COPING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

Deexan Cases

Difficult people may impede our goals , threaten our self esteem and self acceptance, act in arrogant and annoying ways, frustrate us, and use unpleasant methods .

Kinds of Difficult People

How to cope with Difficult People?

There are two reasons why we should manage our emotions before dealing with a difficult

person;

It’s more comfortable to relate with others without our self esteem and self acceptance threatened.

We can think more clearly and behave more effectively when dealing with difficult people if we are not severely emotionally upset with them.

The Source of Our Emotions and Behavior

• Our emotions and behavior are result mainly from our beliefs and self talk, rather than from

the actual events and people in our lives.

• It’s not unpleasant people, who cause our distress, but

rather our beliefs and self talk about them and their

behavior.

• We are responsible for creating our own emotions. If difficult acting people upset us, we

have given them permission to do so.

ABC OF Our EmOtiOns

A – Activating

Agent

B – Beliefs and Self Talk

C – Consequences: Emotional and

Behavioral

Activates/Triggers

Causes

Anxiety, Anger, Heightened Frustration

Actions of a difficult person

What do we tell ourselves that disturbs us so much when we are around troublemakers and other difficult people?

• We all experience frustration in dealing with others. Frustration with others is not getting what you want from them. Low Frustration Tolerance results from believing, “ Others absolutely must give me what I want and behave as I want, and if they don’t, it’s awful and I-can’t-stand-it.

Work on increasing LFT, something over which we have considerable control. Changing the other person is something over which we usually have little or no control.

•

What causes low frustration tolerance and how do we improve your

LFT so we feel less distressed?

To detect your beliefs which cause low frustration tolerance, ask yourself, “ What am I saying to myself about this person? What am I telling myself about his or her actions? What

am I insisting or demanding that this person do or stop doing?

•

When you feel extremely frustrated or upset with others, silently repeat coping self talk statements to yourself. Repeating these

statements will help to increase your ability to tolerate the frustration. The following are

examples of coping statements:

» “I dislike this person’s behavior, but I can stand it.”» “Sometimes relationships are frustrating , but I can

stand the frustration.”» “Life is tough , but I can take it.”» “Human behavior is absurd.”» “I don’t like it, that’s ok,

•

Six Irrational Beliefs that cause emotional distress;

1. It is a dire necessity for me to be loved or approved by almost all others, who are significant to me.

2. I must be thoroughly competent, adequate and achieving, in all important respects, in order to ve worthwhile.

3. The world must be fair. People must act fairly and considerately and if they don’t, they are bad, villanous, wicked or incredibly stupid; they should be severely blamed and punished.

4. There isn’t much I can do about my anxiety, anger, depression, or unhappiness because my feelings are caused by what happens to me (and how people treat me)

5. I’m quite dependent on others and need someone stronger than myself to rely upon; I cannot run my own life.

6. I must become very anxious, angry or depressed over someone else’s problems and disturbances, If I care about that person.

Rational Beliefs which can replace the above Irrational Beliefs;

Work on uprooting your irrational beliefs and adopting rational alternative beliefs so that difficult people “won’t drive you crazy.”

Continue disputing and challenging your irrational beliefs until you can stand the

behavior of difficult people.

When relating to a difficult person, turn your demand that she change your behavior. Acknowledge to yourself your preference

that she change your behavior, but that it’s not essential for your happiness or survival.

FIRST DEAL WITH OUR OWN DISTRESS, THEN WITH THE DIFFICULT

PERSON

Methods For Coping With Difficult People

Acknowledge that it’s not unpleasant people, but rather our beliefs about them and their behavior, which primarily cause our distress.

To cope with difficult people, first manage you emotional reaction to them.

Focus on changing your feelings of anger to less intense feelings of annoyance, displeasure or disappointment.

Methods For Coping With Difficult People

Express your annoyance and displeasure, but not intense anger. You don’t have to become angry first before expressing your annoyance.

Be assertive, rather than passive or aggressive, in stating what you want.

Negotiate with your difficult person and be willing to compromise.

Methods For Coping With Difficult People

Walk out of the room and separate until both of you have calmed down. As you leave, say something like, “We need a break from this discussion.”

Accept your difficult person but not his behavior. People are fallible and your difficult person is no exception.

Forgive the person for his foolish, unreasonable, and illogical behavior.

Complete the Difficult people and ABCDE Self Analysis and Improvement form.

Try to see the other person’s point of view.

Leave the position and become involved in a pleasant activity.

Review again this list of SOS methods for dealing with difficult people.

Accept what you can’t change.

YOU CAN’T MANAGE

RELATIONSHIPS UNTIL YOU

MANAGE YOUR EMOTIONS

Five Abilities Of Emotional Intelligence

Knowing our EmotionsManaging our Emotions

Recognizing Emotions in OthersManaging relationships with othersMotivating ourselves to achieve our

Goals.

Thank you!!!