An Approach to Positive Mental Health

Assertiveness is a cognitive-behavioural skill to express one’s opinions, beliefs, ideas and feelings politely, directly and openly without infringing the rights of others. It also allows people not to let others infringe his/her rights.

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Being assertive is a learned skill and not an inborn trait. People who are assertive feel confident about themselves and are able to initiate and maintain effective interpersonal relationships. There is often some confusion between the terms aggressive and assertive and sometimes people use these terms interchangeably. Assertiveness is not the same as aggressiveness. A person who is aggressive infringes the rights of others and tries to domineer and hurt them, assertive person on the other hand expresses her/his opinions and does not infringe the rights of others. There is another group of people who are neither aggressive nor assertive; rather they indirectly hurt others in the form of being sarcastic and spreading rumors about them etc. Such people are known as passive-aggressive. Psychologists believe that being assertive is associated with positive mental health and strongly advocate this skill to be taught to others.

Let us see the contemporary approach to deal with such gender biased issues. If any girl or a woman in any family experiences injustice and wants to voice against that, most of the families discourage such genuine raising of voice against clear cut biased and unjust behaviour toward her by the family or society at large. It is stereotypically believed that women should remain silent and adjust in such situations. Adjustment as people think is only on the part of women and she should compromise in such situations. To make the matter worst those women who voice against such unjust practices are often labelled as bad and uncompromising. This prevailing socio cultural practice is against the general principle and ethos of fairness and justice.

Psychologists strongly believe that being assertive is a skill and not a born trait. So, this