Narcissist, or just a pain? How to deal with difficult people
All In The Mind
ABC
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 1 November 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You know how certain people are just… difficult? Maybe they're prickly to be around, don't take feedback well, or act like a narcissist?
Today we're learning how to handle relationships with difficult people; from setting boundaries, to understanding the role of attachment and temperament on behaviour.
Plus, is it ever the right time to cut someone off completely? And what's a 'highly sensitive person' (HSP)?
Got a question about a difficult person in your life? Send us an email at [email protected] with the subject line "mailbag episode: difficult people".
Guests:
Rachel SamsonClinical psychologistCo-author, Beyond Difficult
Dr Jessie SternDevelopmental psychologist and researcherCo-author, Beyond Difficult
Credits:
- Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
- Senior producer: James Bullen
- Producer: Rose Kerr
- Sound engineer: Micky Grossman
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.
Extra information:
Beyond Difficult, An attachment-based guide to dealing with challenging people
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. |
| 0:08.4 | I'm David Marr, host of Late Night Live on ABC Radio National, |
| 0:12.6 | where we're still doing what we've done for nearly 40 years, |
| 0:16.1 | examining what really matters in this changing world. |
| 0:19.3 | It's a power grab in advance. |
| 0:22.2 | And it felt fugitive, an alternative. |
| 0:25.4 | And people were willing to take risks. |
| 0:27.8 | Hear it now with four brand new episodes each week on the ABC Listen app. |
| 0:44.8 | Have you ever dealt with someone so infuriating, so needy, so combative, or arrogant, |
| 0:50.5 | that you wondered, who hurt you? Why the hell are you so damn difficult? |
| 0:57.8 | Well, we're going to try and answer that question today because as much as you might want to write certain people off as narcissists or insert preferred label here, often there |
| 1:04.2 | are other more subtle, more accurate factors at play. |
| 1:08.1 | It is very common now to slap that narcissistic label on anyone who's got difficult |
| 1:13.6 | behaviour. The prevalence rates are much lower than the frequency of people sort of applying |
| 1:20.6 | that label to their friend or their boss or their ex-partner. |
| 1:23.6 | And if you can learn to consider the more common factors that often drive difficult behavior, |
| 1:29.0 | we'll get into what those are exactly. |
| 1:31.2 | You'll have a better time understanding difficult people and a better time dealing with them. |
| 1:36.1 | She was emotionally very volatile. |
| 1:38.6 | She could turn on a dime and be extremely critical. |
| 1:41.4 | But I think the more compassionate way of understanding my grandmother is not |
| 1:45.8 | the label. The more useful way of understanding her is to think about the little girl who was still |
... |
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