This is a handbook for verbal self-defence. Barbara Berckhan describes techniques of protecting and defending oneself effectively in challenging communication situations and how to shorten hostile interchanges and to stop provocations. Berckhan explains how to prevent verbal attacks in the first place. One of the essential features of the art of self-defence is a powerful appearance, since preferred victims of verbal attacks are those who appear to lack personal power. On the verbal level, people who appear unassertive often tend to excessively apologise and belittle themselves and use words like "maybe", "somehow" or "possibly", which make their statements sound more tentative.<BR>The author draws on two main sources: insights gained from the training she gives as a communications consultant, and principles of Asian martial arts, which she then applies to verbal self-defence. The result is a 'verbal judo', which aims at fending off an attack and restoring peace rather than continuing the fight. The book concludes with a training programme that is designed to help the reader internalise the strategies that are presented.