Verbal Defense and Influence is based on the work, over the last 28 years, of Dr. George Thompson.
Doc, who died in 2011, had a B.A. from Colgate University (1963), a Masters and Doctorate in English from the University of Connecticut (1972), and had completed post-doctoral work at Princeton University in Rhetoric & Persuasion (1979).
In 1983, after 10 years as a university professor and five years as a part-time police officer, Dr. Thompson formed the Verbal Judo Institute to train police officers how to prevent and de-escalate verbal confrontation, the starting point for almost all physical violence.
Since then and until his death in 2011, Dr. Thompson trained over 1 million individuals and published four books, with over 300,000 copies sold. While originally developed for public safety professionals, his structured communication methodologies have now been taught within business, education, health care, and government organizations and to individuals from all walks of life.
Since 2010, Verbal Defense and Influence has been the exclusive U.S. representative of Dr. Thompson’s work.
