and the heartache resulting from it, the interpersonal g ap is now one of the major social problems of our troubled societ y. THE ACHE OF LONELINESS Many people today yearn for warm, pos itive, meaningful relatedness to others, but seem unable to exper ience it. The psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan put it this way: The deepest problem of people is loneliness, isolation, and diff iculty of self-esteem in our society. Whereas the problem in Freu d's early decades was sexual repression, and the chief problem in the early thirties, when Karen Homey wrote, was disguised hostil ity, today it is loneliness. There are two kinds of aloneness. S olitude can be a creative, joyous, full aloneness. But loneliness is a painful, dead, empty aloneness. Loneliness is being acutely aware of one's isolation and alienation from others. As David Ri esman pointed out, when one is not vitally in touch with oneself or others, loneliness can occur even in the midst of a crowd. Lo neliness -- the sound of the word conveys some of the heartache a ssociated with it. Try saying the word aloud several times in a s orrowful voice: Loneliness...loneliness...loneliness... The very word has a melancholy ring to it. It represents much pain for man y people. Several reasons have been given for the increased ache of loneliness in modern times. Materialism (finding one's solace in things rather than in people), the mobility of people, uproot edness of families and the bureaucratic structure of organization s -- these are just a few. I am convinced that another major caus e of this interpersonal gap, and the one that may be easiest to r ectify, is inadequate methods of interpersonal communication. SO MUCH LOST LOVE Unfortunately, the most intense loneliness today is often found in the family where communication is breaking dow n or is in a shambles. Marriage, the most complicated of human re lationships, cannot flourish without effective communication. Cou ples hoping to establish an enriching marriage often lack the nee ded relational skills and end up living parallel lives in a marri age without intimacy. The often-quoted words of the poet T. S. El iot describe what may be a typical family: Two people who know t hey do not understand each other, Breeding children whom they do not understand And who will never understand them. Proximity wit hout intimacy is inevitably destructive. When communication is bl ocked, love's energy turns to resentment and hostility. Frequent bickering, withering sarcasm, repetitious criticism, or an icy re treat into silence and sexual unresponsiveness result. One woman, after describing her family's dysfunctional patterns of communic ation said, I live in a psychological slum, not a home. As most parents can attest, it is no easy thing to raise children today. Virginia Satir, a leader in the family therapy field, writes: Pa rents teach in the toughest school in the world -- The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, th e classroom teacher, and the janitor....You are expected to be ex perts on all subjects pertaining to life and living....There are few schools to train you for your job, and there is no general ag reement on the curriculum. You have to make it up yourself. Your school has no holidays, no vacations, no unions, no automatic pro motions or pay raises. You are on duty or at least on call 24 hou rs a day, 365 days a year, for at least 18 years for each child y ou have. Besides that, you have to contend with an administration that has two leaders or bosses, whichever the case may be -- and you know the traps two bosses can get into with each other. With in this context you carry on your people-making. I regard this as the hardest, most complicated, anxiety-ridden, sweat and blood p roducing job in the world. Healthy communication is vitally impo rtant in raising a family. For couples who have competence in com munication skills, parenthood can be one of the most rewarding an d joyous experiences of their lifetime. When parents have not mas tered skills for accurate, congruent communication, the resulting anguish, alienation, and loneliness for parents and children ali ke can be devastating. Readers of Ann Landers's advice column we re shocked when they read that 70 percent of the people respondin g to her survey said they were sorry they had children. Though he r sample was not a true cross-section of the population, and thou gh Landers admitted that readers with negative feelings had a str onger compulsion to respond than those with positive feelings, th ere was considerable evidence to support her survey's general res ults. Dr. Harcharan Sehdev, Director of the Children's Division o f the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, said, The Landers l etters appear to reflect the general changing trends and opinions of family systems and the place of children in our homes and soc iety. Communication is the lifeblood of every relationship. When open, clear, sensitive communication takes place, the relationsh ip is nurtured. When communication is guarded, hostile, or ineffe ctive, the relationship falters. When the communication flow is l argely obstructed, the relationship quickly deteriorates and ulti mately dies. Where communication skills are lacking, there is so much lost love -- between spouses, lovers, friends, parents and c hildren. For satisfying relationships, it is essential to discove r methods that will help us to at least partially bridge the inte rpersonal gaps that separate us from others. A KEY TO SUCCESS AT WORK Eighty percent of the people who fail at work do so for on e reason: they do not relate well to other people. One's producti vity as a supervisor or manager, nurse or secretary, mental healt h worker or janitor, laborer, attorney, physician, clerk, or mini ster is greatly enhanced by the ability to communicate well. In f act, it is difficult to think of a single job in which communicat ion is unimportant. A mechanical engineer mused, I thought my en gineering training was all I would need. But I spend most of my t ime on people problems. A teacher commented, I was educated to be a physics teacher. Since I've been in the classroom, I discovere d I teach people. I spend most of my energy trying to restore ord er. Why didn't my graduate program help me with this? Communicati on skills are clearly keys to on-the-job success. A LIFE-OR-DEAT H MATTER Most human interaction is for better or for worse. Each moment with another person can be an opportunity for discovery a nd growth or for the erosion of identity and the destruction of o ne's personhood. Our personality development and mental and physi cal health are linked to the caliber of our communication. One do es not become fully human without interaction with other human be ings. Indeed, the philosopher Martin Heidegger refers to language as the dwelling place of being. People need people. As the titl e of one book had it, You can't be human alone. Each person matur es through enhancing dialogues with others. In The Mystery of Bei ng, Gabriel Marcel observes, When somebody's presence does really make itself felt, it can refresh my inner being; it reveals me t o myself, it makes me feel more fully myself than I should be if I were not exposed to its impact. Conversely, lack of communicat ion or frequent exposure to poor communication diminishes one's s elfhood both emotionally and physically. Many believe that mental illness is primarily a problem of inadequate communication. The psychologically sick individual has not achieved good human relat ionships. According to Carl Rogers, The whole task of psychothera py is the task of dealing with a failure in communication. Defic ient communication can affect a person's physical health. The ext ent to which constructive or destructive dialogue influences bodi ly functions, however, comes as a surprise to many people. Emper or Frederick, the thirteenth-century ruler of the Holy Roman Empi re, wanted to know what language had been spoken at the birth of mankind in the Garden of Eden. Was it Hebrew, Greek, or Latin? He ordered an experiment in which the original circumstances would be re-created as closely as possible. A group of infants were to be isolated from hearing human speech from the moment of birth un til they spoke their language. The babies were to be raised by we t nurses who were strictly charged to maintain complete silence w hen with the babies. All the conditions of the experiment were su ccessfully carried out. The result? Every one of the babies died. The lack of communication is often toxic and can be lethal. The film Second Chance provides a clinical portrayal of this type of physical deterioration in modern times. The fifteen-minute movie shows how lack of human interaction slowed the growth of twenty- two-month-old Susan so drastically that her size and weight were that of a child half her age. Susan's deterioration was dramatica lly arrested when, during hospitalization, she was given loving i nteraction and care for over six hours a day for two months. YOU CAN CHANGE There is one thing certain about your methods and st yle of communication: they are primarily learned responses. Your most influential instructors were probably your parents, who in t urn learned their approach to communication from their parents. T eachers, scout leaders, friends, and many others added their inpu t. Through radio, television, and other sources, our culture has influenced the way you communicate. Not many people have had mod els of effective communication in their home environments. The lu cky few who have had such models seem to be naturals at communica ting well. What seems natural, however, is usually the result of their good fortune at having learned to communicate effectively f rom early childhood. Many of us, however, were taught to communic ate poorly by well-intentioned people who themselves were taught inadequate ways of relating. As far as communication is concerned , many of us are victims of victims. We first experienced the tr aining process at an early age. Parents or parent-substitutes rew arded some kinds of nonverbal behavior, like smiling, and they co mmunicated displeasure over other ki, Little, 2018, 3, 1996 - "In Firebird, Lackey draws inspiration from the classic Russian fairy tale to present a marvelous coming-of-age fantasy with a most unusual setting: medieval Russia before unification under the Tsars.Ilya is the son of the boyar, a Russian prince. In his father's rough-and-tumble household, Ilya is persecuted by his large, doltish older brothers, who delight in tormenting him and making him seem the fool. His only friends are three old people: a priest, a magician, and a woman who toils in the palace kitchens.From them Ilya learns faith, a smattering of magic, and the power of love - all of which he will need desperately, for his life is about to be turned upside down.The boyar's magnificent cherry orchard is visited at midnight by the legendary Firebird - a gigantic, magnificent hawk whose wings seem to be made of flame. Ilya's father and brothers swear to capture the magical creature - but each fails. When Ilya disobeys his father and makes his own attempt to catch the Firebird, he is banished.The young man journeys through a fantastical Russia full of magical mazes, enchanted creatures, and untold dangers. Gifted with the ability to understand the speech of animals, Ilya saves the life of a fox, who becomes his most steadfast companion.As happens in the best fairy tales, Ilya falls in love with an enchanted princess. To free her, he must battle a cantankerous wizard and a powerful dragon. Magic swirls throughout this battle as Ilya uses his wits, his warrior's and magical skills, and some very unusual allies to save the day and win true love.", Tor Books, 1996, 3<

1996, ISBN: 9780312858124

New. All items ship Monday - Friday - Fast Shipping in a secure bubble mailer., 6, 1996 - "In Firebird, Lackey draws inspiration from the classic Russian fairy tale to present a marvelou… Mehr…

New. All items ship Monday - Friday - Fast Shipping in a secure bubble mailer., 6, 1996 - "In Firebird, Lackey draws inspiration from the classic Russian fairy tale to present a marvelous coming-of-age fantasy with a most unusual setting: medieval Russia before unification under the Tsars.Ilya is the son of the boyar, a Russian prince. In his father's rough-and-tumble household, Ilya is persecuted by his large, doltish older brothers, who delight in tormenting him and making him seem the fool. His only friends are three old people: a priest, a magician, and a woman who toils in the palace kitchens.From them Ilya learns faith, a smattering of magic, and the power of love - all of which he will need desperately, for his life is about to be turned upside down.The boyar's magnificent cherry orchard is visited at midnight by the legendary Firebird - a gigantic, magnificent hawk whose wings seem to be made of flame. Ilya's father and brothers swear to capture the magical creature - but each fails. When Ilya disobeys his father and makes his own attempt to catch the Firebird, he is banished.The young man journeys through a fantastical Russia full of magical mazes, enchanted creatures, and untold dangers. Gifted with the ability to understand the speech of animals, Ilya saves the life of a fox, who becomes his most steadfast companion.As happens in the best fairy tales, Ilya falls in love with an enchanted princess. To free her, he must battle a cantankerous wizard and a powerful dragon. Magic swirls throughout this battle as Ilya uses his wits, his warrior's and magical skills, and some very unusual allies to save the day and win true love.", Tor Books, 1996, 3<

1996, ISBN: 9780312858124

1996 - "In Firebird, Lackey draws inspiration from the classic Russian fairy tale to present a marvelous coming-of-age fantasy with a most unusual setting: medieval Russia before unificat… Mehr…

1996 - "In Firebird, Lackey draws inspiration from the classic Russian fairy tale to present a marvelous coming-of-age fantasy with a most unusual setting: medieval Russia before unification under the Tsars.Ilya is the son of the boyar, a Russian prince. In his father's rough-and-tumble household, Ilya is persecuted by his large, doltish older brothers, who delight in tormenting him and making him seem the fool. His only friends are three old people: a priest, a magician, and a woman who toils in the palace kitchens.From them Ilya learns faith, a smattering of magic, and the power of love - all of which he will need desperately, for his life is about to be turned upside down.The boyar's magnificent cherry orchard is visited at midnight by the legendary Firebird - a gigantic, magnificent hawk whose wings seem to be made of flame. Ilya's father and brothers swear to capture the magical creature - but each fails. When Ilya disobeys his father and makes his own attempt to catch the Firebird, he is banished.The young man journeys through a fantastical Russia full of magical mazes, enchanted creatures, and untold dangers. Gifted with the ability to understand the speech of animals, Ilya saves the life of a fox, who becomes his most steadfast companion.As happens in the best fairy tales, Ilya falls in love with an enchanted princess. To free her, he must battle a cantankerous wizard and a powerful dragon. Magic swirls throughout this battle as Ilya uses his wits, his warrior's and magical skills, and some very unusual allies to save the day and win true love.", Tor Books, 1996, 3<

1996, ISBN: 9780312858124

1996 - "In Firebird, Lackey draws inspiration from the classic Russian fairy tale to present a marvelous coming-of-age fantasy with a most unusual setting: medieval Russia before unificat… Mehr…

1996 - "In Firebird, Lackey draws inspiration from the classic Russian fairy tale to present a marvelous coming-of-age fantasy with a most unusual setting: medieval Russia before unification under the Tsars.Ilya is the son of the boyar, a Russian prince. In his father's rough-and-tumble household, Ilya is persecuted by his large, doltish older brothers, who delight in tormenting him and making him seem the fool. His only friends are three old people: a priest, a magician, and a woman who toils in the palace kitchens.From them Ilya learns faith, a smattering of magic, and the power of love - all of which he will need desperately, for his life is about to be turned upside down.The boyar's magnificent cherry orchard is visited at midnight by the legendary Firebird - a gigantic, magnificent hawk whose wings seem to be made of flame. Ilya's father and brothers swear to capture the magical creature - but each fails. When Ilya disobeys his father and makes his own attempt to catch the Firebird, he is banished.The young man journeys through a fantastical Russia full of magical mazes, enchanted creatures, and untold dangers. Gifted with the ability to understand the speech of animals, Ilya saves the life of a fox, who becomes his most steadfast companion.As happens in the best fairy tales, Ilya falls in love with an enchanted princess. To free her, he must battle a cantankerous wizard and a powerful dragon. Magic swirls throughout this battle as Ilya uses his wits, his warrior's and magical skills, and some very unusual allies to save the day and win true love.", Tor Books, 1996, 3<