The conflict began as soon as Jeff’s new colleague joined his team. A year later the bad blood between them was to cost Jeff, who held a senior position at a New York investment company, his job.

What started as a personality clash quickly escalated when the newcomer rejected Jeff’s input into their joint work. This triggered an irrational response in Jeff, leaving him highly critical of himself and unable to focus on his work.

He describes his initial impressions of the colleague: “He was very confrontational from the word go, telling me I didn’t know what I’m talking about. Then publicly, among the senior management of the business, he said he didn’t want me involved in the things he clearly needed my assistance on.

“I was definitely not going along with him. He would say anything to sell something, which I don’t like or respect,” says Jeff.

He added that the man then engineered enough influence to steer the management committee against him, and eventually to have him removed from the company.

Personal conflicts are an inevitable part of working life. But when left unmanaged they can harm individuals and severely damage the team or organisation. Well-known feuds include those between Indian brothers Mukesh and Anil Ambani of Reliance Industries, the Koch brothers of the US’s Koch Industries, and ex-England cricket coach Peter Moores and batsman Kevin Pietersen.

A common response is to regard the other party as being wrong, difficult or even mad. This view is likely to exacerbate tensions.

But the route to resolution is to understand why the relationship is fraught and one’s own role in this.

After analysing his experience, Jeff recognised the part he played in his own downfall. A tendency to anticipate catastrophic outcomes stemmed, he realised, from childhood bullying, both by his father and at school. By confusing his colleague with people who had hurt him in the past, he perceived more danger than actually existed, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Was I bullied in the workplace? No. Did I feel like I was being bullied in the workplace? Yes. That feeling was very similar to the feelings I had when I was being bullied [when young].”

Not showing his colleague respect and focusing on the man’s faults — rather than how he allowed the conflict to grow in his own mind — made any resolution unlikely.

Understanding conflict as a circular dynamic — to which both parties contribute — removes the sting of blame and the urge to self-justify, defend and hit back. But can these cycles be reversed?

Diana McLain Smith, an organisational consultant who writes about working relationships, believes they can.

Ms McLain Smith encourages executives in client organisations to stop focusing on the disputed issue and what the other person is doing wrong, and to recognise how each is contributing to a pattern that neither likes. Her first step is to bring the combatants together to discuss their dispute — a conversation which she records and then plays back to them.

She explains that when conflicts have been either repressed or handled explosively in our early family life, we tend to repeat these strategies in adulthood. “People [may] assume that conflict is dangerous so they avoid it. Or they believe conflict is a zero-sum game and they go into it with guns blazing.”

They may wrongly misinterpret the other person’s motive, assume he or she is pursuing power or even trying to get their job. Gross generalisations are often made, accusing the other of causing the problem, or caricaturing them in ways that dismiss their contribution and distort their character.

To tackle these problems Ms McLain Smith persuades them to engage in conversations about their family and personal life experiences.

“Then people can be moved by them — they can see where the behaviour comes from and they are motivated more to help.”

Opponents, she adds, can then become a team again, “if they help each other see things that they themselves missed, then they can become more effective”.

Frank, who came to me for psychotherapy, complained that his brother treated him more like an employee than a partner in their import company. This pattern resulted in a long, simmering conflict. Of the two, Frank said he was more passive yet personable with staff and clients, while his brother was more the driving force of the business.

In therapy he came to recognise that by withholding the warmth and praise that he knew his brother craved, he was making the situation worse. As a child he learnt that being quiet protected him from his father’s rages, but the same approach with his brother only fuelled their conflict.

Frank explains: “I’m aware [now] that my passivity is a form of aggression in an underhand way. So when my brother would get more frustrated or angry I would retreat more — which obviously would set off a cycle with him.

“I would find it difficult to look him in the eye, it was very much business only. He must have interpreted that as my not caring about him or the business.”

Eventually Frank was able to explain how he felt to his brother, which improved their relationship.

Such insights are beyond some people and in these cases it is more realistic to aim for damage limitation.

Bill Eddy is a therapist, mediator and lawyer who established the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. He employs the term “high conflict people” to describe those who are incapable of personal insight and are often personality disordered, or have extreme narcissistic, paranoid or histrionic traits.

Such people can be identified by their extreme behaviour when losing control of their emotions. “They do things that normal people would never do even under pressure,” he says, such as spreading rumours, breaking objects or lying. They blame and attack others to feel better about themselves, disrupt office life and demand an inordinate amount of management time.

Businesses may choose to retain these individuals because they have specialist skills, but this does have a price. One manager of a retail company told me of his exasperation in trying to limit the damage caused by a talented employee.

“She is very good at her job, and will tell you that quite forcefully,” he says. “But she falls out spectacularly with people she thinks are not good enough.

“With her there’s no going back. Any criticism sets up a spiral which means you get worse performance quite dramatically — tears and things like that. And then you spend weeks getting back up to speed.”

He explains how he prevents further explosions. “Quite a lot of flattery works, and trying to make lots of time for her.”

Most conflicts do not involve such extreme personalities, however, so it is best not to assume that anyone who disagrees with you is in the “high conflict” category. Instead, remember you are dealing with a relationship, not just a colleague, and that the road to resolution requires self-awareness and empathy.