I feel this may be an issue of semantics. To my understanding, in the NVC literature, once you start being aggressive, you are no longer being assertive - you

I feel this may be an issue of semantics. To my understanding, in the NVC literature, once you start being aggressive, you are no longer being assertive - you are being aggressive. IE, they are not overlapping subsets. This is conceptually similar to the idea of addiction. Physical dependency is one component, but the definition I'm most familiar with is that it becomes an addition (instead of use/misuse) once it has a significant negative impact on your life. YMMV, but wanted to see if I could jump in to help clear up. It's not a comment on your definition, btw - just the context of the discussion.