I heard Rachel Sampson and Jessie Stern on ABC podcast All in the Mind last year when their book first came out. They were talking to host Sana Qadar about narcissists, and I learned a lot. For instance, the prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder is much lower than you’d think, given the hordes of selfish, entitled, rude, self-absorbed, bad-mannered arseholes out there. Oops! Sorry.
I learned a lot from this book, too. Lucid explanations make this a good introduction to concepts such as neurodiversity, relational schemas, emotional regulation, cognitive distortion and relational ‘red flags’. They view the ‘difficult person’ through the lens of attachment theory, which tells us that infants need a secure bond with their mother or other caregiver for optimal emotional and psychological development. The idea is that insecurely attached infants may grow up to be difficult adults.
As I read, I looked back on the very few difficult workplace relationships I’ve encountered – yes, I have been lucky – and while this approach would have been useful in attempting to understand what could be driving the problematic behaviour, it would also have required a great deal of perspective and empathy. Caught up in distress and anxiety, I would have found both of those very hard to achieve. So this is a book more for calm reflection than first aid.
However, the core message is that difficult relationships are inevitable. The authors counsel that while there are ways to repair them through communication, insight, empathy and compassion, there are also times when the wiser course is to simply step away.