The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-defence [Hardcover]

I managed to get away from home for two years but had to go back for a month to see the family. The idea of being in the same space with my mother and father and recalling all the hurt I experienced gave me nightmares the week before I flew back home and I woke up crying uncontrollably 2 mornings.
This book 'came' to me like a gift from the angels. (I first got my hands on Native Tongue by the same author but did not read it but somehow I ended up googling her name and eventually found out about her 'Gentle Art..' series) I read the prinicples and felt like a lightbulb went off in my head. This was the first time in 25 years that I figured out that my sister I were verbally abused and saw my dysfunctional family as it really was. I finally understood that the bad relationships in my family had been attributed to the wrong person and exactly how we were so messed up and it all had to do with verbal abuse.

I'm not saying that everyone who reads this will experience such epiphanies but anyone who spends their lifetime being nice and surrounded by nice people but have no idea why they feel as unhappy as they do can gain tremendous insight from this book.
Elgin breaks down sentences that on the surface seem so harmless and sometimes even caring and brings to light all the hidden meanings that a skilled abuser is packing into an innocent statement. She skilfully points out that the words we normally react to are the words we need to ignore and that we need to address what is kept unsaid but implied, those things that we percieve subconsciously but cannot see consciously. She then gives you ideas on how you can deal with the abuser and you can always chose to diffuse the situation or attack back (she doesn't really advise that).

In the end, her book opens the abusee's eyes to what's happening to him or her and how he/she can deal with it in a dignified manner that says I will NOT be played like this.

When I did go home I did have huge scenes with my mother and while I didn't quite come back with skillful answers to parry my mother's rants I was amazed at how little her abuses hurt me... now that I saw them for what they were. I was in a completely different frame of mind, I went from a hurt victim to an analytical witness. I'm rereading Haden's work and hopefully will buy more of her books from the same series soon. I intend to internalize her advice and follow through i.e. act on it... which is the hardest thing of all.
I remember one reviewer in some forum who said that the obvious trick that Haden missed was simply leaving the abuser and walking away. Not possible for those of us who have verbal abusers in our parents, close friends, aunts and uncles, teachers and spouses... and children too.
The information in the book is also an excellent guide to correcting yourself and being more aware of what you are saying to people around you and how to communicate well with them.

I prefered the 1980 , first, edition.

This 1993 edition is more a work-book with many

pages devoted to "homework", and more

simplistic.

However, it does have useful information and advice

helpful for better relationships.

I was so longing to read the author's poem about a

blind zoo bear again, but it is not printed in this

edition.

I read this book looking for self-help, but it soon became obvious that the author, Suzette Haden Elgin, hates me.

Personal experience gives me every reason to believe verbal abuse can happen to and be perpetrated by either men or women, but Elgin believes not only that a man is more likely than a woman to be a verbal abuser, but that furthermore if you are a man that very fact alone means that you indubitably are one. In chapter 16 of this book, 'For Men', she helpfully explains to any men reading that men fall into two types:

"It is my experience that only two types of men come to talk to me about verbal self-defense (usually after attending one of my workshops or seminars by mistake, under the impression that it was on some topic such as making a fortune in real estate.)"

If you are a man, according to Elgin, you are either a verbal bully and in denial, or a bully who has come to some measure of enlightenment as to his true nature and at least realises that he's a bully, though his ability to change may be dependent on such factors as his values and level of intelligence. (Of course, if all men without exception are intrinsically abusers, it seems reasonable to conclude that their abusiveness can therefore be only alleviated to some small extent.)

This is a hateful book. I suppose in principle one should be ready for verbal abuse at all times, and this book teaches that lesson very well: I bought it hoping for help as to how to deal with verbal abuse from people in my life, and ended up receiving instead a torrent of verbal abuse from the author.