Advices for those living with difficult personalities by Prof. Nevzat Tarhan

Psychiatrist Prof. Nevzat Tarhan making remarks on those with difficult personality that generally challenge especially their family in both personal and social relationships, are aggressive and object everything. He said it is needed to communicate with those people without removing them from the system. Tarhan also indicated that blaming and judging attitudes must be avoided while listening those people and said their thinking brain must be activated instead of thinking brain.

The feeling brain must be activated instead of the thinking brain

President of Üsküdar University, Psychiatrist Prof. Nevzat Tarhan gave advices on difficult personalities and how to ease living with these personalities.

They are aggressive and they object to everything

Stating that those with difficult personality generally challenge especially their family in both personal and social relationships, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said “those people can always be encountered in anywhere.  Generally, they are aggressive and they object to everything.  You cannot solve a problem with these personalities, you cannot move forward with them. They always stress other people.  Everybody avoids them, there are this kind of difficult personalities. Some of these difficult personalities are aggressive, some are obsessive while some are with grandiose self, some seem quite kind and some are very passive. However, they do not solve anything. They are two faced personalities.  Too humble personalities, they are also difficult personalities.”.

You must not remove them from the system

Noting that it requires learning a special technique and method to live with these personalities Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said: “Those with this kind of personality might be married, have children. They can be talented at work but they can have a difficult personality. This person is very talented, competent and excellent at a certain topic but they have a difficult personality.  The leader in that working place must think about a way to keep those people within the system.  A suitable approach must be determined instead of isolating that person by keeping them out of the system. Those people are, at the same time, talented, exploratory and dissident. That is, the leader at the workplace can benefit from talents of those people if they keep them in the system.”.

A way must be found to connect with those having a difficult personality.

Özellikle aile içerisinde bu tip kişiliklerin aile dışına itilmesinin mümkün olmadığını ifade eden Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan, “Bazen zor kişilikler olarak çocuklarınız oluyor. “Zor kişilik” dediğimiz kişiliklerin hepsiyle muhakkak bir ilişki kurma biçimi vardır. İnsanı 100 kapısı olan bir saraya, büyük bir binaya benzetebiliriz. 99 kapısı kapalı olsa, 1 tane kapısı açık olsa o saraya girilir. Zor kişilikler de öyle kişilerdir. Çoğu kapıları kapalıdır ama açık kapısını bulup o insanın dünyasına girip onunla bağlantı kurulup iş birliği yapılabilir. Bu da biraz gayret gerektiriyor, biraz alternatif düşünce üretme becerisi gerektiriyor. Zaten hayatta hiçbir şey kolay değil. Çok güzel bir söz vardır: Her iş, kolay olmadan önce zordur.” dedi.

They can show their true colors at home

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan stated that those with difficult personality sometimes do not experience any problems in their social life although they do not get along with their family members. Tarhan said “These types of people, for instance, can discuss with their partners over various excuses. They upset and say ‘you cut the tomatoes too big’, ‘you changed the place of the sofa’ and so on, however, they do not have any problems with their friends outside. Those people are difficult people. They play a good person role outside; however, they can show their real personality at home. Generally, these people are acting with two personalities and they have low self-esteem.

They present themselves as strong to satisfy their ego

Stating that difficult personality qualities can be perceived as their personality Tarhan said “they can hurt people they live with if they are aggressive and unkind. These types of people have a tough and aggressive attitude.  There is a ‘I am strong’ feeling behind their aggressive image and they want to create being strong impression. In that case, this shows that those people actually feel that they are lacking, incompetent and unworthy.  By oppressing others, they present themselves as strong to satisfy their ego. Well actually, instead of being upset with these people, we must have sympathy for them.”.

Difficult personalities function with cruelty

Noting that difficult personalities function with cruelty, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said “there is a saying by our ancestry: a person or a society is governed either by science or cruelty.

You can recognize a person or society governed by science. You think through how to treat, you put effort, you find a method and you govern them in this way. This governing is a permanent governing. Or you govern with cruelty by yelling, scaring or intimidating.  In this type of governing, a person or society stay silent temporarily; for example, once they obtained their freedom back, especially children turn against their parents during their adolescence.  This is seen a lot in fear culture.  A governing with cruelty, a governing with fear. What is there in trust culture? There is mutual discussion, cooperation and free discussion environment.”.

Stating that there is also another great saying by our ancestry, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said “when it was discussed whether constitutionalism is suitable for Islamic law during the constitutional era, that is, a saying was told a 100 years ago: ‘Opposition is the balance for the justice.’ That is, opposition provides the scales of justice, balance of the justice.”.

Democracy is the invention of humanity

Noting that culture of democracy emerged few centuries ago in the West and here it has begun to emerge recently, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said “Being able to talk without a conflict, to gather together with difficult personalities, to solve problems with difficult personalities without fighting, violence or conflicting are very important and necessary. This can happen in families as well as between countries. If there is a problem, it is necessary to try to solve problems with diplomacy instead of war, that is, to produce solutions, to produce diplomatic solutions. Therefore, democracy is an invention of humanity. Democracy has criticizability, liberalism, participation within itself.”.

They must be complimented when they deserve it and as much as they deserve it

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said that a person who has to live with a difficult personality, must work on their ability to say no, and he continued: “The main quality of these type of personalities is that they have narcissistic qualities. They are intolerant. They perceive themselves special, important and superior. These people function with compliments. We work on how to say no to these individuals.  There are methods to give compliment or criticism to these people. Since these people function with compliments, when giving a compliment when they do not deserve it or more than they deserve it, it leads their ego to inflate. If they are not complimented on matters they deserve, they can turn against you. Therefore, you should give the necessary compliment: however, you should not compliment them when they do not deserve it.  When this is done, it leads them to make mistakes.”.

The mistake they do affect everyone

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan emphasized that they begin to make mistakes after a while since they try to govern people by criticizing, fear and intimidating and Tarhan added: “These people’s mistakes affect the whole family, the whole relationship, the company they work for. That is why, companies work with independent supervisors to prevent this. ‘Criticize us, thus, we can fix our mistake.’.  These are within the quality works of the companies; there are supervisors.”.

A right approach is important

Noting that the importance of right approach for these people, Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said: “Especially those who are close to difficult personalities, must be able to say no to them.  When this person does or want something wrong, they should say ‘what you saying is not right. I do not think your behavior is right but I do not react right now for the future of our family but I do not think it is right.”. When you stay silent against a wrong behavior or their word, they think that ‘I was right.’ and they do not realize their mistake.”.

The thinking brain must be activated

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan pointed out that it is also important that this type of difficult personalities must be listened by the other person and added that the thinking brain of the person must be activated instead of their feeling brain. Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said:

“We must listen to this type of difficult personalities until the end of their speech. We must avoid judgement when we listen to these people. They become defensive against blaming and judging attitudes such as ‘what kind of person you are, why do you say this’. You cannot establish a relation. When you communicate with these people, you should avoid judging and blaming phrases or not speak in a way will trigger a defensive emotion.  You must approach to those people as ‘I want to understand you, why did you say this?’. When this is applied, their thinking brain is activated instead of their feeling brain. Difficult people try to get a result by yelling and silencing other people. These people use their feeling brain with anger and by being aggressive. If you use your feeling brain as a reaction to these people, if you yell at them because they yell at you, if you raise your voice if they raise their voice, you will be intimated because you will not be as bad as they are. That’s why, you should activate their thinking brain instead of their feeling brain.”.

Instead of building walls, it must be tried to connect

Prof. Nevzat Tarhan noted that when you told “Can you lower your voice? I want to understand you.” to those who speak loudly and angrily, the thinking brain is activated instead of the feeling brain. Tarhan said “the person then thinks ‘that person wants to understand me’ and their thinking brain is activated.  Then, they lower their voice. That’s why, you should not build walls against these people. It is important that you have a relation and bridge between you. It is needed to establish a healthy communication by activating the thinking brain of that person and instead of a reactive communication, you need to tend to be with an attitude of search the truth and to make them feel that you have good intentions.”.

Body language is also important in communication

Stating that it is needed not to decide and to try solving the problem immediately in these personalities Prof. Nevzat Tarhan said: “A different perspective to the event might be needed. Body language is very important in human relationship. 80% of relation is emotion transfer in a verbal communication, it is body language, subliminal emotions, tone of the voice and Word choice. Communication must be established in this way.”.

Üsküdar News Agent (ÜNA)