Talking to Crazy, How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life, by Mark Goulston, Amacom 2015
With decades of experience working with anorexics, heroin addicts and delusional schizophrenics, as well as homicidal criminals in hostage situations, and business leaders, those executive types who undoubtedly, if they are not crazy themselves, face daily crazy reactions and forays, Goulston hands us a system. And for every type of crazy you face - whether its a mumbling subway crazy sprawled on the platform, a crazy highway crazy dodging and weaving his way - on the cell phone - down the pike, or even your own teenage crazies or elderly parent crazies.
For example, do you know how to do the Belly Roll (a form of assertive submission to defuse a tense situation), or the Fishbowl (to engage an irrational person's empathy neurons), Eye of the Hurricane (finding the sane inside the crazy), and my favorite Frenemies (especially for handling a toxic deflector at work)/ Goulston offers these and ten more types and appropriate responses for Everyday Crazy.
And then there are the Family Crazies - from the passive aggressive partner, to healing a broken relationship with an adult child, to convincing a fragile yet proud and stubborn aging parent to accept help. All these crazies are covered with a range of workable techniques from Goulston's vast library of psycho-social experiences. Further, he trains us to understand a crazy's M.O. by finding consistent patterns in what appears at first to be an irrational behavior pattern.
And finally, Goulston offers us a way out - because not all crazies are necessary to our happy existence, and sometimes the work isn't worth the return. You'll find in "Knowing When to Talk to Crazy and When to Walk Away," the author's valued perspective on this quandary:
Psychiatrists spend a lot of time trying to help people who've been hurt, humiliated, manipulated, stabbed in the back, financially ruined, or even driven nearly to the point of suicide by the irrational people in their lives. And what we know is that all too often, these diligent daughters, loyal sons, martyred spouses, and devoted friends or colleagues aren't doing themselves or the people who are driving them crazy any good. They're just throwing their own lives away.