Assertiveness and Access Requests

Assertiveness and Access Requests

What if you have to ask every day, sometimes from the people you depend on?

What assertiveness means in CBT

CBT has long included assertiveness skills: stating a need clearly, respecting the other person, and holding your position. It contrasts assertiveness with passive communication, where needs go unsaid, and aggressive communication, where the other person’s needs are ignored.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha Linehan, offers a well-known skill for asking, DEAR MAN: Describe the situation, Express how you feel, Assert what you want, Reinforce why it helps, stay Mindful of your goal, Appear confident, and be willing to Negotiate.

“Appear confident” does not have to mean eye contact, a steady voice or conventional speech. It can simply mean stating what you need in whatever way you communicate, including writing, AAC, or with a supporter, without having to mask.

Why access requests are different

For disabled people, asking is not occasional. Captions, step-free access, a different chair, longer appointments, being spoken to directly, someone checking before moving you: these requests may be needed every day, often from the same people, sometimes from people you depend on.

That changes the picture in three ways:

• The cost of asking is cumulative. Each request may be small. The total, over a lifetime, is not.
• Power matters. Direct disagreement may carry real costs in employment, family or care relationships. Assertiveness advice that ignores this can put people at risk.
• The history is real. Many disabled people have been treated as difficult for asking. Anxiety about asking may be learned, not irrational.

So therapy should help someone make an informed choice about the wording, timing and support for a request. It cannot guarantee that the other person will respond fairly.

Some example requests

• “I can take part if captions are available.”
• “Please speak to me directly. My assistant can help with communication.”
• “I appreciate your help. I need you to check with me before moving me.”
• “I’d like to carry on with this conversation, but I need a break first.”
• “Could we meet somewhere step-free? Here are two places that work.”

None of them over-explain, and a request does not need a justification essay. Some people choose to soften a request or apologise, for strategic or personal reasons. That remains their choice.

If the answer is no

• Ask for the reason, ideally in writing.
• Ask what would make it possible, or what alternative they can offer.
• Say you will consider your options, rather than deciding on the spot.
• Seek advice from an advocate, union or advice service.
• Decide whether to escalate, adapt, or let it go for now. Each is a legitimate choice.

Your rights, briefly

In Ireland, the Employment Equality Acts require employers to take appropriate measures, often called reasonable accommodation, for disabled employees. In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 places a duty on employers and service providers to make reasonable adjustments. These duties don’t mean every request will be granted, or that discrimination never happens. They do mean that many requests are not favours. Specialist advice services can help with specific situations.

A process to try

1. Clarify the need. What exactly would help?
2. Choose the person and the moment. Who can actually say yes? When are they most likely to listen?
3. Choose the format. In person, in writing, using AAC, with a support person, or through an advocate.
4. Draft or rehearse the request, in session if that helps.
5. Consider the likely responses, including a bad one, and what you would do next.
6. Make the request.
7. Review: what happened outside, and what happened inside you?

When you depend on the person

Asking a carer, family member or personal assistant to change how they help can feel especially risky. Some things that can help:

• raising it at a calm time, not in the middle of care;
• framing it as how to make things work for both of you;
• starting with a smaller request to test the response;
• having an outside route, such as an agency, a care coordinator or an advocate, if direct requests are unsafe.

If someone you depend on responds to requests with anger, threats or neglect, that is a safeguarding concern, not an assertiveness problem.

A moment in the session

An illustrative exchange, written for teaching. It is not a real session.

Where to slow down

• The person could be harmed, lose care or lose their job by asking directly.
• Assertiveness is being presented as the solution to discrimination.
• The person is being asked to make the same request repeatedly to the same people with no change.
• Exhaustion from constant asking is being read as anxiety.

For therapists

• Have I asked what asking costs this person, cumulatively?
• Have I considered the power in the relationship before encouraging directness?
• Is there an advocate or service that should be carrying some of this?
• Am I treating learned caution as irrational fear?

A different experience

Some disabled people are extremely skilled at asking, and want help with something else entirely: the anger at having to ask so often. That anger is reasonable. CBT can help with how it is carried, without suggesting it is unwarranted.

Evidence and status

• Sources checked in October 2026, using targeted searches rather than a systematic review. “We have not located” means our searches did not find it, not that it does not exist.
• Documented practice: assertiveness training in CBT; DBT’s interpersonal effectiveness skills, including DEAR MAN.
• Law: the duties of reasonable accommodation and reasonable adjustment in Ireland and the UK, stated here only in outline.
• Our synthesis: the emphasis on cumulative cost, power and dependence. We have not located trials of assertiveness training designed for disabled people’s access requests.

A question worth carrying: what would make this request easier to make, and whose job is it to make it easier?