Coping With Difficult People Workbook - Facilitator Reproducible Guided Self-Exploration Activities

Reproducible Assessments, Exercises & Educational Handouts

The Coping with Difficult People Workbook contains assessments and guided self-exploration activities that can be used by practitioners with a variety of populations to help participants cope more effectively with the difficult people in their lives.

Difficult people are everywhere. Difficult people are those who frustrate us to no end. (In fact, others may view each of us as a difficult person.) We encounter difficult people at home, in the workplace, school, grocery market, anywhere. Often how much they affect us depends on our self-esteem, ability to recognize hot buttons and effectiveness of communication skills. Because participants will encounter difficult people in all aspects of their lives, it is important for them to learn a way of dealing with them.

In this book, Coping with Difficult People Workbook, we teach a specific model that participants can use to build positive relationships with difficult people.

Each chapter of this workbook begins with an annotated Table of Contents with notes and examples for the facilitator. Each chapter contains two primary elements:

1) A set of assessments to help participants gather information about themselves in a focused situation,and

2) A set of guided self-exploration activities to help participants process information and learn effective ways of coping with the difficult people they encounter.

Activities are divided into four chapters to help you identify and select assessments easily and quickly:

Chapter 1: Types of Difficult People
This chapter helps participants identify and learn about the various types of difficult people they may encounter.

Chapter 2: Communicating with Difficult People
This chapter helps participants learn their strengths in communicating, and learn more effective ways of communicating with difficult people in their lives.

Chapter 3: Coping Skills
This chapter helps participants explore how well they are coping with difficult people, and learn some alternative techniques for ways to cope.

Chapter 4: Assertive Confrontation Style
This chapter helps participants explore their style in confronting difficult people, and learn effective confrontational tools and techniques.

All of the guided activities are fully reproducible for use with your clients/participants.

John J. Liptak, EdD, frequently conducts workshops on assessment-related topics. He has written three books on career-related topics and these books have been featured in numerous newspapers including The Washington Post and The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His work has also been featured on MSNBC, CNN Radio and on the PAX / ION television series, Success without a College Degree. John has many years of experience in providing counseling services to individuals and groups in a variety of settings including job training programs, correctional institutions, and colleges and universities. In addition, John has about ten years of teaching experience as an assistant professor. With Kathy Khalsa and Ester Leutenberg, he has written three other comprehensive books for teachers and counselors to use with their students and clients: The Self-Esteem Program, The Social Skills Program and The Stress Management Program: Inventories, Activities & Educational Handouts. With Whole Person Associates, he and Ester Leutenberg continue to co-write books to add to their Mental Health & Life Skills Workbook series.

Ester R.A. Leutenberg has worked in the mental health field for many years as a publisher, author and advocate for those suffering from loss. She personally experienced a devastating loss when her son Mitchell, after struggling with a mental illness for eight years, died by suicide in 1986. Soon after, as a way of both healing and helping others, Ester co-founded Wellness Reproductions & Publishing with her daughter Kathy Khalsa and began developing therapeutic products that help facilitators help their clients. Ester is the co-author of the SEALS series for teen-agers, Life Management Skills series for adults and Meaningful Life Skills for older adults, as well as a variety of other therapeutic card games, board games and posters. Ester has co-written GriefWork ~ Healing from Loss, The GriefWork Companion and Creating a Healthy Balanced Life. Ester and John have co-written the Mental Health & Life Skills Workbook series', the Teen Mental Health & Life Skills Workbook series, the Coping Workbook series, and the Erasing the Stigma of Mental Health Issues through Awareness series, all published by Whole Person Associates.