Difficult people and radical acceptance: answering your questions about tricky relationships

All In The Mind

ABC

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Difficult people are everywhere. Maybe you're one of them, or maybe you're about to sit through an awkward holiday situation with someone you REALLY don't know how to handle.

This week, clinical psychologist Rachel Samson returns to answer all your questions on challenging people from the All in the Mind mailbox.

How do I deal with my coworker who's crossing boundaries? Should I try and make peace with my problematic family member?

We'll answer these questions and more — from how to avoid becoming a difficult person yourself, to the power of radical acceptance.

Thank you for listening to All in the Mind this year! If you have an episode idea for next year or want to send some feedback, you can email us at [email protected]

Guest:

Rachel SamsonClinical psychologistCo-author, Beyond DifficultDirector of the Australian Association of Psychologists

Rachael Samson also appeared on our episode in November called Narcissist, or just a pain? How to deal with difficult people.

Credits:

Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
Senior producer: James Bullen
Producer: Rose Kerr
Sound engineer: Bethany Stewart

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more.
0:07.4	They prayed, they preached, they rebelled.
0:10.6	From God forbid, this is the Religious Rebels podcast,
0:14.8	the stories of people who defied empires and sometimes paid with their lives.
0:20.1	From Joan of Arc's battlefield visions to Malcolm X's
0:23.5	final revelation, we tell the stories of those who defied faith and remade it. Religious rebels,
0:31.3	the original disruptors. Search for God forbid ABC, wherever you get your podcasts are on the ABC Listen
0:36.9	app. Hey, I'm Sana Kh podcasts are on the ABC Listen app.
0:39.1	Hey, I'm Sana Khadar.
0:43.6	From ABC Radio National, this is all in the mind, Mailbag Edition.
0:56.5	So if you cast your mind back to November, if you're a regular listener, you'll know we ran an episode titled narcissist or just a pain Just a Pain, How to Deal with Difficult People. It is very common now to slap that narcissistic label on anyone who's got difficult behaviour.
1:03.0	The prevalence rates are much lower.
1:05.5	That episode seemed to really touch a nerve because we had a huge response afterwards.
1:11.2	A lot of you sent us follow-up questions.
1:13.9	You wanted to know things like what to do if you realize that you yourself are a difficult
1:18.9	person, what to do when your adult children are difficult, and a whole lot more.
1:24.3	And so we've brought back clinical psychologist, Rachel Sampson, who was in that first
1:28.7	episode, to answer your questions. Hello. Hi, how are you? I'm good, thank you. And one of the
1:35.2	topics we get into in this discussion is radical acceptance. What that really means and why it might
1:42.8	just be the sanity saving measure you need to navigate your difficult relationships.
1:47.7	People are often stuck in, you know, how could someone think like this?
1:51.6	I would never have that view.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 4 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from ABC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of ABC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.