How to Cope Up with Difficult people

1. COPING WITH
DIFFICULT PEOPLE
Deexan Cases

2. 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 .

4. 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.

5. The Source of Our
Emotions and Behavior

6. • Our emotions and behavior are
result mainly from our beliefs and
self talk, rather than from the
actual events and people in our
lives.

7. • It’s not unpleasant people,
who cause our distress, but
rather our beliefs and self talk
about them and their
behavior.

8. • We are responsible for creating
our own emotions. If difficult
acting people upset us, we have
given them permission to do so.

9. ABC OF Our EmOtiOns
Actions of a
difficult Anxiety,
person Anger,
Heightened
Frustration

10. 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.

11. 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?

12. 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,

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. FIRST DEAL WITH OUR
OWN DISTRESS, THEN
WITH THE DIFFICULT
PERSON

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. YOU CAN’T MANAGE
RELATIONSHIPS
UNTIL YOU MANAGE
YOUR EMOTIONS

21. Five Abilities Of Emotional
Intelligence
Knowing our Emotions
Managing our Emotions
Recognizing Emotions in Others
Managing relationships with others
Motivating ourselves to achieve our
Goals.

22. Thank you!!!