What to Do When Someone Is Yelling at You, According to Psychologists

—Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Images: Alina Kolyuka, Swan222, Heroik/Danial Project via Canva) Even in healthy relationships, people sometimes lose their tempers. A disagreement with your partner escalates into shouting; a friend snaps after weeks of bottled-up frustration; a coworker raises their voice during a stressful meeting. When someone’s raging at you, two phrases seem almost instinctual to say. The first is some version of “calm down.” The second is a quick, reflexive “I’m sorry.” Those responses might feel like the fastest way to defuse the situation—but experts say they often do the opposite. Telling a furious person to calm down usually lands as criticism, says Dr. Lokesh Shahani, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UTHealth Houston. (Plus, it rarely works.) A knee-jerk apology can backfire in a different way: It signals that the other person’s intimidation is working. It might stop the yelling in the moment, Shahani says, but it also teaches them that rage gets results. The goal, experts say, isn't to make the other person stop feeling angry. It's to make a real conversation possible again. That requires doing two things at once: protecting your own boundaries—because no one deserves to be berated—while also making the other person feel genuinely heard. Those strategies, however, have limits. "If you feel physically unsafe or if you feel emotionally unsafe, then you need to end the conversation and disengage," says Moshe Cohen, a conflict-resolution expert in Boston. If someone is threatening you, trying to intimidate you, or making you fear for your safety, the priority isn't finding the perfect words. It's getting yourself out of the situation. Here’s what to say to someone who’s raging at you, according to psychiatrists, psychologists, and conflict-resolution experts. “Help me understand what happened from your perspective.” Another common response to being yelled at is to interrupt, defend, and poi