Difficult people can make life hard, but a select few can make it hell. The boss with nonsensical demands. The spouse who explodes at nothing. The overly emotional coworker, hostile neighbor, or friend who frequently bursts into tears.

Marriages, families, friendships, careers, businesses--crazy people drag them all down with their manipulation, volatility, and inability to see the world rationally. You can't win by just ignoring the craziness or trying to reason with it. But you can stop it cold.

Top-ranked psychiatrist and communication expert Mark Goulston shows you how in Talking to Crazy, a life-changing book for everyone trapped in personal or workplace relationships that feel confusing, stressful, or downright hopeless.

Goulston unlocks the mysteries of the irrational mind, and explains how faulty thinking patterns develop. His keen insights are matched by a set of counterintuitive strategies proven to defuse crazy behavior, along with scripts, examples, and exercises that teach you how to use them. You'll learn how to:

- Activate the powerful Sanity Cycle--which changes you from a threat to an ally

- Gain more control of interactions by identifying the person's modus operandi (their strategy for acting out and making you feel crazy)

- Lean into the person's crazy--since being rational won't work

- Neutralize your own crazy (we all have a little) and stay calm in any situation

- Deploy 14 simple, effective techniques for talking a person back to sanity, including assertive submission, flattery, the kiss-off, and more

- Use the 8 tactics that specifically target the behavior of partners, teenagers, aging parents, and other important people in your life

- Call in reinforcements when you're facing a serious disorder

You shouldn't have to suffer through people's crazy behavior. When the weeping, condescension, whining, withdrawal, or attack-dog antics erupt, Talking to Crazy arms you with a psychiatrist's perspective and potent communication tools for handling the problem. Almost instantly, you'll transform difficult encounters into productive conversations and forge workable, even warm, relationships with people who once drove you nuts.

Mark Goulston, MD, is a top psychiatrist, consultant, coach, and business adviser. Author of the bestselling Just Listen and Get Out of Your Own Way as well as other popular books, he blogs for Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Business Insider, Huffington Post, and Psychology Today; cohosts a weekly radio show; and is featured frequently in major media, including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, CNN, Fox News, and the TODAY show.

Cynthia Johnson