3 Strategies for Dealing With Toxic People Unfortunately, you can't change them. But you can change the way you interact with them.

"Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing," Ralph Waldo Emerson once mused. It's a solid observation about handling interactions with difficult people. Mark Goulston, a Los Angeles-based business psychiatrist and consultant and author of Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, says it's simple to deal with the bullies, the blamers, the rage-aholics, the whiners and the complainers. Here's how.

Don't expect them to not be difficult. Once you've identified a difficult person, adjust your expectations so you're not blindsided by their actions, and create some emotional distance.

Say to yourself, Here we go again. When these types of people aren't getting what they want, they push you into anger or exasperation, making it difficult for you to think clearly. Reframe the situation--remember, this is their issue, not yours. "Most difficult people provoke us because they're often hiding something--a lack of competence, a lack of ability or something they were supposed to do and didn't do," Goulston says, "and by provoking us, either from anger or whining and complaining, what they often try to do is distract us from exposing whatever that thing is that they're hiding."