Disarming High Conflict Personalities in the Workplace: Dealing with the 8 Most Difficult People You Encounter Before They Rob You of Your Peace, Productivity, and Profit!
You know the ones. The person who questions every decision. The one who drags their feet until the deadline has passed. The bully, the gossip, the complainer, the one who asks a thousand questions and still delivers nothing. They are not your clients, you cannot refer them anywhere, and they are not going to change because someone had a quiet word.
Jeff Riggenbach spent twenty years treating personality disorders in psychiatric hospital settings, and this course is that knowledge turned outward. The framework is not clinical, deliberately: he works from the DISC model of human behaviour rather than the DSM, because these are colleagues rather than patients and the point is to work alongside them rather than to diagnose them. What the clinical background gives him is a precise account of what actually makes a personality difficult, and why the usual responses make it worse.
Three hours. He starts with the DISC styles and what each needs in order to communicate well, moves to what specifically makes a personality high conflict, then to the approach he uses for connecting with people who are hard to reach, including five questions he uses to defuse conflict. The second half is the eight types themselves: how to recognise each one early, what they do to a team, and what works with each. It is aimed at anyone who leads, supervises or simply has to keep working with someone difficult, which in most practices and organisations is everyone.
You’ll walk away with
- The four DISC styles, and what changes about how you communicate with each
- What actually makes a personality high conflict, stated specifically rather than as a complaint
- The eight types of difficult person you meet at work, each with the early warning signs
- What each type does to morale, to a team’s output and to the people around them
- Strategies matched to each type, rather than one approach applied to everyone
- Five questions for defusing conflict in the moment
- Communicating with a difficult person without triggering them, which is most of the skill
- Validation-based communication, and why it produces compliance where instruction does not
- Handling bullying and hostile behaviour, including where leverage genuinely sits
- Closing the gap between what is expected of someone and what they deliver
- The connection between unaddressed conflict, burnout and people leaving
- Distinguishing the turnover you could have prevented from the turnover you could not
Watch the course trailer
CPD Information For Mental Health Professionals
Enjoy complete flexibility with 100% self-paced learning you can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device. This course is included with your Tatra Training membership, along with every other course in the library.
Please note: this course is about colleagues and workplaces rather than clients. It uses the DISC model rather than clinical diagnosis, and suits anyone who leads a team, supervises, or works in a practice alongside someone difficult.
Course Duration: 3 learning hours
Certificate and CPD hours: On completion you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion to support your CPD records. Your certificates are yours to keep.
Assessment: Complete a short quiz at the end (80% pass mark), which you can resit as many times as needed.
Revisit Anytime: Come back to the course as often as you like while your membership is active, whenever you want a refresher for practice.
CPD Eligibility: This program may be suitable for CPD for professionals such as:
- Psychologists
- Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- Social Workers
- Community Workers
- Mental Health Nurses
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Occupational Therapists
CPD requirements vary between professional bodies, so please check with your association or credentialing body to confirm you can claim CPD hours/OPD points for this program and what evidence they require.
Course Content
Meet Your Instructor
High-conflict personalities, treatment-resistant clients, and complex cases involving borderline personality disorder can leave clinicians feeling frustrated and ineffective - but these challenging presentations don't have to derail therapeutic progress. Jeff Riggenbach has spent over 20 years developing practical, evidence-based tools that help transform how practitioners work with their most difficult cases, earning him international recognition as "the practical tools guy" and becoming one of the world's most sought-after trainers in cognitive behavioral interventions.
As a three-time bestselling, award-winning author and Diplomat of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, Dr. Riggenbach brings unparalleled expertise in translating complex therapeutic concepts into immediately usable clinical tools. His books The CBT Toolbox and The BPD Toolbox (Amazon #1 new release) have become essential resources for practitioners worldwide, while his latest work Disarming High Conflict Personalities addresses one of the most challenging aspects of clinical and organisational work. His training at the Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy and Research, combined with 20 years directing CBT-based treatment programs in psychiatric hospitals where he served over 3,000 clients, gives him deep understanding of what actually works with resistant populations.
Dr. Riggenbach's expertise spans Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy, personality disorders treatment (especially Borderline Personality Disorder), trauma and addiction, and high-conflict personality management. His approach bridges the gap between academic research and frontline clinical reality, showing practitioners how to adapt evidence-based techniques for clients who don't fit textbook presentations. He specialises in cases where traditional therapy approaches have failed, particularly with clients who are hostile, manipulative, or treatment-resistant.
What sets his training apart is practical applicability under real-world conditions. Riggenbach doesn't just teach theory - he shows clinicians exactly what to say and do when facing their most challenging moments. His international training reach across all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Mexico, UK, Malta, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa demonstrates his ability to adapt techniques across diverse populations and practice settings.
For your practice, expect to gain specific intervention scripts for difficult situations, tools for managing your own emotional responses to challenging clients, and frameworks for maintaining therapeutic progress with treatment-resistant cases. His approach particularly benefits clinicians working in high-stress environments, those dealing with personality disorders, or practitioners who feel burned out from difficult cases.
Quick Win: Riggenbach's "emotional regulation interrupt" technique helps clinicians quickly de-escalate volatile therapeutic situations while maintaining professional boundaries - helping to prevent session ruptures and keeping treatment on track.
Qualifications
- Ph.D., Christian Counseling
- Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Oklahoma, current
- Diplomat of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy
- Certified Cognitive Therapist, Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy and Research, Philadelphia
- John Maxwell Team Certified Speaker/Trainer/Coach
- Certified Behavioral Consultant
- 20+ years clinical experience
Authored Books
- Disarming High Conflict Personalities: Dealing with the 8 Most Difficult People in Your Life Before You Burnout (latest release)
- The BPD Toolbox: A Practical Evidence-Based Guide to Regulating Intense Emotions (2016, Amazon #1 new release, award-winning)
- The CBT Toolbox: A Workbook for Clients, Clinicians and Coaches (2012, 1st and 2nd editions, bestseller)
- Seven total publications
Professional Experience
- International Speaker/Trainer/Coach, John Maxwell Team, current
- Clinical Director, Private Practice/Consulting, current
- Award-Winning Author & Behavioral Consultant, Tulsa, OK, current
- APA & NBCC/ACEP Approved Provider, Continuing Education Credits, current
- Director, CBT-based treatment programs, Two psychiatric hospitals (20 years, served 3,000+ clients)
- Treatment Program Developer, Mood Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, BPD programs, Two psychiatric hospitals
- Staff Member, Brookhaven Psychiatric Hospital, Tulsa, OK
International Training Reach
- Trained audiences in all 50 United States, Canada, Mexico, UK, Malta, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland
- Conference keynote addresses and specialised workshops worldwide
Ready to work confidently with your most challenging clients? Discover how Dr. Riggenbach's practical, evidence-based tools can help transform your ability to achieve breakthrough results with treatment-resistant cases while maintaining your own professional well-being.
Feedback & Reviews
This course includes:
- Lessons 3
- Topics 0
- Duration 3 hours
- Quizzes 1
- Language English