Beyond Difficult: An attachment-based guide to dealing with challenging people

by Rachel Samson, Unknown Author

Do you sometimes dread work because you don't want to face more drama with your co-worker? Have you spent significant time and money on therapy trying to work on painful romantic relationships that ultimately became messy break-ups? Do you ever walk away from an unpleasant conversation wishing you had known how to handle it better in the moment? This book is for you.

Australian clinical psychologist Rachel Samson and American attachment researcher Dr Jessie Stern have come together to bring you the ultimate guide to understanding the 'difficult' people in your life. Learn how to navigate your interactions with them with more confidence and compassion – and a lot less stress!

Using the science of attachment and temperament, Beyond Difficult offers a new, relationship-focused approach to mastering the art of dealing with difficult people.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology

Paperback

Reviews

[Rosie Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

Needed some advice😂

[Anna]

This book was fundamental in helping me understand how to think about, progress and handle a relationship with a really difficult, or indeed, beyond difficult person in my family. It's also helped me in my relationships with others who are affected by that person's behaviours in different ways to me. Highly recommended!

[matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wowee, 3 star book but it gets an extra star because of how much I really took away and reflected on. First couple chapters are still my favourite because of how they layout the different societal understandings of “difficult” behaviour, and how it develops and then presents. Loved and will keep talking about it with anyone that will listen !

[Rachel Coutinho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being extra sensitive and over emotional, this book was useful to help me understand why, and how to manage my own emotions. This was useful contect to understand others in order to deal with 'difficult' people.

Highly recommend!

[Isabella P · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW. I don't usually review books, but so many people would benefit from reading this book. It was so well written and had so much practical advice. The two authors should be very proud of this book!

[Rosie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book with extensive information on different behaviours and ways to think about them. My hope was that I could recommend it to clients as an addition to therapy but instead I could only recommend it to novice therapists. It has way too much information for the average person, so much that if I was reading it for myself I'd feel immense pressure to be a therapist for those 'difficult' people in my life. It has too much information on various styles of therapy and their aspects that can be useful to the topic but to the point where I would say was too broad.

[Kim Wakefield · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 9%

The production of this audiobook is horrendous. I can hear the VA swallow her saliva and breathing into the microphone - which sounds harsh, but it I don’t hear it with other audiobooks.

Additionally, the brief acknowledgment of neurodiversity, only to spout studies on temperament that didn’t appear to consider neurodiversity makes this a difficult resource to take seriously, even if I’m only 9% into it.

[Hew Parham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a really useful and insightful guide at a difficult time and did highlight to me a couple of issues that have been going on. The audiobook however is poorly recorded and needs a better engineering mix on it.

[Nora Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this book didn’t bring anything new to the table that I didn’t read already. It’s kind like a 101 for attachment styles and communication skills.
I agree with a previous review, the narrator did not do a great job.