Talking to crazy : how to deal with the irrational and impossible people in your life

Summary: "Difficult people can make life hard, but a select few can make it hell. The boss with nonsensical demands. The spouse who explodes at nothing. The overly emotional coworker, hostile neighbor, or friend who frequently bursts into tears. Marriages, families, friendships, careers, businesses--crazy people drag them all down with their manipulation, volatility, and inability to see the world rationally. You can't win by just ignoring the craziness or trying to reason with it. But you can stop it cold. Mark Goulston shows you exactly how to do that in this book for everyone trapped in personal or workplace relationships that feel confusing, stressful, or downright hopeless. Goulston unlocks the mysteries of the irrational mind, and explains how faulty thinking patterns develop."

Record details

ISBN: 9780814436363 (hardcover) :
Physical Description: print
vii, 259 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Publisher: New York : AMACOM, American Management Association, c2016.

Content descriptions

General Note:

Includes index.

Formatted Contents Note:

The basics of talking to crazy. Understanding crazy ; Recognizing how crazy happens ; Spotting an irrational person's M.O. ; Knowing when to talk to crazy and when to walk away -- Facing your own crazy first. Pinpointing your own crazy ; Keeping your own crazy at bay when you're under attack ; Regrouping when crazy wins -- Fourteen tactics for talking to crazy. The belly roll: putting the irrational person "in charge" to defuse a tense situation ; The A-E-U technique: highly effective-- but scary ; Time travel: getting an irrational person to stop dwelling on the past and focus instead on the future ; The eye of the hurricane: finding the sane inside the crazy ; Digging down to disappointment: dealing with emotional people who don't really mean what they're saying ; The fishbowl: bringing an irrational person's mirror neurons into play ; The split second: how to handle an irrational person who's playing you against someone else ; The three L's: helping an irrational person cope with extreme fear ; The butter-up: getting a know-it-all to behave ; Executive order: getting a martyr to accept help ; Coup countrecoup: turning an irrational person's M.O. to your own advantage ; The kiss-off (and the gentle kiss-off): saying no to a manipulator ; Frenemies: handling a "toxic deflector" at work ; I know what you're hiding: getting a sociopath out of your life --- Eight ways to deal with crazy in your personal life. You've lost that lovin' feeling?: handling your mutual crazy in a relationship ; Shock absorber : getting through to an emotional partner ; Copy cat: getting a strong-and-silent partner to talk ; Child A or child B?: going through a divorce without wrecking your kids for life ; "What's the worst thing for you?": being there for a parent, partner, or child in pain ; The reconnect: healing a broken relationship with an adult child ; The assumptive close: getting an aging parent to accept help ; The four H's and four R's: rebuilding a personal relationship after an irrational person breaks it -- What to do when crazy is actually mental illness. Where to turn when crazy is above your pay grade ; How to get the person to say yes to getting help ; What to do if you think someone may be suicidal ; Woulda, coulda, shoulda: preventing the next Sandy Hook.