Difficult People
How to Deal with Difficult People: 9 Sessions, Sorted by Who They Are
Their name lights up your phone and your jaw is set before you have read a word. This page sorts the person first, because that decides what comes next, then gives you free steps with some research behind them and guided sessions that give you a set, repeatable time to relax and rehearse them.
First: is this someone who frightens you?A partner, ex or family member who frightens you, controls who you see, checks your phone, isolates you or hurts you is abusing you, not being difficult. 1800RESPECT lists gaslighting and coercive control as abuse, and in NSW coercive control of a current or former intimate partner has been a crime since 1 July 2024. This site does not sell a recording for that situation.
- 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732, or text 0458 737 732, 24/7. In danger, call 000.
- Worried about your own behaviour? Men’s Referral Service, 1300 766 491.
- Bullying at work: the Fair Work Commission can order it to stop (not award compensation). Your state safety regulator, union, EAP or GP can help too.
- Low for weeks? A GP can refer you under Medicare’s Better Access. Lifeline 13 11 14, Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636. Relationships Australia, 1300 364 277, counsels families.
Nine sessions, sorted by who the person is
Each a guided, repeatable time to relax and rehearse staying steady with one kind of difficult person. None is for someone who frightens you.
US$18.95each · one-off · about A$27 · ninety-day refund
Find the one that fits ↓Every session is an instant MP3 from the publisher, with ninety days to change your mind. Checkout opens on hypnosisdownloads.com in a new tab.
Chosen by Ernest McLeodClinical hypnotherapist. An Adelaide practice, seeing clients across Australia by video. Fourteen years in practice. About Ernest →
I earn a commission if you buy any of these sessions. You pay the same, and it has no say in which one I point you to, or whether I point you to a phone number instead.
Is a recording second best to seeing someone?
Not necessarily. The largest recent review of hypnosis for pain (Yim and Derbyshire, 2026) compared how it was delivered and found no meaningful difference between a live clinician, a recording and self-hypnosis. That research was on pain, not on difficult people, but it’s the best evidence there is that a recording isn’t a second-rate version of sitting in a room with someone.
Which of these happened this week?
- You rehearsed a conversation in the shower, and lost it there too
- Your stomach dropped at a name on the screen, message unopened
- You apologised for something you are fairly sure you didn’t do
- You sat in the car outside for a minute before going in
- One sentence of theirs was still playing at two in the morning
Two or more? The table sorts which kind this is.
Who is this person to you?
That matters more than what they do. The same silent treatment means one thing from a flatmate and another from a partner you can’t afford to leave. Who they are decides whether a recording belongs anywhere near this, and whose job it is to sort out: yours, your employer’s, or a service built for abuse. So the table sorts by who, then by what.
| If this is your version of it… | Start with | Who it is wrong for |
|---|---|---|
| A partner or ex who frightens, controls or checks up on you | 1800RESPECT, 1800 737 732 | Every recording sold here |
| A family member you live with or rely on, doing the same | 1800RESPECT. In danger, 000 | Every recording sold here |
| A boss or colleague, again and again, and your health is suffering | Cope with Bullying, plus HR, a union or the Fair Work Commission | Wrong as the only step |
| A friend, relative or colleague who makes everything about them, and the fault yours | Dealing with the Narcissist | Wrong for a partner who frightens you |
| Sulks, digs, long silences and “I’m fine” | The Passive Aggressive | Wrong if the silence is a punishment you fear |
| Someone who shouts, looms over you or slams doors | The Angry Bully, below | Wrong if you fear for your safety: call the police |
| A colleague, friend or relative who insists things never happened | Dealing with the Gaslighter, below | Never for a partner |
| Someone who needs it done their way, and takes over | The Control Freak, below | Wrong once it reaches your money, your phone or your friends |
| Someone who finds fault with everything you do | The Secret of Dealing with the Negative Critic, below | Wrong if the criticism comes with threats |
| Put-downs that freeze you, the reply arriving an hour later | Master Verbal Self Defense, below | Wrong if you want to win the argument |
| “After everything I’ve done for you” | The Guilt Tripper, below, with the free steps | Not when guilt is used to isolate you: 1800RESPECT |
What are the first signs of a controlling person?
Two different things get called control. One is a style: the relative who reloads your dishwasher, the colleague who redoes your slides, often with anxiety or perfectionism underneath. The other is aimed at you: rules, your phone checked, limits on money or friends, and fear of breaking them. The NSW Government calls that coercive control, and says it “isn’t an accident”.
The publisher wrote The Control Freak with relationships in mind. I list it only for the first kind, the habits that exhaust you without frightening you.
What kind of person is a gaslighter?
Someone who deliberately and repeatedly makes you doubt your own memory or sanity: denying what you both saw, insisting a conversation never happened. 1800RESPECT lists it as psychological abuse. A 2026 systematic review by Adair found the term “often inconsistently defined”. Remembering a night differently isn’t gaslighting.
From a partner, an ex or someone you live with, it belongs with the box at the top. Dealing with the Gaslighter, below, is for the colleague who rewrites what was agreed in the meeting, or the friend or relative who says you are imagining things without frightening or controlling you. Never for a partner.
What is guilt tripping, and how do you answer it?
Guilt tripping is using your sense of obligation to steer you: “after everything I’ve done for you”, the long sigh when you say you can’t come for Christmas. It isn’t a clinical term, and no trial has tested how best to answer it. The nearest research is on assertiveness, below. The Guilt Tripper session is a set time to rehearse holding your decision.
In practice, separate the feeling from the decision. Guilt tells you someone is unhappy with your choice, not that the choice is wrong. Say it once, kindly, and don’t reopen it. Guilt used to cut you off from friends, or threats to self-harm if you leave, are on 1800RESPECT’s list of abuse.
What qualifies as bullying in the workplace?
In Australian law, repeated unreasonable behaviour towards a worker that creates a risk to health and safety. That is section 789FD of the Fair Work Act. Reasonable management action carried out reasonably isn’t bullying, so a fair performance review doesn’t count. In a national survey in 2014-15, about 1 in 10 Australian workers said they had been bullied in the previous six months.
The Fair Work Commission can order bullying to stop, but can’t order compensation or discipline anyone. If you aren’t covered, your state safety regulator is the route. The bullying at work page covers the Sunday-night dread and the sleep.
What can you do this week that costs nothing?
Four things that cut across every row. Two come down to rehearsal, and the sessions below give you a set time for that.
- Write it down the same day
What happened, when, where, and who else was there. Beyond Blue advises exactly this for workplace bullying. It settles the 2am argument with yourself about what was said, and it gives HR something concrete.
- Rehearse one sentence out loud
Write the one sentence you want to say, short, with no explanation attached: “I’m not going to discuss that now.” Say it in the car until it bores you. A 2023 review by Chen and colleagues pooled 9 studies of assertiveness training (804 people) and found speaking up improved, SMD 0.58. Those were nurses raising safety concerns, not your brother-in-law.
- Give yourself a daily stretch of calm
Twenty minutes of slow breathing, a walk, or one of the recordings. Richardson and Rothstein’s 2008 meta-analysis of 36 workplace stress studies found a medium-to-large effect on stress; cognitive-behavioural programmes did best, and relaxation was the most common. It reaches your stress, not their behaviour.
- Decide how much contact you want
Many people cut contact back, or keep replies short and flat, the “grey rock” idea. That is a popular idea with no research behind it: a PubMed search finds two papers, both 1980s anthropology about a Newfoundland fishing village. If going flat or distant feels dangerous, that is a 1800RESPECT question.
Five sessions on this page, and what each is for
Each is US$18.95, about A$27, an instant MP3. The other three have their own pages, linked in the table. Listed by what the publisher says each has sold.
Master Verbal Self Defense
For freezing when you are belittled. It rehearses staying relaxed, not comebacks.
The Secret of Dealing with the Negative Critic
For someone who finds fault with everything, at work or at home.
The Angry Bully
For a shouter. The shortest here. If you fear for your safety, call the police.
The Control Freak
For controlling habits that wear you out, not control that frightens you. The longest here.
Dealing with the Gaslighter
For a colleague, friend or relative who rewrites what happened and doesn’t frighten or control you. Never for a partner.
The Guilt Tripper
For a friend, relative or colleague who steers you with guilt.
Lifetime purchases, self-reported by the publisher and not audited: 1,956, 883, 852, 543, 151 and 549, in the order above; 1,159, 420 and 352 for the narcissist, passive-aggressive and bullying sessions. A count shows what people chose, not results.
What has and hasn’t been studied
A PubMed search run on 25 September 2026 paired hypnosis with bullying, narcissism, gaslighting, coercive control, passive aggression, assertiveness and interpersonal conflict. It found no controlled trial of hypnosis for coping with any of them.
The nearest is everyday stress. In a German trial of 95 stressed adults, Fisch and colleagues gave one group five weekly hypnosis group sessions plus recordings for home practice; they rated their stress lower than people given a booklet, still at 12 weeks. A booklet is a weak comparison, the authors teach hypnosis, and the recordings were never tested alone. A 2017 review of nine earlier trials called the evidence “unclear”.
Who are these nine wrong for?
Mostly the table’s first rows again, because these are the situations where a person or a service should come before any recording. It is about order: the right help first, and a recording, if you still want one, alongside it.
- A partner, ex or family member frightens or controls you.
- You hope a recording will change the other person. It can’t.
- It is bullying at work and nobody who can act knows yet.
- Low mood has lasted weeks, or you have thought about not wanting to be here.
- You worry your own behaviour frightens someone: 1300 766 491.
Free and confidential, open now. Tap to call.
Common questions about difficult people
How do you deal with difficult people?
Start with who they are. A partner or family member who frightens or controls you is a matter for 1800RESPECT; repeated bullying at work goes to HR, a union or the Fair Work Commission. For everyone else: keep a dated record, rehearse one short sentence, decide how much contact you want, and look after your own stress.
Is it gaslighting if we remember things differently?
No. Gaslighting means deliberately and repeatedly making someone doubt their memory or sanity. Two people remembering an evening differently is ordinary. 1800RESPECT lists gaslighting as psychological abuse, and from a partner or family member it is a sign of coercive control. If that is what is happening, ring 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732.
Can a narcissist change?
Nobody can promise that, and you can’t make it happen. A systematic review by Dhawan and colleagues found no treatment studies for narcissistic personality disorder that met its criteria, and the Cleveland Clinic tells families plainly that you can’t change someone with NPD. What you can change is your contact, your limits and your own support.
Can passive-aggressive people change?
Some may, but research can’t tell you how often. Passive-aggressive personality disorder was left out of DSM-5, and there is no controlled study of how best to respond to the behaviour. Calm, direct questions are sensible advice rather than a tested method. What you control is whether the hints get a reaction.
Does hypnosis help with difficult people?
A recording gives you a structured, repeatable time to relax and rehearse staying steady and speaking up, beside the free steps. Whether hypnosis itself helps hasn’t been tested: no controlled trial exists for coping with bullying, narcissism, gaslighting or passive aggression. The nearest trial was on general stress, with group sessions as well as recordings.
Which of the nine sessions is mine?
Go by who the person is first, then by what they do. A partner or family member who frightens you is never a recording question. After that, the table sorts by behaviour: blame, silences, shouting, rewriting what happened, control, criticism or put-downs.
Where to go next
- Dealing with the NarcissistEverything comes back to them, and somehow it is your fault.
- Cope with BullyingA boss or colleague, and the dread starts on Sunday.
- The Passive AggressiveDigs, silences and “I’m fine”.
- AssertivenessIf saying no is hard with everyone.
Where these numbers come from
- Yim TH, Derbyshire SWG. A systematic review of hypnosis for clinical pain relief. Eur J Pain. 2026;30(8):e70369. doi:10.1002/ejp.70369
- 1800RESPECT. Domestic and family violence [Internet]. [cited 2026 Sep 25]. 1800respect.org.au
- 1800RESPECT. Psychological abuse [Internet]. [cited 2026 Sep 25]. 1800respect.org.au
- NSW Government. Coercive control and the law [Internet]. [cited 2026 Sep 25]. nsw.gov.au
- NSW Government. What is coercive control? [Internet]. [cited 2026 Sep 25]. nsw.gov.au
- Adair J. Defining gaslighting in gender-based violence: a mixed-methods systematic review. Trauma Violence Abuse. 2026;27(4):1409-24. doi:10.1177/15248380251344316
- Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 789FD. austlii.edu.au
- Fair Work Commission. How we help stop workplace bullying [Internet]. [cited 2026 Sep 25]. fwc.gov.au
- Safe Work Australia. Bullying and harassment in Australian workplaces: results from the Australian Workplace Barometer 2014-15 [Internet]. 2016 [cited 2026 Sep 25]. safeworkaustralia.gov.au
- Beyond Blue. Workplace bullying, harassment and mental health [Internet]. [cited 2026 Sep 25]. beyondblue.org.au
- Chen HW, Wu JC, Kang YN, Chiu YJ, Hu SH. Assertive communication training for nurses to speak up in cases of medical errors: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nurse Educ Today. 2023;126:105831. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2023.105831
- Richardson KM, Rothstein HR. Effects of occupational stress management intervention programs: a meta-analysis. J Occup Health Psychol. 2008;13(1):69-93. doi:10.1037/1076-8998.13.1.69
- Dhawan N, Kunik ME, Oldham J, Coverdale J. Prevalence and treatment of narcissistic personality disorder in the community: a systematic review. Compr Psychiatry. 2010;51(4):333-9. doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2009.09.003
- Cleveland Clinic. Narcissistic personality disorder [Internet]. [cited 2026 Sep 25]. my.clevelandclinic.org
- Lewis KC, Ridenour JM, Pitman S, Roche M. Evaluating stable and situational expressions of passive-aggressive personality disorder: a multimethod experience sampling case study. J Pers Assess. 2021;103(4):558-70. doi:10.1080/00223891.2020.1818572
- Fisch S, Trivaković-Thiel S, Roll S, et al. Group hypnosis for stress reduction and improved stress coping: a multicenter randomized controlled trial. BMC Complement Med Ther. 2020;20(1):344. doi:10.1186/s12906-020-03129-6
- Fisch S, Brinkhaus B, Teut M. Hypnosis in patients with perceived stress: a systematic review. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2017;17(1):323. doi:10.1186/s12906-017-1806-0
Ernest McLeod — clinical hypnotherapist. An Adelaide practice, seeing clients across Australia by video. Fourteen years in practice.
- ICHP
- FELLOW, ASCH
- IICT MEMBER
My job here was deciding which difficult people get a recording and which get a phone number. More →
Two things for this week: start the dated record tonight, and write down the one sentence you keep failing to say.
Ninety days to change your mind. Email the publisher your order number for a full refund, no questions asked, one order per customer. The promise is theirs; I only pass it on.
Results vary from person to person, and hypnosis does not replace medical care or treatment. Self-help audio, not a substitute for professional care, and never a response to abuse. If someone frightens or controls you: 1800RESPECT, 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732; in danger, 000. Never listen while driving.