Narrator: It’s Christmas morning, and the phone rings. It’s your elderly father, who lives alone an hour away. He tells you he’s fallen in the living room, but then quickly adds, “Don’t worry; just go ahead without me. I’ll be fine here on the floor for now.” This isn't a one-time event. This is the latest in a long series of crises. He’s driven away every home healthcare aide you’ve hired. His neighbors have had to slash his car tires just to stop him from driving dangerously. He forgets his insulin shots and slips into diabetic comas. Yet, in the face of all this evidence, he insists he is perfectly fine on his own. You’re trapped in a cycle of constant stress and anxiety, trying to reason with someone who seems completely detached from reality. What do you do when logic fails and every conversation feels like a dead end?

This is the exact kind of maddening scenario that psychiatrist Mark Goulston confronts in his book, Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life. He argues that when we're faced with irrational behavior, our most common instincts—to argue, to present facts, to use logic—are not only ineffective but often make the situation worse. The book offers a new playbook, a set of counterintuitive strategies designed to break through to the people in our lives who seem impossible to reach.

Narrator: The foundational principle of Goulston's work is that you cannot reason with an unreasonable person. When someone is in an irrational state, they are not operating from a place of logic. Goulston explains this using a simplified model of the brain, which he calls the triune brain. It consists of three parts: a lower, reptilian brain focused on survival; a middle, mammalian brain that governs emotions; and an upper, primate brain responsible for logic and rational thought.

In a calm, rational person, these three brains are aligned and work together. But when a person becomes "crazy"—overwhelmed by anger, fear, or paranoia—this alignment shatters. The logical upper brain effectively shuts down, and the person is controlled entirely by the emotional and survival-driven lower brains.

Trying to use facts and reason in this state is like trying to run complex software on a computer that has been unplugged. The hardware simply isn't capable of processing the command. This is why presenting a spreadsheet of your partner's overspending during a furious argument is useless, or why telling an anxious coworker to "just calm down" only makes them more agitated. You are speaking the language of the upper brain to someone who is trapped in their lower brain. The first step, therefore, is to stop trying to win the argument and instead focus on de-escalating the emotional storm so their rational brain can come back online.

Narrator: Before one can even attempt to manage someone else's irrationality, Goulston insists on a crucial, and often uncomfortable, first step: looking in the mirror. He states directly, "the first irrational person you need to talk to is yourself." The book makes the compelling case that we are all, to some degree, irrational. We all have emotional triggers, deep-seated insecurities, and "buttons" that, when pushed, can send us into a defensive or illogical state.

If you don't identify and manage your own irrational tendencies, you will inevitably sabotage your efforts to connect with others. For example, if your own button is a fear of being seen as incompetent, and your boss starts irrationally criticizing your work, your own defensive reaction will likely escalate the conflict rather than resolve it. You'll be too busy defending your own ego to effectively manage theirs.

Goulston provides exercises to help readers identify their own "crazy," such as pinpointing the negative messages they absorbed in childhood or recognizing their go-to defensive maneuvers. By understanding what sets you off, you can learn to keep your own crazy at bay when under attack. This self-awareness is not about blame; it's about strategy. It allows you to remain the calm center in the storm, an observer of the other person's irrationality rather than a participant in it.

Narrator: Once a person has a handle on their own triggers, they can begin to use Goulston's tactical toolkit. One of the most powerful and counterintuitive techniques is called "The Belly Roll." The name comes from the animal kingdom, where a less dominant animal will expose its stomach to a more powerful one to show it is not a threat. In human terms, this is a form of assertive submission. It’s not about being a doormat; it's about strategically giving an irrational person a sense of control to instantly defuse their aggression.

Imagine an employee, Tom, is ambushed by his boss, who is furious about a mistake on a report. The boss yells, "This is completely unacceptable! What were you thinking?" Tom's instinct might be to defend himself ("It wasn't my fault!") or shut down. Instead, using the Belly Roll, Tom might look his boss in the eye, take a breath, and say, "You're right to be this angry. I screwed up, and there's no excuse for it. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for you."

This response does three things. It validates the boss's anger, it takes responsibility, and it shows empathy for their frustration. The boss, who was prepared for a fight, is suddenly disarmed. Their aggression has nowhere to go. By "rolling over," Tom has taken control of the dynamic, turning a potential assailant into a collaborator who is now more likely to listen to a plan for fixing the mistake.

Narrator: The Belly Roll is just one of fourteen distinct tactics Goulston outlines. The book serves as a veritable toolbox for different types of irrationality. Two other standout techniques illustrate the range of these tools.

The first is the "A-E-U Technique," which stands for Apologize, Empathize, and Uncover. Goulston calls this a high-risk, high-reward strategy for cutting through someone's defenses. It involves offering a sincere apology for your part in the conflict, expressing empathy for their pain, and then gently trying to uncover the deeper issue. It's risky because it requires vulnerability, but it can rapidly transform a hostile encounter into a moment of genuine connection.

A second technique is "Time Travel." This is designed for people who are stuck in the past, endlessly reliving a grievance or a hurt. Instead of arguing about what happened, you get them to focus on the future. You might ask, "Given that this painful thing happened and we can't change it, what would a better future look like for us? How do we get there from here?" This shifts their brain from a loop of past pain to a problem-solving mode focused on future possibilities, giving them a sense of agency and hope.

Narrator: Goulston is careful to draw a firm line between everyday irrationality and genuine mental illness. The story of Jen and her aging father serves as a powerful illustration of this boundary. Jen's father wasn't just being stubborn; his behavior—forgetting insulin, falling, driving away help—pointed to a deeper issue that was beyond her ability to manage with communication tactics alone. His safety, and the safety of others, was at risk.

The book warns that its techniques are not meant to treat personality disorders, severe depression, or psychosis. In these cases, trying to handle the situation yourself can be ineffective and even dangerous. Goulston provides clear guidance on recognizing when a situation is "above your pay grade" and requires professional intervention. He even offers a five-step process, based on hostage negotiation techniques, for persuading someone to accept help. This final section is a crucial dose of realism, reminding the reader that the goal is not to become a therapist but to know the limits of one's own influence and when to call in an expert.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Talking to Crazy is a radical shift in perspective. When confronted with irrationality, our instinct is to fight fire with fire, or at the very least, with the cold water of logic. Goulston teaches that the only way to reach someone lost in an emotional storm is to first join them in their reality. You must stop trying to pull them into your world of reason and instead "lean into their crazy," validating their feelings—no matter how illogical—to build a bridge of trust. Only after that connection is made can you gently guide them back to a place of sanity.

The book's most challenging idea is also its most empowering: the person you have the most control over in any irrational encounter is yourself. By mastering your own emotional responses, you gain the clarity and composure to deploy these powerful techniques effectively. It transforms you from a victim of someone else's chaos into an active agent capable of navigating and de-escalating situations that once felt utterly hopeless. It leaves you with a critical question for any difficult relationship: What would happen if, just once, you stopped trying to be right and instead tried, with genuine empathy, to understand?