Talking to 'Crazy': How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life

ISBN-13: 9780814439296

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: AMACOM

Publication Date: 07-10-2018

Pages: 272

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.95(h) x 0.95(d)

Age Range: 18 Years

Mark Goulston, MD, FAPA is a board-certified psychiatrist, fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, former assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA NPI, and a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. He is the creator of Theory Y Executive Coaching—which he provides to CEOs, presidents, founders, and entrepreneurs—and is a TEDx and international keynote speaker. He is the creator and developer of Surgical Empathy, a process to help people recover and heal from PTSD, prevent suicide in teenagers and young adults, and help organizations overcome implicit bias. Dr. Goulston is the author or principal author of seven prior books, including Why Cope When you Can Heal: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD, PTSD for Dummies, Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In, and Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life. He hosts the My Wakeup Call podcast, where he speaks with influencers about their purpose in life and the wakeup calls that led them there. He also is the co-creator and moderator of the multi-honored documentary Stay Alive: An Intimate Conversation About Suicide Prevention.He appears frequently as a human psychology and behavior subject-area expert across all media, including news outlets ABC, NBC, CBS, and BBC News, as well as CNN, Today, Oprah, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and Westwood One.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Understanding Crazy

AFTER DECADES as a psychiatrist, I know crazy—and that includes some serious crazy.

How serious? One of my patients stalked Britney Spears, and another jumped off a fifth-story balcony because he thought he could fly. Still another called me from a jail in the Dominican

Republic, saying he was there to start a revolution.

In addition, I’ve worked with 80-pound anorexics, strung-out her-oin addicts, and hallucinating schizophrenics. I’ve taught hostage negotiators how to get homicidal criminals to surrender. And these days, I show CEOs and managers how to deal with out-of-control people who threaten their companies’ bottom lines.

In short, crazy and I are pretty much on a first-name basis.

However, a while ago, something occurred to me: I expect to deal with crazy every day, because it’s my job. But I suddenly realized how often you have to face down crazy—not the jump-off-a-balcony a stalk-Britney-Spears kind of crazy, but what I call everyday crazy.

My “aha” moment occurred when I went to a meeting for estate planners who needed advice about helping families in crisis. a expected the event to be a little dry, but instead, I was mesmerized. a found out that just like me, these people have to “talk to crazy”

every day. In fact, nearly every issue they discussed involved clients acting completely nuts.

These lawyers had no trouble writing wills and creating trusts.

But what they didn’t know, and desperately needed to know, was what to do when they can’t stop their clients from acting crazy.

That’s when it dawned on me that everyone—including you—has this problem. I’m betting that nearly every day, you deal with at least one irrational person. Maybe it’s a boss who wants the impossible.

Maybe it’s a demanding parent or a hostile teen or a manipulative coworker or a neighbor who’s always in your face. Maybe it’s a tear-ful lover or an unreasonable client.

And that’s what this book is all about: talking to crazy.

Now, a word about the word crazy: I know it sounds inflammatory and totally un-PC. But when I use this word, I don’t mean mentally ill (although mental illness—which I’ll address separately in Section 5—certainly causes crazy behavior). And I don’t use the word crazy to stigmatize one group of people either. That’s because all of us, at some points in time, are crazy.

What I mean by crazy is irrational. There are four ways in which the people you deal with can be irrational:

- They can’t see the world clearly.

- They say or think things that make no sense.

- They make decisions and take actions that aren’t in their best interest.

- They become downright impossible when you try to guide them back to the side of reason.

In this book, I’ll share my best tricks for breaking through to people who are irrational in these ways. I’ve used these techniques to do everything from settling office feuds to rescuing marriages a and you can use them just as effectively to handle the irrational people in your life.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Foreword xi

Section 1 The Basics of Talking to "Crazy" 1

1 Understanding Crazy 3

2 Recognizing How Crazy Happens 11

3 Spotting an Irrational Person's M.O. 24

4 Knowing When to Talk to "Crazy" and When to Walk Away 33

Section 2 Facing Your Own Crazy First 43

5 Pinpointing Your Own Crazy 45

6 Keeping Your Own Crazy at Bay When You're Under Attack 56

7 Regrouping When Crazy Wins 67

Section 3 Fourteen Tactics for Talking to "Crazy" 75

8 The Belly Roll: Putting the Irrational Person "in Charge" to Defuse a Tense Situation 77

9 The A-E-U Technique: Highly Effective-But Scary 85

10 Time Travel: Getting an Irrational Person to Stop Dwelling on the Past and Focus Instead on the Future 93

11 The Eye of the Hurricane: Finding the Sane Inside the Crazy 101

12 Digging Down to Disappointment: Dealing with Emotional People Who Don't Really Mean What They're Saying 109

13 The Fishbowl: Bringing an Irrational Person's Mirror Neurons into Play 114

14 The Split Second: How to Handle an Irrational Person Who's Playing You Against Someone Else 121

15 The Three L's: Helping an Irrational Person Cope with Extreme Fear 126

16 The Butter-Up: Getting a Know-It-All to Behave 132

17 Executive Order: Getting a Martyr to Accept Help 137

18 Coup Contrecoup: Turning an Irrational Person's M.O. to Your Own Advantage 141

19 The Kiss-Off (and the Gentle Kiss-Off): Saying No to a Manipulator 147

20 Frenemies: Handling a "Toxic Deflector" at Work 153

21 I Know What You're Hiding: Getting a Sociopath out of Your Life 159

Section 4 Eight Ways to Deal with Crazy in Your Personal Life 165

22 You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling? Handling Your Mutual Crazy in a Relationship 167

23 Shock Absorber: Getting Through to an Emotional Partner 175

24 Copy Cat: Getting a Strong-and-Silent Partner to Talk 180

25 Child A or Child B? Going Through a Divorce Without Wrecking Your Kids for Life 183

26 "What's the Worst Thing for You?" Being There for a Parent, Partner, or Child in Pain 189

27 The Reconnect: Healing a Broken Relationship with an Adult Child 195

28 The Assumptive Close: Getting an Aging Parent to Accept Help 199

29 The Four H's and Four R's: Rebuilding a Personal Relationship After an Irrational Person Breaks It 204

Section 5 What to Do When Crazy Is Actually Mental Illness 211

30 Where to Turn When Crazy Is Above Your Pay Grade 213

31 How to Get the Person to Say Yes to Getting Help 227

32 What to Do if You Think Someone May Be Suicidal 240

33 Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda: Preventing the Next Sandy Hook 246

Epilogue 253

Index 255

About the Author 261