PSYCHOLOGY
How to STAND UP FOR YOURSELF
No one likes being the bad guy, but we can learn to handle confrontation without fear, says Claire Cantor
It’s a familiar scene: a friend asks you to pick up her children from yet another party, although she never reciprocates, or your boss dumps a piece of work on you last thing on a Friday, expecting it by Monday morning. You know you should assert yourself, but you hold back on confronting the problem for fear of unleashing an ugly scene, with potentially lasting damage.
The desire to preserve friendships tends to override other desires, such as being respected or being acknowledged as right – and it’s an issue women tend to struggle with more than men. But why do we find it so difficult? What makes us think that confronting an unreasonable boss, demanding family member or pushy friend will somehow rupture the relationship for good?
Understanding what’s happening in our brain when we’re faced with a potentially thorny confrontation can be the first step to tackling the issue. ‘When we’re “confronted”, or even just imagine that we are, we feel under attack and the classic fight, flight or freeze response kicks in,’ says Gin Lalli, a psychotherapist. ‘Imagine you were being attacked by a polar bear: you would either fight by retaliating in anger, flee – run away, or freeze – do nothing and try to disappear. When we think we are under threat, our brain responds by going into this survival mode, trying to keep us safe.’