 Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening wherever you are in the world. This is going live to everywhere in the world and Peter Diaz here, the CEO of the Workplace Mental Health Institute and Amy Golding, Director of Psychology and we welcome you to our last mental health Facebook live for the Mental Health Month in October. So everything good comes to an end and this is one of those. But what a topic we have today. What a topic, the psychology of difficult people, the psychology of difficult people and how to deal with them. I'm very excited because this was one of the most popular topics that came up. So I'm looking forward to having chat about it. So before we jump into it, I just wanted to ask a couple of questions from you, the audience. We're going to be talking, we're going to even going to be looking later on at really difficult people like narcissists and sociopaths and psychopaths, but that's later, much later. But I wanted to ask you a question is what kind of things do you find difficult? What kind of behaviors route you up that trigger you? Put it in the comments so we can have an idea of where you're at. And also, have you got a really bad really horror story? I'm sure most people do, yeah. Make sure you're respecting the privacy of the people. Absolutely, no names change the names to protect the innocent or they're not so innocent in this case. Great. So I'm going to read you one of the questions that came in and around this topic from one of our audience members. And he or she said, in our workplace, we often deal with demanding or overstressed patients. In my case, as the clinic manager, dealing with difficult staff crops up sometimes, particularly a staff member who won't take accountability for their mistakes, instead making excuses or blaming others or situations. Not so unfamiliar the situation, isn't it? I mean, it's a clinic manager here, it's a clinic, obviously, but it could be anywhere else in the world. It doesn't matter. It could be a shop floor, it could be a hospital, it could be an office. It doesn't matter. Yeah. When people get stressed, people get fearful, then they become thickheaded, they become difficult. So two things that were a couple of things at least that pop up here. One, the matter of stress, having overstressed patients, so that's a pressure environment. And then the person not taking responsibility, making excuses or blaming others. Very, very strange behavior, something, not at all. Very common behaviors. This is interesting about the psychology of difficult people, that we all have a window into what it is being a difficult person because we, at some point in our lives, we have all been difficult to others. And we have done some of these things, isn't it? We were under stress and we didn't take responsibility or we shifted responsibility to external factors or external conditions or even internal one. It's not me. It's my trauma. It's not me. It's my mental health issue. It's not me. It's my stress. It's not me. It's my husband, my wife, et cetera, that idea of blaming. But what are the components, components came in from the comments people made? Well, they talked about thicketed or stubborn people, the issue of passive aggressive people, they pretend to go along, but they don't. Have you been with people like that before? Or people who twist the story? Have you had that happen to you? You say one thing and they twist it. You say blah, blah, blah. And it's not exactly what you said. It has nothing to do with what you said. They've changed it in their mind and they completely believe that's what you said. I find that extremely annoying. Or the mismatcha. If you say, the mismatcha is an interesting one. If you say the sky is blue, it's a bit cloudy. I can see a couple of clouds there. Or if you say, oh yeah, it's a bit cloudy. No, no, the sun is better. So whatever you say, they're going to say, they're going to question it, they're going to change it. And then the other one they came up is the negative people in workplaces that are always complaining, always focusing on what is bad, everything is bad. No one is doing their job and they're gossiping and it can be draining, can't it? And sometimes that's what makes them difficult. I mean, what do we need to know about these things from a psychological perspective? Sure. So with all of these things, the first step in being able to deal with the difficult people is to ask some questions of ourselves first and foremost. So what actually makes them difficult? And let's notice the language there. We're saying it's not really difficult people, it's a pattern of behavior that I find difficult. So why is it that I find that difficult? Is it that someone else might not find them difficult at all? Someone else might not have that problem. Maybe it's just me that finds them difficult. Or are they difficult because they're not doing what I want them to do? Is that really difficult? Or I'm just trying to control the situation. So trying to figure out really in specificity, what are those things that are pushing my buttons? What are those things that I can't stand? Because it's very much about me, not just about them. So the reason we want to be able to put the focus on ourselves to begin with is that to be able to handle that and to deal with the situation, we're going to first have to understand what's going on for us so that we can maintain our own sense of calm about it. And also because the chances of really being able to change another person, especially if it's ongoing behavior, it's almost part of their personality. It's the way they've operated for many, many years. The chances of being able to change that in them is probably quite slim. But if we, and even if we do manage to change someone else, there'll be others who come along that we find difficult anyway. So the key is being able to actually manage ourselves and our own reaction to this. So once we've narrowed down what it is specifically that we find so difficult, it's about exploring what's the possible lesson for us. So usually there's some belief or value of ours that's being violated. So I know it is. Let me explain that that's a belief or a value that is not matching up with a belief or value that I hold. So we have these ideas about how the world should work and how people should be in the world. But not everyone lives up to that. And so, although it should, we know anytime you're saying it should, it's never a great idea. So I'll give you a little example. Should everyone have my values? Yeah, everybody should all be the same. I mean, I've got a friend who's a wonderful person, really kind, really generous, the kind of person who's always there for you, but they have this thing where they just never say sorry. That's just, there's a whole, they don't believe in it. They have this whole sort of philosophical argument about you should never be sorry because life always happens for a reason, etc. But long story short, at the end of the day, they don't do that. So, you know, I can question that. I can say, well, what makes that so difficult for me? Well, that violates my belief that comes from my upbringing, for example, that if you make a mistake, you should say sorry. So there's this tension for me as the receiver. How can this person go through life and still succeed and still have friends if they never say sorry? That doesn't align for me. That's what I mean by violation. It doesn't align. So they're not living life the way that I thought was the best way to do it. And so one of the things that, you know, I noticed in this scenario is that when I explore this for myself and asking, well, why does this bother me so much? That allows you to make a decision. Well, is that really the case? Do I really want to let that bother me? Do I want to continue to have that get under my skin? And so once you can get to that point where you go, well, maybe a sorry is not needed. Then I started to notice, and it's very interesting, started to notice that this other person, even though they wouldn't give an apology where I would have expected one, whenever there'd been some sort of situation where it would have been reasonable in my view, they actually always took extra care to show extra attention. So they might, you know, if they've been something awkward, they might come around and bring, you know, some biscuits or cookies or something, or they go out of their way to help with something. So they weren't actually able to physically say sorry, but their actions did. So for me, being able to deal with that, you know, I was able to develop a bit of flexibility there in their response because the chances of changing them are very slim. So you're saying that if we let, if we let the need to control go, we feel better immediately. That's what I'm hearing you say. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now there is a flip side to that. Obviously, you don't want to go so far that anything's okay and, you know, you don't have any boundaries and you leave yourself open to being abused. Yeah, that's different. The point is to have that sort of reflection and take that moment to step back and look at what's really going on here for me. And whichever way you choose to respond after that, you'll be in a much better place to do it. So Peter, we talked about, you gave the example of someone who won't take accountability for their mistakes. What do you think's going on there for them? Well, the first one, the obvious one, okay, sometimes it's so obvious we miss it. It might not be a mistake at all. Maybe they're right and we're wrong. We're trying to push a point. So that's the first one we should consider. Are they actually right? Are they right on some things that they're saying and wrong in others? Can we find a commonality on that? That's also a good question. Maybe, maybe they can't see the mistake because their worldview, their experience and the biology have colluded to bring them to this point. Is there something else? Maybe they just disagree with the premise, your premise or the one that they think you have. Because I've noticed many times when people argue with me, they have a secret conversation in their head. They're hardly listening sometimes to what I'm saying. They have a conversation running in their head as to what you're saying that most of the time has nothing to do with the reality of my argument. So that's something also to use. Listen carefully. What is the conversation, the secret conversation I call it that is happening in their head? And what do I need to clarify in order to bring the conversation back to reality? Maybe they're just terrified. They're terrified. In a workplace context, a lot of people see a mistake as a deal breaker. They feel that the whole life is going to come undone if they are found out that they've made a mistake. I'm going to be fired. I'm going to lose face, all that kind of stuff. And then there are people that are simply perfectionists. And that's fear driven as well. So fear seems the commonality there. So the first thing to do when you have a person in front of you is address the fear. First, your fear, like you were talking about, your fear. What's my fear in this situation? Or I'm not being misunderstood. I'm going to be deemed an idiot. I'm going to be whatever that fear is, address it. Call it out in your head and then realize that whatever that fear is, most of the time it's pretty dim. It's not that important. Then find out what their fear is. You don't need to ask it, what are you afraid of? Of course, because people will go nothing. But you will notice from what they're saying that they have some concerns. People are not afraid. They have concerns. So address their concerns one by one if possible. And then ask yourself, they're saying this and I'm hearing this, but what else could it be? Could it be that my secret conversation now it's getting in the way of the communication? I'm making some conclusions as to what they mean. And then I'm missing the commonalities that we both have as human beings and as colleagues. And sometimes as friends. What is it that they're trying to achieve? So look at that's the third aspect. What is it that they're trying to achieve? And is it what I'm trying to achieve? If it is, let's say that you're both working in the clinic and you both want to give the best service to the customers coming in. So you can call it out. You can say, Gabriela, that's a good name. Gabriela, I see that you really care about the clients and that you really want them to have a good experience. And what do you think the difficult person because that is going to do? Yes, absolutely. Now you have a common ground. So me too, I really want blah, blah, blah. And I can see that you feel very strongly that this is one aspect around this. And then you can start talking commonalities. So that's an aspect of it if the person is reacting to fear. We have to be careful. They're not always reacting to difficult people. They're not always nice. But most of the time, and it is good for us to start from the premise that this person that we have in front of it is nice and they're trying their best because that gives us compassion. So what do you think, Peter, about surely there's people out there and it seems to be that some people just like to be difficult. So this is great to be compassionate and to take that as our starting point. What happens when we get to the point where it seems like someone's just deliberately trying to cause problems or be difficult? Okay, this is the case that they too are still stressed out. There's two aspects to people that want to be difficult. One is the person that is so stressed out that's given up and then they play the Joker. So they go in and say, I'm going to stir a little bit of shit today as a way of coping. So this person is not looking to hurt anyone. It's looking for fun. So if you are in front of one of these people, the best thing that you can do is have fun too. Introduce some humor into the conversation and start playing with them, not against them. Can you do that? You've got to be very careful that it doesn't come across as like you're belittling them. But you know, these people are in a playful mood. Of course, they're not thinking about the consequences because they're still afraid, but they're in a playful mood. So you want to deal with them differently. That's them. Now what happens to those people that actually enjoy hurting other people? They enjoy being difficult people. Well, the research says that three to four percent of the population is that kind of people. They're probably all on Facebook or Twitter or places like that acting as trolls. These people are not scared. They just enjoy doing that. And we call them sociopaths and psychopaths. The ones that want to kill you, they're psychopaths. You know, sociopaths and psychopaths. But we also have, well, they tend to be really narcissistic people, right? It's all about them, nobody else. So what do you do in that case? Well, you have to protect yourself. We had a question come in about that, Peter. I've got it here in front of me. I might just read it out. So one of the questions from the audience is that narcissism is a trait that's perhaps nurtured or beneficial in some industries. So, you know, climbing the corporate ladder, for example. But when do those narcissistic traits become pathological in workplaces and how do you manage them if it's colleagues or managers? In psychology, I find narcissism and one of those very difficult traits to, not to understand, because it's simple to understand narcissism and other people, but it's not so easy to understand narcissism in ourselves. You know, narcissism or the idea, the basic idea of narcissism, this idea that we are the center of our own world. Yeah, it's a basic human need. We need to be the center of our own world, biologically, psychologically and emotionally. We have a duty to take care of ourselves and our survival first. So that's a kind of low level narcissism. It's really high as you're a kid, because you know, your survival is everything. You're so little, you're in that state. And some people keep narcissism alive the whole life, and they never grow up really, because more mature people stop being that narcissistic. So sometimes it's a lack of maturity. Yes, in some places, narcissism is encouraged. I mean, in some industries, you have to have a degree of narcissism in order to succeed. I mean, imagine if you're in sales. You could think about it as extreme confidence, right? I mean, it's just all a scale. Everything that we talk about when it comes to psychology and mental health is always a continuum. It's always a scale. And you're always talking about extremes. Yeah, you're an important point. I have seen that in my life a few times in a clinical setting as well, where a confident person, it wasn't narcissistic, was actually quite compassionate, has been called a narcissist by an insecure person. So there was no narcissism. It's just that we're feeling insecure, and this person was confident. So that felt like a threat. So the psychology of this, these dynamics have to be respected. And a little bit of humility as an individual comes, goes a long way. Have they been really narcissistic? Are they really confident in an area that I'm not confident? And then they speak with certain authority. Am I reacting to my issue with authority? That could also be. But definitely in some industries, for example, a little bit of overconfident or narcissism helps. Yeah, I'm thinking of sales. If you're not a little bit narcissistic in sales to somewhat of a degree, you're not going to do very well in sales. Or you're not going to survive because you're going to get a lot of rejection. And, you know, I'm not saying that it's okay. I'm just saying that in some industries, yeah, yeah, and that might be beneficial. But most industries would not benefit from that. You want more humility. And also even top-rated salespeople, like the best ones in the world, are really humble people. They're not narcissistic at all. So that's a bit of the balance. So what did we do when it's not a narcissist, just a narcissist, but it goes into being a sociopath or a psychopath? Well, the first thing we want to do in a workplace with a psychopath or a sociopath, we can't throw them out if they haven't done anything wrong. But what psychopaths and sociopaths hate, hate is transparency and frankness. They hate that because they love to hide. They hide and they hide behind words, they hide behind actions. So the first thing to do is make sure that you have a lot of transparency in your workplace. If somebody tells you or don't say anything, but I said, no, no, no, no, you need to understand we're a team. And if you're going to tell me something, the whole team will know about it. And then that stops any kind of sociopathic behaviors being hidden. And then the psychopaths and sociopaths can't survive there and they will leave, which is a win-win situation in my book. But then just make sure that you're not calling somebody a sociopath simply because they have a difference of opinion from you. You might not think, oh, I'll take a typical example at the moment in the world, is climate change. To me, it seems to me like both camps tend to agree that there's climate change, they don't agree in what should be done to help the planet. But I see a lot of animosity and violence and aggression because there's a difference of opinion on what to do about it. And it's a shame because if they came together and they listened to each other, they could learn from each other and they could temper their responses. But if you're in front of a true psychopath or a sociopath, I had some very, very good advice from a guy, a gentleman that has spent a lot of years in jail, in very dangerous prisons. And he gives advice on how to survive prison. You learn a lot about psychology. And he talks about if you want to survive in prison, you are even more respectful and show honor to the person in front of you. You use even more, sir or madam or please thank you and apologize proficiently. I'm sorry, I didn't see you. But with real coming from the heart. And he says that's a lifesaver. If they don't see you, if you come in with an attitude from the beginning, then you're dead meat. Because, I mean, it doesn't get any more sociopathic and psychopathic than a prison environment. So I thought that was a good lesson that I learned a lot from that, you know, a dose of humility when dealing with sociopaths and psychopaths can go a long way. Yeah. So how do you avoid this? If you're aware that there's someone in your midst who has perhaps tendencies of these things and leaning this way, I think you want to, again, you're not going to change them. But first of all, you want to be aware. And second of all, you manipulate is not a problem until you allow yourself to be manipulated. So, again, there's a high degree in dealing with difficult people is so much about dealing with yourself and making sure you're taking that high degree of personal responsibility for how I interact in these scenarios, what I accept and what I don't accept. You know, I would say we teach people how to treat us. And so if we accept something once, then we've set a precedent. So we want to be really clear and compassionate at the same time on our boundaries. So it doesn't matter if someone's a deceitful manipulator or if they're just doing it out of fear and out of their own stuff. Either way, if we can be firm and compassionate while at the same time being clear on our boundaries. And be realistic. Be realistic. You know, I mean, to manipulate is a technique. It's not a hard condition. It's not a sole condition. It doesn't mean that the person is bad. We use manipulation with human beings. Some people call it seduction. Some people call it sale. It's all manipulation. And the words that we use. So it's influence and persuasion. So it all depends if you're either trying to hurt you, then that's a bad thing. But the other thing is keep it realistic. If you find out that's trying to manipulate manipulate you, don't get angry. Just don't be manipulated. That's it. That's all you need to do. But the other one is, as you say, stay firm of your boundaries. But the other thing that I wanted to bring is a dose of reality. Some people feel that they have to have the right answer for a sociopath and a psychopath. The right answer is show a lot of respect and run the other way. If you're not a psychopath, you're never going to win with a psychopath. So keep your distance. Keep your distance. Try not to have them in your team. If they're in your team, introduce transparency so they leave. So they leave because they hate transparency. They know that the game is up. So they can't play it. If you're in a relationship with a psychopath or a sociopath, leave. There's no way to win. Because a psychopath is willing to do more than us normal human beings are willing to do. So that's a good thing to realize and say, okay, I'm not going to win here. I better put some distance between me and that person. Maybe that's not why you want to hear. But the reality is that there are limits to what we can do nicely. Remember, we are definitely talking about extremes here. So there's been a lot of the popularization of these terms. I think does bring some damage because if we become too hyper vigilant for it, we start looking for problems and looking for signs of manipulation, for example, and we will find it everywhere. So just be aware, usually, let's go back to what we said at the beginning. Usually, people are trying to do their best. We all have baggage. We all have challenges. Start from there, but just be aware of these more extreme situations. My first question is always, who is being the psychopath here? Who is being the narcissist here? Who is being the manipulator? Is it me? It's easy. It's easy to blame people for all these things. But maybe it's me. And then I can change. I remember a researcher that is that writes books on sociopathy that when he did the test, he found out to his surprise that he was psychopathic. He hadn't realized that he was one of them. So he found that as a surprise. So it could be, it could be that sometimes we're the problem. Okay. So to recap, we've got, we've looked at three steps, basically. Step one, reflect for myself why do I find this so difficult? What's the value or belief that's being violated for me? Step two, what could be going on for them from a compassionate space to understand their intention and their, and as Peter suggested, that's a brilliant technique to look for that common points of agreement and go from there. And step three, respond from a place where you're not trying to control the situation, but you're taking personal responsibility for your own response. And that will be your best guide. Of course, every situation is going to be different. But as you take responsibility for your own response, theirs becomes less important, less difficult to manage. And step four, sometimes with some people, if you can run the other way. Yeah. Great. So that brings us to the end of our mental health lives. We managed to do a short one finally. We're learning. For this month anyway, thank you for joining us. I hope you found them useful. And we continue to take your questions and comments because we'll be continuing talking about these issues for a long time to come in different formats. So definitely please stay in touch. Subscribe to the channels. We've got lots of videos on YouTube as well, by the way. So make sure to check that out. YouTube is a source for content and information there. We encourage you to go there. And very nice to see you all. Thank you for your love and your support. And have a wonderful rest of the month, not a lot left, but wonderful rest of the month and a wonderful November coming. All right. See you then. Bye-bye. Hi, I'm Amy Golding, Director of Psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute. We hope you liked the video. If you did, make sure to give it a thumbs up. We have more and more videos being released each week. So when you subscribe, you'll get a notification letting you know when a new one's just been published. So make sure to hit that subscribe button and don't miss out on this vital information for yourself, your colleagues, and your loved ones.