Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life by Mark Goulston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another of my “on sale, looks interesting” reads, Talking to Crazy focuses on dealing with irrational (“crazy”) people, running a range from annoying co-workers to potential mass murderers. Yes, there is a chapter on dealing with people who may be thinking of getting a gun and doing some people huntin’.
Talking to Crazy is not a book for people who like lots of data, studies and stats to back up the claims and advice on offer. Goulston has many years of experience as a psychiatrist and draws on anecdotes from that experience to illustrate the strategies he lays out. He also admits that mental health can be at times a lot trickier to diagnose and treat than physical ailments and frequently cautions that some of his advise should be used with caution or not used at all without the assistance of a mental health professional.
Most of the strategies revolve around empathy–listening to the irrational person, letting them know you understand they are upset, not judging, not offering solutions (at least not immediately). Much of this is common sense but Goulston provides detailed steps and often explicit phrases or wordings to use.
The book turns increasingly darker as it moves from dealing with people you may not need to interact with (his advice on those is: don’t) to co-workers and then family. He covers how to handle those with genuine mental disorders like schizophrenia (mostly by sensibly letting mental health care workers do the heavy lifting) and ends with strategies on handling people who may be thinking of suicide (yikes) or those who may be primed to follow in the steps of the many mass murderers of late. Here he chillingly warns parents of potential killers that if they are worried about saying something lest they become a target that they are already targets before they say a single word.
It’s hard to refute the advice given, as so much of it is both common sense and comes from a solid core of providing empathy and withholding judgment. In essence, Goulston is saying that the best way to deal with irrational people is to keep yourself in check, so you don’t join in on the accusations, fear and anger. He emphasizes this by spending a section of the book with a series of exercises that force the reader to reflect and self-assess, to look for their own weaknesses and learn to manage or overcome them.
Much of the advice will be difficult for people to act on. Goulston comes across as outgoing and forthright. The timid will find it challenging to say most of the things he thinks is necessary to defuse irrational people and begin the process of turning their behavior toward the positive. But just rehearsing the steps alone may help bolster someone’s confidence and push them that much closer to trying.
Talking to Crazy is written in a highly accessible style and the heavy use of anecdotes gives the book the feel of a conversation, rather than a checklist of things to do. I fortunately don’t have to deal with anyone I’d flat-out call irrational, so I’m unlikely to use the advice anytime soon. The advice is solid and presented well, though. I would have preferred more data to back up the strategies but this is a more of a nitpick. Talking to Crazy is not a data-driven book and the advice remains useful and at times thought-provoking all the same.