ABSTRACT
Assertion training has been most closely associated with behaviour therapy (Salter, 1949; Wolpe, 1958; Wolpe and Lazarus, 1966). In the 1970s, assertion training developed cognitive components because ‘(1) changing people’s ideas influences their assertive behavior, and (2) changing people’s behavior leads to changes in their ideas’ (Grieger and Boyd, 1980:187). Outside of therapy, learning to be assertive has become a popular form of selfdevelopment, having been launched into the public realm in 1970 by Alberti and Emmons with their book Your Perfect Right. Since then, a large self-help literature has been spawned (e.g. Alberti and Emmons, 1975; Dickson, 1982; Dryden, 1994a; Dryden and Gordon, 1994; Ellis, 1977; Forward, 1997; Hauck, 1981b; Lazarus and Fay, 1975; Mansfield, 1994; Smith, 1975).
