Several books ago, I started work on a manuscript called: Control yourself! 99 ways to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs (and blaming it on you). The reference, of course, is to the famous line from Rudyard Kipling’s “If.” Most of us are fundamentally good, hardworking, decent human beings who wish others well. We are eager to get on with the business of life, we wish no harm to anyone, and we don’t accept that it is necessary to tread over other people in order to develop and grow. But there is a toxic minority who are neither good nor decent. They do not wish us well. They see us as a barrier to their development. They have a vested interest in badmouthing us.

Control Yourself offered ways of responding to this toxic minority. Disagreements and arguments are normal and healthy. Destructive criticism isn’t. We need to know how to respond to people who make us feel powerless, who undermine our ability to function, who demolish our integrity, who unfairly abuse us. Some people respond by lashing out and trying to even the score. When self-confidence, self-esteem and self-belief are being eroded, it’s tempting to resort to emotional, erratic and spontaneous responses. We find it hard to shake off the insult. We brood over it. We replay the incident again and again in our head. He said, she said, I should have said. All this takes up disproportionate energy. My colleague Michael Comyn likens this to someone attaching a powerful suction hose to our chest and sucking out all our life force.

The book offered a suite of smart and strategic responses to insults, envy, begrudgery and mean-spiritedness. I identified 60 of the 99 ways to keep your head. Examples: Don’t be too eager to accept blame, Don’t apologise for your personality, Don’t follow someone else’s script, Don’t confuse means and ends, Don’t accept the unacceptable, Don’t sell yourself short, Don’t apologise for being smart, Don’t get sucked in to unwanted dialogue. I sent excerpts of my draft book to friends who were experiencing difficulties with abusive work colleagues. My tips proved very helpful. But when I fell out with the colleague who had suggested I write the book, my enthusiasm for the project waned and I went on to other writing projects.

This all came back to me after I read Am I the only sane one working her? 101 solutions for surviving office insanity, by clinical psychologist Albert J Bernstein, who also wrote Emotional Vampires: Dealing with people who suck you dry. Bernstein’s books are not identical to Control Yourself - but they are definitely in the same ballpark. Bernstein says that when things get crazy, you may not be able to control the situation, but you can control how you respond to it. Among the 101 situations he analyses are: Protect yourself from liars, Defuse anger, Handling a bullying boss, Keep passive-aggressive coworkers from giving you a headache, What to say to an insensitive creep, Prevent negative people from spoiling your day, Keeping narcissists from getting you down, Responding to indirect put-downs, Don’t take criticism personally. Bernstein’s advice is concise and highly readable.