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PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: A LUANN COMIC STRIP LESSON

by Jeffrey Rubin, PhD

In last week’s post, I presented a lesson on responding to negative criticism that utilized a Luann comic strip.  It was so popular that I decided to once again have Luann help us out; but this time, rather than focusing on the most mature ways to respond to negative criticism, let’s focus on the most mature ways to provide negative criticism.  For those of you…

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“BULLY” AND BEYOND

Although the deeply disturbing documentary, “Bully,” has been out for over a year, I just got to view it as a rental a few days ago.  It grabbed my guts and gave them a wrenching twist. The documentary focuses on the struggles of five families.  Two students end up killing themselves, others seriously consider it, while one young lady attempts to discourage her persecutors from…

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DEALING WITH INSULTS: LESSONS FROM THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today, to get us to think more deeply about dealing with insults, let’s discuss for few minutes what Jackie Robinson went through when he became the first black major leaguer. Just before Mr. Robinson began to play in the majors for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Dodgers’ general manager, Branch Rickey, made it clear to him that he would face criticism…

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THE ABCs OF POWER AND THE GUILT CONDITION

For the past few weeks I have been discussing personal power.  Power is the skill to achieve your desires.  To help people to come up with plans to achieve their desires, we have been constructing a list, in alphabetical order, of sources of power.  We are calling this list the ABCs of Power.  So far, the list looks like this: THE ABCs OF POWER A=Advancing…

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SOME EXAMPLES OF UTILIZING THE ABCs OF POWER

On this blog, for the past three weeks I have been discussing the nature of personal power. I’ve also been constructing a list, in alphabetical order, of the main sources of power.  So far, the list looks like this: THE ABCs OF POWER A=Advancing Skill (see The ABCs of Power: The letter “A”) B=Breaking Down a Conflict into its Three Conditions:  Desire, Interference and Guilt…

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THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “C”

On this blog I often discuss mature ways to handle situations in which we feel that we are being insulted (see for example, RESPONDING TO CRITICISM: FOUR LEVELS OF MATURITY). Many people after reading several of these posts find that situations that previously gave them difficulty can now be handled with great confidence.  As a result, they find that people have begun to treat them…

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THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “B”

In my last blog post, THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “A” I presented some ideas about the nature of power.  The key points are: 1. power consists of our skills to achieve our desires 2. when we feel confident that we can achieve our desires, generally speaking, we feel less defensive when someone throws insults at us 3. to better handle name calling, insults…

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The ABCs of Power: The Letter “A”

Power, in one sense, is the ability to achieve your desires.  In another sense, it is the feeling you get when you have mastered a skill that increases the probability that some desire of yours will be fulfilled.  And in yet another sense, it is the feeling that you get when you come to believe that you have the ability to master any skill that…

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IMPLIED CRITICISM: ADVANCED LESSON

In last week’s post I began to discuss some forms of implied criticism. In this Dilbert comic that we first looked at in last week’s post, we see that complimenting someone in front of another person can lead to an experience that feels like a subtle form of negative criticism.  Learning to recognize not only the most obvious types of negative criticism, but the more…

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DIRECT AND IMPLIED NEGATIVE CRITICISM

One major situation in which people end up feeling insulted is when someone provides negative criticism. Rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism in a warm, friendly and helpful manner. An important step toward mastering this skill is to learn to clearly recognize when criticism is occurring.  If you can’t identify when a red light is flashing, you won’t…

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