ABSTRACT
In the play No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre (1944/1989), a character remarks that `Hell is other people' and you may nod in agreement as you conjure up a rogues gallery of people who have made your life exasperatingly dif®cult, yet never think you could be part of someone else's hell. (As I pointed out in the previous chapter, unhappy couples usually accuse each other of making their lives miserable.) Therefore, when I talk about dif®cult people, the dif®- culty with their behaviour is observed from your viewpoint not theirs, unless they admit they are being deliberately dif®cult in their dealings with you because they enjoy the pleasure of watching you suffer in some way.
