Our way of acting provokes a response according to the personality of the people with whom we interact. It is important to be aware of this fact since good social relationships are in our hands much more than we might think. This becomes especially important when we interact, among many other difficult personalities, with aggressive people. In these cases, our behavior will be highly decisive so that the interaction leads directly to a conflict or, however, is led along a good path that does not give rise to any manifestation of aggressiveness on the part of this person.
In the following Psychology-Online article we propose 9 ways of acting that can help us a lot to avoid unnecessary conflicts when relating and understanding. how to respond to an aggressive person.
Interact from serenity and calm
First of all, it is essential that when interacting with an aggressive person we try to keep calm at all times. This attitude will be a great shield against the attacks that we may receive from this person.
This is not always an easy behavior, since we all have emotional wounds and when someone addresses us aggressively, all kinds of defense mechanisms tend to be activated to protect us. For example, offense, resentment and aggressiveness itself or, on the contrary, fear, flight, avoidance or paralysis.
These interactions can lead to situations with very negative consequences for both parties. For this same reason, it is advisable to work on this attitude of serenity and calm that will benefit our interactions and many situations throughout our lives.
Express yourself assertively
Assertiveness is the ability to express our opinions and feelings in a clear, firm and peaceful manner, expressing our opinions to the other person in a calm and respectful way. In this case, act assertively It will help us a lot to constructively manage the small conflicts that arise during the interaction.
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Be patient
Infinite patience is a very valuable gift that can calm certain storms and allows us to adopt a compassionate vision that sees beyond manifest behavior, sensing the suffering that is expressed from within the person through aggressiveness.
Thus, acting patiently When faced with an aggressive person, we help calm their torments and, in the long term, Aggressive behaviors can be spaced out over time and reduce their intensity. The reason for this is that the person, even without consciously knowing it, feels protected by our peaceful response, so their aggressive response will lose its defensive meaning.
Be compassionate
Along with patience, compassion for the aggressive person becomes another attitude that reduces the manifestation of bad behavior by the aggressor. In this sense, the resentment accumulated by the pain suffered and the inability to find adequate tools To remedy this pain, they may have led him to use aggression as the only means of expression and relationship with the world.
The delivery of love, comfort and compassion to people with serious wounds constitutes the best healing therapy for such serious life traumas. However, it is important not to let other people continually cross our own boundaries. In this article you will find more information about the.
Empathize and try to understand what the person is asking for
Patience and a compassionate attitude allow us to empathize with the aggressive person by reading between the lines and understanding the message that the other person is trying to convey through aggressiveness. Using calm and assertiveness we can try to offer the person what they need. However, it should be noted that this In no case should it mean submitting to the aggressor and pleasing all his desires.since that would only reinforce their aggressive behavior.
On the contrary, acting empathetically will reduce these behaviors by deeply touching your heart. The aggressive person will recover his good conscience at times and will prevent his desires from being impeded by his submission to the aggressive defensive mechanism.
To be nice
People with aggressive behaviors tend to be, as we mentioned above, wounded people who have received very little love and good treatment in their lives. At the same time, it is normal for this defensive behavior to generate distrust, fear and alienation in the people with whom they relate, behaviors that are far removed from the love desired by every human being.
For all this, act with good attitudes with aggressive people, such as patience, compassion, empathy, kindness, can become a good tool for healing and personal transformation.
Subtly encourage and motivate change
As a small part of all this encouraging and comforting behavior that we are offering, encourage and motivate with subtlety towards deep internal change It will lead to the progressive disappearance of aggressive behavior and a progressive improvement in your personal situation and your social relationships.
Joy has a very great force of transformation. Together with the components mentioned above, they will allow the aggressive person to trust us and our good instructions.
Do not tolerate the crossing of certain limits
Another fundamental aspect to break the aggressive automatism of these people is express clearly that this mode of expression is not a good path. It is important that under no circumstances are certain aggressive manifestations tolerated, such as humiliation, verbal abuse, physical attacks, etc.
Our intention at all times is to help this person break the automatic inertia of the aggressive response. To achieve this, although it is extremely important to accompany, be empathetic and compassionate, it is no less important not to allow the manifestation of violence in any of its forms.
End the interaction respectfully
After applying these tips, if we see that over time the person does not change their aggressive behaviors, The best thing would be to end the relationship that it does not seem that, in any way, it can come to fruition.
Communicating that you want to end the relationship using calm and respect will be important to show that we are not fleeing out of fear, but rather that we are walking away because we have already done everything in our power to make the situation improve. The rest of the effort will depend on the other person.
Mistakes that you should avoid when dealing with an aggressive person
The main mistakes that we must avoid when we are faced with an aggressive person can be summarized in these three:
- submit to his commands.
- Run away and avoid the relationship with this person.
- react aggressively to their behaviors.
In the first two cases, the aggressive response of the aggressor will be reinforced, which will mean great harm to both people. The aggressor will further strengthen your defensive response mechanism and the attacked person may receive greater or more intense aggressive behavior from the aggressor. The third case can give rise to strong irrational conflicts that, in the worst case, can end with very violent physical fights.
In short, trying to carry out, to the extent possible, the advice provided in this article will allow the aggressive person to rethink their behavior and begin to look for alternatives of expression and free the victim from their undesirable and unjustified behaviors.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- André, C. et al. (2022). “How to deal with difficult personalities.” Arpa Editors.