Thanks for your response! It sounds somewhat similar to the mechanism I use albeit mine has a bit of a weird twist to it .

It sounds strange but my goto method is visualising my negative sate in my head as an "alter ego" of me but more messed up (think hobo + zombie-ish) and trying to either talk rationally to this person. Sometimes I get a good discussion out of it or sometimes it results in a fist fight. Either way, the outcome for me is I get closure out of it.

I did say it was strange. :)