Difficult Personalities

In Difficult Personalities, Dr Helen McGrath and Hazel Edwards take common situations and offer strategies to help, including:

  • anger and conflict management
  • achieving empathy
  • optimism and assertion
  • making decisions about difficult relationships

This is a reassuring guide to dealing with the challenging behaviour we encounter daily, as well as with our own.  It’s an essential resource for understanding, living with or working with people whose behaviour is frustrating, confusing or damaging.

ISBN: 9780143011989, 978-1-61519-013-3, 978- 83- 7510- 516-2
Author: Hazel Edwards and Dr Helen McGrath
Publisher: Penguin Books (formerly published by Choice Books), The Experiment Publishing, www.rebis.com.pl

Formats: Paperback, Audio and eBook

Visit your local bookshop or these online retailers have copies available now – just click through on the direct link and you can purchase online:

Korean (the pink one), Polish and American translations of Difficult Personalities

  • Publisher: Jiuzhou Press; 1st edition (May 1, 2018)
  • Language: Chinese
  • ISBN-10: 751086805X
  • ISBN-13: 978-7510868054

Publishers Weekly Non-Fiction Reviews – January 18, 2010

“McGrath and Edwards have avoided scientific jargon and created a handbook people can put to use immediately.”

Difficult Personalities: A Practical Guide to Managing the Hurtful Behavior of Others (and Maybe Your Own)Helen McGrath and Hazel Edwards

What do you get when a clinical psychologist (McGrath) and an experienced author of adult and children’s literature (Edwards) team up to write a handbook for dealing with troublesome people at work or in one’s personal life?

You get a no-frills resource that is both easy to understand and highly informative. As with many such manuals, it’s not necessary to read cover to cover (especially when the book’s only shortcoming is its slightly repetitive tips and strategies) but, rather, to read the chapter about whichever personality causes stress in your life, from the anxious to the passive-aggressive, bullies, and narcissists.

Whether the problem person is a chronic complainer, a fount of insults, or a perpetual martyr, you are guaranteed to find in-depth analysis, including what they do, why they do it, and strategies to help cope with that person in a positive, healthy way. The authors also have advice for people who recognize bothersome traits in themselves. McGrath and Edwards have avoided scientific jargon and created a handbook people can put to use immediately. There’s nothing difficult about this book, except for the subject it gracefully explicates. 


Concise, well-organized advice that will help readers identify and deal more effectively with the troublesome people in their lives.”
ALBERT BERNSTEIN, PHD, author of Emotional Vampires: Dealing with People Who Drain You Dry, Dinosaur Brains: Dealing with All Those Impossible People at Work, and Am I the Only Sane One Working Here?


As a professional in the field of psychology, I’m impressed with Difficult Personalities’ content and useful information. It’s easy to read—both a good reference book and practical for anyone.”
MARTHA MANNING, PHD, author of Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface


Dr Richard L Weaver ‘It is a tight book that is well organised’. Bookclubandthensome Review

OAM Association Talk:
May 11th “Not Just a Piece of Cake: Being an Author” Will be on You Tube soon.

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Student Resources:
Crafting an assignment on Hazel Edwards? Get tips for school projects, and her uniquely answered questions.

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