How to Hug a Porcupine: Easy Ways to Love the Difficult People in Your Life

Sean Smith

Apr 2017 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Julie Briskman

About this audiobook

Innovative and refreshing strategies for how to love, understand, and communicate with difficult people—at home, at work, and in your community

Most of us know someone who, for whatever reason, always seems to cause problems, irritate others, or incite conflict. Often, these people are a part of our daily lives. The truth is that these troublemakers haven’t necessarily asked to be this way. Sometimes we need to learn new approaches to deal with people who are harder to get along with or love.

How to Hug a Porcupine explains that making peace with others isn’t as tough or terrible as we think it is—especially when you can use an adorable animal analogy and apply it to real-life problems. Whether you want to calm the quills of parents, children, siblings, or strangers, How to Hug a Porcupine provides useful tips for your encounters with “prickly” people, such as:

• Three easy ways to end an argument
• How to spot the porcupine in others
• How to spot the porcupine in ourselves

With a foreword by noted psychotherapist Dr. Debbie Ellis, widow of Dr. Albert Ellis, How to Hug a Porcupine is a truly special book.

About the author

Dr. Debbie Joffe Ellis is a licensed psychologist in Australia and mental health counselor in New York. She is affiliated with several major psychological associations and societies including being a Member of the Australian Psychological Society, and an International Affiliate Member of the American Psychological Association. For several years, she worked with her husband, Dr. Albert Ellis, giving public presentations and professional trainings in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), as well as collaborating on writing and research projects, until his death in 2007. She now continues to present, practice and write about his groundbreaking psychotherapeutic approach of REBT. She has also co-authored several forthcoming books with Dr. Albert Ellis. She currently has a private practice in New York City, and also delivers lectures, workshops and seminars throughout the U.S.A. and across the globe.