"When I Say No, I Feel Guilty" by Manuel J. Smith

A Book About Saying No

Why is saying “no” so hard? And can you learn how to do it?

Those are the two big questions that the American psychologist Manuel J. Smith (Ph.D.) tackle in his When I Say No, I Feel Guilty, published in 1975.

(His answer: yes, you can learn to say no!)

The Content of the Book

To understand why we struggle with saying no we have to look at the problem in an evolutionary context.

Along with the other animals, natural evolution has given us humans two ways to deal with conflict: either we fight the tiger, or we run away from it. Fight or flight. These are the two instinctive tools we have at our disposal when we’re faced with conflict.

In our modern society however, unless you’re physically in danger, it is generally not accepted to literally run away, and even less accepted to literally fight. Because of this, we have learnt to express these instincts passively, through passive avoidance, or passive aggression. But the mechanism is the same, and the emotions they biologically trigger are also the same — fear when we flee, anger when we fight.

If we look closer at what’s going on we see that both passive avoidance and passive aggression are ways to try to manipulate the other person to do what you want, without coming right out and saying it. This can show up in many different ways, but typically it bottoms in guilt — if you don’t do X, then you are in some way a bad person.

This way of dealing with conflict — by passive manipulation — is a learnt behavior. But what’s even more important to understand is that the acceptance or willingness to be manipulated also is a learnt behavior — you have learnt to hand over the judgment of your own person on some external set of rules. Rules that you are often not even aware of.

For example that it’s wrong to say no because you should be helpful.

And here the problem arises: this behavior leads to a never-ending dilemma. If you listen to yourself and say no, you will feel guilty for having denied somebody else’s wish. But if you instead say yes, then you don’t respect yourself, which will lead you deeper and deeper into self-loathing.

So what is the solution?

The solution is to respect what Smith calls your prime assertive human right:

You have the right to judge your own emotions, thoughts, and behavior, and to take responsibility for their consequences.

Okay. But how do you do this in practice?

In summary you need to learn new and more constructive techniques for dealing with conflicts and solving problems. Smith is very clear that this requires practice — it is not enough to understand the mechanism on an intellectual level, you must also learn concrete techniques to put theory into practice.

To do this Smith has developed a set of verbal skills that you can practice to assert yourself and avoid being manipulated by others. He calls this systematic assertive therapy.

Fundamentally this means to practice being extremely clear about what you want, over and over again, and to take criticism without judging the person who gives it, while at the same time also not taking the criticism personally (because you are your own judge).

The message you will be sending when you stand up for yourself in this way is that you will not interfere in the other person’s decision making process, even if you don’t like what the person decides to do. You will also not let the other person manipulate you into doing something that you do not want to do.

This is the base that is needed to solve conflicts and find compromises in a constructive way.

My Thoughts About the Book

I liked this book.

It’s intellectually sharp, but never gets stuck in academic navel-gazing. Through and through the focus is on practical application, and more than half the book consists of dialogues that show how the techniques can be applied across many different situations.

In the end though, a practical book must be judged by its practical value. In this case being: if you learn these techniques, will it actually be easier for you to say no?

As I’ve only just read the book and have not had time to try any of the techniques yet, that’s a question I cannot answer right now. I would guess that yes, this system works. And the whole approach seems reasonable enough for me to give it a serious attempt.

Recommended if you want to learn how to say no (without feeling guilty about it).