Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.My guest today is Bill Eddy.
Bill Eddy is a practicing lawyer, a professional mediator, a licensed therapist, and on the faculty of the School of Law at Pepperdine University.He is a world expert in conflict resolution.
In particular, how to resolve conflicts with what are called high conflict personalities. I should be very clear that these high-conflict personalities, as you'll learn today, are not in a category of so-called personality disorders.
Now, it is the case that people with high-conflict personalities often also have borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or suffer from bipolar depression.
However, as you'll soon learn, people who have this high-conflict personality type could fall into any one of those three different categories, any combination of them, or none of them at all.
These high-conflict personalities essentially come in two flavors.Some are very outwardly combative, they like to argue, they like to generate conflict in a way that's very overt, very obvious.
The others, which comprise about 50% of high-conflict personality types, are very passive.
They play the victim, or they leverage other people, so-called negative advocates, in order to achieve their goal of creating a lot of conflict where they always appear as the victim.
During today's discussion, you'll learn how to identify these high-conflict personality types based on some very simple questions that you can ask yourself about them.
He also explains how to deal with these people in the workplace setting and relationships.And importantly, of course, how to disengage from these people, not just in the short term, but permanently.
Now, across today's discussion, you'll realize that Bill Eddy is very sensitive both to the suffering that high conflict personalities cause for other people, and therefore how to identify them, avoid them, and disengage from them.
But he also makes it a point not to demonize these high conflict personality types.
Instead, as a mediator, as a lawyer, and as a therapist, he is really most interested in helping people resolve their conflicts with these people and find the best, most peaceful path forward for conflict resolution.
Dr. Bill Eddy is the author of several important books related to this topic and related topics, such as Five Types of People That Can Ruin Your Life.It's an excellent book.I've read it and I highly recommend it for everyone.
He's also written books about
adult bullies, which are becoming increasingly common online and in real life, and about mediating conflict resolution and separations and things like divorce and in family court situations where he spent a lot of his professional career as a lawyer.
By the end of today's episode, you will have a lot of new practical tools for being able to identify these high conflict personality types and learning how to navigate forward and frankly, away from them in the best way possible.
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
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And now for my discussion with Bill Eddy.Bill Eddy, welcome.Thanks so much for having me.I'm excited to discuss this with you.I've read your books.I learned about them from perhaps one of the smartest people I know.
She said, you should check out this book called Five Types of People That Can Ruin Your Life.And I said, well, that's an impressive title.And I tore through the book. learned a ton.You have a number of other books.I mentioned them in my introduction.
And I suppose it's appropriate to say that you are an expert in conflict, conflict resolution, and in particular, how to deal with people that are high conflict.So maybe you could just,
tell us what a high-conflict person is, how common are these people, and how does this overlap with some of the more traditional quote-unquote diagnoses of personality disorders?
Yeah, it's fascinating because I started out as a clinical social worker, working with children and families in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics.But I really like conflict resolution.
So I went to law school to get a law degree so I could do mediation, other conflict resolution.And I practiced family law.
And when I started in family court, I noticed right away that a lot of the conflict seemed to be driven by people's personalities rather than the legal issue.Because I was also doing mediation in my office.
I go to court in the morning, do mediation in the afternoon, same exact issues. In the morning, people were stuck for two or three years.In the afternoon, two or three mediation sessions, shook hands, went separate ways.
So in family court, a lot of people aren't familiar with this.But since the 1980s, there's been the use of the term high conflict families.
And family court lawyers, judges, mediators, therapists identified high-conflict families as repeatedly coming to court to make decisions, as having a lot of hostility, of just seeming driven in one direction, unable to be flexible, and in many ways, unable to truly have empathy for their kids.
So they'd fight over their kids. And so high-conflict families was a term, when I became a lawyer in 1993, I was like, wait a minute, these aren't high-conflict families.These have maybe one, maybe two people with high-conflict personalities.
or traits of personality disorders, which I knew about since 1980, and working in hospitals and outpatient clinics.Because you're also a clinical psychologist.Clinical social worker.Clinical social worker.So I got a master's in social work in 1981.
Then I got licensed to do therapy on my own. So I'm a licensed clinical social worker in California.I can diagnose disorders.I can do treatment without supervision.I went through that, and that's how I became licensed.
So when I came into Family Court, I go, this is the same patterns when I was working, say, with people in the psychiatric hospital who had addictions, depression, all these problems.
And my job as the hospital social worker was to help them with their outside problems, their family problems.So I did family counseling for the patients.
With their job, maybe their employer wanted to fire them because of their behavior and I tried to help keep their job.Maybe they were getting evicted, their landlord couldn't stand their behavior.
And I'd solve one problem and I'd go, I've got you into marriage counseling and your husband or wife's committed to working on the relationship. And they'd go, yay, I accomplished something.Next day, Bill, my landlord, wants to kick me out.
Okay, I'd convince their landlord to give them one more chance.Yay, Bill, my job wants to fire me.Can you help?What they have is a pattern of conflict behavior that doesn't get resolved.
And that's the high conflict families that I saw in family court.So that's where that, connection came from, which I would not have arrived at if I hadn't been a therapist and also a lawyer.
My understanding from reading your book is that this high conflict personality phenotype is equally distributed between men and women.What is the percentage of people that have this high conflict phenotype?
And then maybe we can drill into a little bit of how that shows up.It's different forms of expression.
Yeah.Well, let me say a little bit about the difference between high-conflict personalities and personality disorders.Because we have a lot of research on personality disorders, including statistics, which I'll give you.
We don't have a lot of research on high-conflict personalities.People have talked about it, like I said, since the 1980s in family court. And my own observations with thousands of cases
of high conflict personalities is it's pretty much men and women.My law practice, I represented pretty much 50-50 men and women, mostly custody disputes, mothers and fathers, so I got a good impression.
Personality disorders, there's a lot of research on, and I mention in the book some statistics, and they came from the personality disorder research.So what they found, They studied the 10 personality disorders.
In the early 2000s, a big study, National Institutes of Health, the alcoholism subdivision of NIH, they wanted to see how prevalent personality disorders were with substance abuse, with domestic conflicts, with criminal behavior, and workplace conflicts.
And so this study, they looked at all 10 personalities, came up with numbers for each.Five of them seem prone to high conflict behavior.So these five, I can give you statistics on.And I can give you breakdown male and female, all from 20 years ago.
Big study, because it hasn't been repeated since. So basically cluster B, that's narcissistic, borderline, antisocial, histrionic, but we see a lot of paranoid in legal disputes.
And some research says paranoid personality disorder is the most likely to sue their employer of the personality disorders. So that's gotten attention too.So here's some numbers.
First of all, narcissistic personality disorder, they found was about 6% of adults in the United States.They found the statistics on that was 38% female and 62% male.So that's more heavily male. 20 years ago.
Could be different now because of environmental influences.Borderline, also about 6%.This was 53% female, 47% male.Almost 50-50.And that shocked the mental health world, because we've always thought of borderline as a female disorder.
But Marsha Lanahan, the big name in treatment for borderline, says she agrees.She thinks that's true.
And I think that's true as a family lawyer because a lot of the men that we see engaged in domestic violence seem to have the borderline personality pattern.And the domestic violence is much more male than female. Then antisocial, it's around 4%.
And that's about 75% male, 25% female.Histrionic, it's about 2%.And they found this is about 50-50, which, again, surprised people because you think drama, center of attention, all of that.
But, and this may be very much environmental influence, our culture today teaches, especially young men, to try to get attention.Do, you know, ride your skateboard behind a car, or jump off a building, do all these dramatic things to get attention.
And social medias really encourage that. Everyone wants attention, and now you kind of have to fight for it in our culture.And so men, as well as women, are getting out there, often in dramatic ways.So it came out about 50-50.
Paranoid, it's about 4%, came out, I think it was 57 to 43%, somewhere right around that.A little more heavily female. but not all that far apart.Altogether, it's really roughly 50-50.
Very interesting.And how does this high conflict personality cut through all these personality disorder phenotypes?Because Oh, and I should also ask, I could imagine that some people who are borderline perhaps are also histrionic.
Is that possible to fall into multiple categories?
Okay.And the study actually broke down some of that. So in the research, they particularly, one that I remember is borderline a narcissist.And it came out around 38% overlap.So, and I teach- People who are borderline also can often be narcissistic.
Have narcissistic personality disorder.I see.And so this is personality disorder overlap.Now there's a whole continuum here.So many people have traits, but don't have a disorder. The current DSM says the total personality disorder is around 10%.
Now, that's taking an average of studies from around the world.The study I quoted earlier in the US said 15% have a personality disorder.So in the US, we're seeing that's significant.
And that's the one that said 38% overlap borderlines in narcissists. I think that it fits for me, because when I teach lawyers, from my own experience, I can say, you have a client that comes on like a narcissist.
They're very self-centered and putting you down, saying they're superior.Here are some tips to deal with them.But they also may have wide mood swings, which is more associated with borderline.So you need to
butter up their ego, honestly, not, you know, praise them for something that's real, but they do, but also they really need empathy.If they have white mood swings, that's someone that needs a lot of empathy.
Say, wow, I can see how upset you are, this is so important, and they calm down.So you have to use both sets of
responses to deal with someone that has that combination you mentioned borderline and histrionic there's a lot of similarities so we see overlap with that but I've seen every combination but what I don't know in family court is is it the disorder or just traits and the disorder doesn't matter to me it's the pattern that matters because if I see this pattern I know I should do that that's the key
I can imagine that in family court, it's especially complicated given that some of these things, not all, but some of these have a genetic component, certainly a situational component.
So you could potentially be dealing with trying to work out a situation for the benefit of children that have some of the same personality disorders as their parents.Could be really tricky.
Well, what's interesting, and it's very rewarding work when things can go well,
When the lawyers get it, the judge gets it, everyone gets it, what's happening, they can make orders that fit the situation and help protect children from bad behavior and help get parents some help.
So like substance abuse is a bigger issue in family court than personality disorders, but almost neck and neck. We talk about substance abuse all the time openly.There's treatment.Everyone recognizes the signs.
We don't talk about personality disorders in our culture.And that's like flying under the radar.
Sorry, I'm just going to pause you for a second there.I think it's such a key point. you know, in a very interesting paper that you sent me, which by the way, I'll provide a link to in our show note captions.
It essentially kicks off by saying that, you know, the movement toward explaining to people what alcohol, I think they now call it alcohol use disorder or alcoholism was and is in the 1970s and 80s was a crucial move forward for the judicial system.
And I think nowadays people,
generally understand that addiction is not just a lack of willpower, that there are brain circuits that become hijacked by substances or behaviors, that these brain circuits were designed to promote our adaptive evolution, but they can be hijacked by behaviors and substances that render people really just unable to control their addictive behavior.
I think nowadays that that box is checked.And it's wonderful that the judicial system understands that, right?Because then it can work with that.
I don't think that the general public has yet come to the full appreciation of these personality disorders and these high conflict personalities and how pervasive they are, probably because of their prevalence.
It's just sort of all around us and in all sorts of interactions.And here's the question, high conflict interactions tend to be quote unquote dramatic.
And there tends to be a, almost a reward for dramatic behavior, as you said, online, in politics, in the media, the more dramatic, the more salience, the more salience, the more people click, the more people watch.
And then the algorithms are designed to look at, you know, like dwell time, which is nerd speak for how long people look at stuff.And so you could see how this stuff could be fed in the same way that for,
nearly 75 years leading up to the 1970s, alcohol use disorder was sort of fed by the culture, the other 5 p.m.happy hour.Coming up in science, I would go to scientific meetings and it was like, okay, five o'clock hits, let's all drink.
And I always thought this is kind of crazy, especially given that there was also a lot of concern about the kinds of interactions that drinking can
create in the work environment.Exactly.
So anyway, I don't want to riff too long on this, but first of all, this is just lauding the important work that you're doing.Second, how should we think about this high conflict personality phenotype?Should we be calling people out?
Like, you know, Hey, that's a narcissist.Hey, that's a, you know, that's a borderline histrionic person, or is there a more, I guess something that embraces a little bit more of the humanity and the real issue at hand.
I think that's what you're trying to do.
Yeah, absolutely.And you may have seen me shaking my head no and said, should we point this out to people?That's the last thing you want to do.In fact, don't do that.And the reason why is personality disorders.
Oh, let me just quickly distinguish between personality disorders, high conflict personalities.The difference, and there's a chart in the beginning of the book with two circles overlapping, a lot of overlap.
But the main thing about personality disorders is they're stuck in a narrow range of interpersonal behavior.So some aren't high-conflict people, some are.
The thing about high-conflict people is that they're preoccupied with blame, that blaming others is a big part of their life.So when you're dealing with a high-conflict person who's blaming,
and has a personality disorder, you get a stuck pattern of behavior.You get high-conflict personalities or high-conflict people.So they're persistent in acting that way.
That's the overlap with personality disorders is they don't reflect, they don't change, they just keep blame is everybody out there.So recognizing that difference and similarity.
So about half of people, I think, with personality disorders, and this is just my estimate, have high conflict personalities and about half don't.I've worked with borderlines in the psych hospital, narcissists that
Don't blame other people, narcissists that are just self-centered, and borderlines who are more frustrated with themselves than anybody else.So that's an important distinction.
You beautifully distinguish between high conflict personalities and these personality disorders.And I just wanna make sure everyone hears again that about half of people with personality disorders would fall into this high conflict personality.
In my estimation, I don't have research yet.
And the distinguishing feature seems to be that high conflict personalities are often or constantly casting blame on others for the difficulties of their life, essentially.
And that's why they have conflicts.And they escalate instead of getting worked on and resolved.
So I can imagine that the high-conflict person doesn't always appear as high-conflict.
In fact, this is something that you've alluded to many times already in this conversation, and certainly in your book, that sometimes these high-conflict personalities come in kind of under the radar.
And that can be confusing to people, or they can go undetected for a long time.
Yeah, so part of it goes with the specific personalities.So high conflict people with borderline personality traits or histrionic personality traits are often more openly dramatic.And so they might really shock you.
Suddenly they start yelling, screaming. throwing things just because you're having an average conversation, very disproportionate.
But some, and it tends to be more of the anti-social personalities, some narcissistic personalities can look really reasonable on the surface.
And they've actually had a lifetime of experience at looking good, which kind of covers up all the stuff under the surface.And I think of a couple examples.So for example, and I deal sometimes with domestic violence cases, so let's say an abuser
says in court, says, oh, well, I was helping her because she was so upset.I took her keys away and I held her down on the bed because I was afraid she would leave and get into a car crash.
Well, there may be rare occasions where that's true, but that's a common story that we get from domestic abusers.
Or in court, I've seen this, where there'll be a very reasonable person kind of explaining the situation, and their partner, more often a woman, is just emotional, is a mess, maybe even in tears.
And people don't realize about 80% of divorces in court today, people represent themselves.And so there's these conversations, And the judge is like, well, this guy's being really reasonable.And this woman's a mess.
I mean, you know, I'm going to go with what he's saying.And so a lot of stuff slips under the radar that way.But gender wise, it could be the reverse.And a lot of relationships people get into, people make themselves look really good.
And then the negative stuff comes out weeks, months, maybe a year later.So that's why we say wait a year until you decide to commit.Because nowadays, who knows?You may have someone that really is good at covering their bad behavior.
Yeah, let's hover on that one particular point, because this is perhaps one of the most important takeaways from your work.Could you just spell out this first-year principle?
And perhaps it's useful for us to also acknowledge that, yes, there are a great many truly great stories about people who met
one weekend, two weeks later got married, and then we're hearing the story 50 years later when they've got grandkids and great grandkids, they thrived.
Or people met, got engaged three months later, or in some cases got pregnant three months later, and they have this wonderful marriage and family story to tell.We hear these stories and they're really wonderful stories, right?
I mean, they sort of affirm your belief in humanity when you hear those stories.And they are powerful, but,
In discussing a little bit of this with you offline, you probably have witnessed more cases where people rushed and that rushing to commit or to create led to more problems than it did good.
Yes, and that's many, many of the high conflict divorces that I've worked on as a lawyer and before that as a therapist and sometimes as a mediator are, in my mind, kind of the bad luck stories.
Got a decent person, usually my client of course, but something happened, they got together too fast, And then all this stuff came out.And I really believe in today's world that it is a matter of luck.
And that's why you should take a year to find out, am I, did I draw the short straw in this relationship because I got this perfect looking person, great record, all these good things.
But close relationships is where personality disorders come out, interpersonal difficulty, and the high-conflict behaviors, mostly close relationships.
So everyone might like them at work, but when you're home alone with them, they could be really terrible, yelling, hitting, doing all of this stuff.So that's why we say wait a year.I've had a lot of cases where people tell me, we just fell in love.
It was beautiful, and everything was wonderful for about six months. And then when I committed to get married, all this stuff started showing up.But I got married anyway because I figured, well, time and love will heal everything.Only it didn't.
So in today's world, there's a higher risk of getting a high-conflict relationship, I must say.And the description you gave is what people often tell me.They say, my grandparents.
got married a week after they met, and they just celebrated their 60th anniversary, they're still in love, everything's wonderful.Your grandparents tended to know who they were marrying.
In today's world, not only don't you know, you don't have a history, but high conflict people have learned to cover up the full range of who they are.And they're not bad people, and that's something I want to emphasize.
They just have a different personality, and they may have been born this way, but they don't come with markings.They don't come with the music like of Jaws, doo-doo-doo-doo.
They look good, and anybody, I think, is at risk of falling into a relationship like this.
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I definitely wanna come back to this point that you made that you're not demonizing these people.You're talking about how to behave with them or
to not behave with them in some cases in order to try and create the smoothest possible interactions in some cases, no interaction.
But if we could hover still a bit more on this first year idea, my understanding is that no getting engaged or for that matter married no conceiving children, and no moving in together in year one.Are those the critical?
Except for the last one, is it's really, don't commit like getting married within the first year.Sometimes moving in together is a good way to find out what it's like up close with this person.Yeah, you learn a lot by living with somebody.
That's right, that's right.And personality disorders, part of the definition is interpersonal dysfunction. And that's close.That's close relationships.So if you haven't had that close relationship, you don't see what happens when
You leave your socks out or the caps off the toothpaste, and some little thing is some huge storm.
Or when somebody's sleep deprived.I always say you can learn a lot about somebody after a bad night's sleep.You end them, right?
Right.But the key is patterns of behavior.So one thing I want to say is everybody gets angry sometimes.That's fine.Everybody yells sometimes.Everybody criticizes sometimes.
But if they have a pattern, like their life pattern of relationship is to yell and scream and criticize and all that, whoa, this pattern is probably going to keep going.
And as I mentioned earlier, I believe, with personality disorders, it's a narrower pattern of behavior.So it's more pattern driven. in several different settings, family, maybe at work when it's closed, maybe in the community when it's closed.
So these are recognizable patterns, as recognizable as alcoholism and addiction, once people learn.So that's the key, give yourself some time, see if this stuff comes to the surface.
you're raising a really interesting point, which is that although nowadays we have more information about people available to us by way of the internet and social media, you made the comparison with our grandparents' era.
I'm 49 years old, so my grandparents... Actually, my grandparents knew each other from the time they were like in the eighth grade.
They eloped when they turned 18, went and got married, I think to the dismay of one side or the other side of parents, but then were married more than 50 years.And grandkids, obviously, I'm one of them, et cetera.
And so you have these stories and we love these kinds of stories.But as you point out, they knew each other very, very well. and had for a long time.
Nowadays, one can quote unquote do their research, go online and look for things, but would you argue that that's not complete information?
Right.I think it can be helpful.You know, I tell people, Google your partner and find out, you know, if there's some history there that may impact you. But don't believe that's sufficient.
What I say is what you really want to talk to is relatives and friends of this person.And what you really want to do is see them in action with their relatives and friends.
Yes, because that's close relationships.That's the key.This is all about close relationships. And that's what catches people by surprise.They say, this person looks good at work.
Some people have worked together for 10 years, and maybe they were in other relationships, and they both got divorced, commiserated with each other, and they get together.And it's like, we've known each other for 10 years.
We're going to have a great relationship.And they find out this is like a stranger almost, because it's a close relationship now. And that's the difference.
How people behave in a close relationship often triggers, like personality disorder stuff, fear of abandonment, fear of looking inferior, fear of being dominated, fear of not getting enough attention.
The personality disorders seem to have excessive fears in these areas.
Is it fair to say that if somebody has a lot of stable friendships over long periods of time, that that's a good indication that they can maintain close relationships?
But it seems to me, you'd also wanna know like, what is a close friend to that person?Do they actually spend time with them?And likewise with coworkers, because some work environments that I've been in are necessarily very,
a non-personal, you don't share much, right?Whereas other environments, like I know the partners of everyone I work with now at the podcast, that wasn't true for my academic colleagues.I knew some of my academic colleagues' families.
I would have dinner with them, et cetera.But some of them, less so.So context matters a lot.
Yes.And I'd say you mentioned the word stability.And that's really a key.So if they have close friends they've had for 10, 20, 30 years, that's a really good sign.Bad signs are
I don't want you talking to my family, they're evil people, they'll say terrible things about me, you can't trust them, they'll end up, they'll turn on you, they'll hate you, all this stuff.
You can't even ever talk to my, I can't even let you know who my family is and what their emails and phone numbers are.
That's a warning sign.Yeah, definite warning sign.
Because everyone has conflict with family members at some level, but you would hope that one would feel comfortable allowing you to interact with their family.
Yeah.And if your family is really difficult, introduce your partner to your family and let them see, this is a difficult family and this is why I had to distance from them.Because a lot of people, to be healthy, do have to get some more distance.
But it's the secretiveness, it's the, just secrets in general are not a good thing for relationships.That's the biggest piece that's missing in a way compared to 50 years ago when people knew.It was hard to have family secrets 50 years ago.
Now, even though people may be all over the internet, you might not really know their secrets.And that's what you need to find out. What about advocates?
So, I'm familiar with some high conflict individuals.Some are more of the combative type, others are more of the kind of, what did you call it?Sort of a quiet manipulative victim playing type.And both seem to be pretty good at generating advocates.
I guess you call these negative advocates, people that will fight for them.By the way, this is all sounding a lot like modern politics. And maybe we'll get into that a little bit because it is an important reflection on what we're talking about.
But what about these negative advocates?If somebody has a lot of friends or advocates that they're kind of like on their side against, that are also in a blame mode. Is that a red flag?Yes.
What's interesting, and I'd like to someday learn more of the neuroscience behind this, but high conflict people have heightened emotions.The cluster B personality disorders are known as dramatic, emotional, and erratic.
That's the DSM-5TR says that, the manual for mental health professionals.And so their heightened emotions are contagious.
And in general, what I've learned about this work a lot is emotions are contagious, and high conflict emotions are highly contagious.So what happens, and I see this so much as a lawyer, and with other lawyers, and with therapists, is
The high conflict person comes into your office and says, I've been terribly treated by, let's say my ex, you know, man or woman, because it happens to both, been terribly treated and you've got to save me, you've got to protect me, you've got to win, you've got to, sometimes they say you have to destroy the other party.
That's always a warner sign when their goal is to destroy the other party.It's not a good sign.But they're so emotional.You say, my goodness, this person's been through so much.Now I have the emotions.
And what I teach in my seminars is I understand has a lot to do with the amygdala. that the amygdala catches the intense fear or tense anger, that those are heightened.And so now mine's going, oh, Billy, you've got to do something.
I'm like, my body wants me to take action.And I want to save this person from their evil co-parent, for example.And so what we see with negative advocates is they're emotionally hooked but uninformed.They don't really know what's going on.
And I'll give you an example.A court case with a high conflict person brought their whole family.And I had a case with false allegations, terrible allegations.My client happened to be the father.
The mother was making false allegations of child sexual abuse.And I've had all types of true cases, false cases.So this is a real problem a real issue, but there also were false allegations.In this case, that's what was happening.
So the mother brings her whole family, and the judge realizes what's going on in the case because of the evidence presented, and sanctions the mother for knowingly false allegations.What does that equate to in the legal system?
So my client, the father, spent about $40,000 getting a psychological evaluation, having a trial, doing all of this attorney's fees.And so the court made her pay $10,000 of his attorney's fees and costs.So that's what the sanction is.
And there's a code section that said, knowingly false allegations of child abuse are a basis to make one party pay the other party's fees. So she never paid it, by the way.And she owned no property.
We weren't able to get it because she had property in other people's names.But the idea was that she brought her whole family there.She brought her mother, mother's boyfriend.She brought her roommate, who was a psychology grad student,
who was encouraging her, oh, your daughter's being abused.You've got to do something.These were all negative advocates.And when the judge made her ruling and spelled out the information, that was very clear.I mean, we caught the mother lying.
She persuaded other people to lie for her.We caught them in lie.So it was a really surprisingly open case. And the family started yelling at the judge.They said, this is a crime and this is a shame and blah, blah, blah.
The judge said, you take yourselves out of here immediately or I will have the bailiffs take you out.And they stood up and laughed and shouted, this is an abomination or something like that.These were the negative advocates.
They didn't know what the full picture was.They believed their family member who was a skilled liar, I believe, and this is very interesting, I got to talk to her therapist, a therapist she had.I was released to talk to her.
And the therapist, it was in the open, was she has borderline personality disorder, and that was an open thing.And the therapist said, and there's something else. And I said, antisocial personality disorder?
And she said, I can't say, but I wouldn't disagree with you.
Which is effectively a yes.
Yeah.And with antisocial, that's where you get a lot of lying and stuff like that.
It's a rare case, but since I have the social work background, and I've had many true cases of child sexual abuse, especially as a therapist, I can see the difference, whereas a lot of lawyers don't know what to look for.
But this was an exceptional case, antisocial and borderline personality disorder.She had a lot of traits.And at first, the judge was very critical of my client and us, and he had supervised contact.
But the supervisor said, this is fascinating, when the child would be exchanged, the girl would kind of walk kind of tentatively towards the father.The mother dropped her and left.Supervisor brought her to the father.She was, like, kind of tentative.
She'd see the father, and she'd look.The mother's out of sight.She'd jump on him, laugh, and have a wonderful time.
I do have one question.It's not a litmus test question, but do you recall from the particular case you were just describing
whether the relationship had started very quickly, had they moved in together quickly, had they decided to have children together quickly, married quickly.In other words, was your client oblivious because of the the rate at which he were moving.
And the analogy that comes to mind is if you're moving very fast, it's hard to read the road signs.
I think he did.And what's interesting is they got together when they were quite young.I think maybe she was 18, he was 20, something like that.That's pretty young by today's standards.Yeah.And so excitement, new, all of that.I'm pretty sure they did.
And what's interesting is they had gotten divorced.
that the issue I described was an after-divorce custody issue, but they had gotten divorced maybe four or five years into their marriage, and she assaulted him, and he had the scars and all of this, so he had actually custody of this girl who was eight years old when the story I just told you happened, which is also helpful because she was verbal.
She could describe.She actually described how her mother coerced her to say things that weren't true. But yeah, so they got together young, I think quick.Then they got divorced, but the patterns continued.
And that's one thing we see a lot of high conflict divorces keep going even after the divorce.The actual divorce date is like a speed bump in the lifetime of high conflict if they have children together.
Hence the wait to have children with somebody.Yes.If possible.
You asked about emotional contagion and you made reference to the science.If I may, I'll just share something that might be of interest to you and to the listeners.You're certainly right that the amygdala is a central hub for threat detection.What
a lot of people don't know because it's just not discussed enough in the popular coverage of neuroscience is that the amygdala can learn in the sense that it's highly prone to context-dependent plasticity.
So, you know, this idea that getting emotionally charged is either negative valence, like fear, or positive valence, like, oh, I like that,
That's true to an extent, but over time, the brain changes to, in some cases, like the feeling of adrenaline, to get an associated dopamine release with that.
But a really interesting set of brain structures that aren't discussed enough, I'll just mention, because you asked about neuroscience, I had a postdoc,
my laboratory by name of Hee Kyung Jung, a fantastic postdoc, who was looking at emotional contagion.We were interested in human subjects, but these were animal studies.By one
a member of a species is observed and then mimicked by another member of the species.It's a very powerful aspect to human and non-human behavior.And there's a structure in the brain called the claustrum.
Most people don't know about it, which seems to be critical for this.And she did a beautiful set of experiments of showing that when animals observed other animals, either in a positive or a fear state, but in this case, a fear state, they would
or a threatened state, their own claustrum to anterior cingulate cortex circuitry, and of course, amygdala, et cetera, those would light up as if they were in the experience, but not to the same degree.
But over time, what one could see was a kind of a heightening, a plasticity of these circuits, so that smaller threats started to create larger internal responses.That's both combining He Kung's work and other work that's come out since.
what it says is that our brains are very tuned to the emotional states of others, this is good, empathy for instance, but that over time we can, our brains change to actually require a lower stimulus to activate that kind of negative advocate part of ourselves.
And so perhaps this is a good segue into a discussion about what we're observing societally now, not just in terms of politics, but it's one thing to be recruited to a camp,
But then once you're in the camp, it turns out, if we think about through the lens of this work, it seems that it requires less negative stuff in order to stay in that camp, but want to fight more and more stridently in order to protect a cause.
I think exactly.And as I mention in my book about bullies, I think polarization really demonstrates that.So once you're in your group,
and you see the other group as not only having a different point of view, but as the enemy, then your brain doesn't need to work on it anymore.That's case closed.They're the enemy.The only question is, what do we do now?
And the research saying that when you talk to the people in your group, Rather than coming together, you move farther apart.
And to me, what's fascinating in terms of legal cases, and especially in family law, is you have, like the family I described, you have the family talking to each other, you pull a lawyer into that,
The lawyer talks to them, the lawyer gets heightened anger, maybe, or commitment to save this person.And maybe you get a therapist into the picture, and they all just talk to themselves.They pull farther and farther apart.
And that's often when we have our high conflict court case.They come back to court every six to 12 months. Sometimes for years, I have cases where people have been in court like every year for eight or nine years.
And these are cases where the divorce was done long ago.What people don't realize is the worst custody disputes tend to happen after the divorce is over.
And I think it's because people are spending more and more time talking to their own team, to their own group, and that pulls them farther apart.Their view of the other side is worse and worse and worse.
And that's why I think the structure really matters.So I think politically, we have these two different universes that don't necessarily talk to each other.And they really create a sense of community.
People are looking for community, and they find it.But it's fed by, I think, the media ecosystem.Everyone has their own media. And so we have these two universes talking to themselves, growing farther and farther apart.
And that's why elections don't seem to have made a difference in any of this.Because elections kind of decides who does government, but they don't resolve the adversarial communities.And they get a lot of attention.
And sad to say, I think our culture has shifted from government
that politics as about government and the details and nitty gritty and the values of government are what's good for our group, good for our country, unity, citizenship, we should be together in this, that politics have shifted to entertainment.
The values of entertainment are be extreme, be emotional.And entertainment's driven by drama, you know, for, thousands of years.And drama is opposing us against them.
And as I mentioned in the Bullies book, there's a terrible crisis, there's an evil villain, and there's a superhero.And if you have someone tell that story to their community, they will love that person.
So now we have two communities in politics loving themselves and hating the other. And the elections don't resolve that.That's a speed bump on the road to high conflict.And that's not a good sign, and we have to find ways to bridge the gaps.
And there are ways.You get people one-to-one talk to each other.There's a lot of groups trying to say, let's connect rather than separate. And if we get too far out of balance, we're going to have bigger and bigger high conflict problems.
So we have to, the more people's eyes are open to this pattern, the more they can say, hey, I seem to be part of this group, but I want to, you know, my neighbors think differently.I'm going to listen to them.It's listening that's missing.
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On the suggestion of my friend and former guest on this podcast, two-time guest, Rick Rubin, I started watching a documentary about the history of professional wrestling, which everyone agrees is made up.
So let's just acknowledge that, I recognize that.But it's a remarkable portal into some of the things that you're talking about, because it all hinges on being able to create emotional responses in the crowd.
And just a very brief history of it, as I understand, and I'm by no means an expert, I took notes on this documentary as I do. take notes on most everything.
They used to have good guys and bad guys, good gals and bad gals, you know, because it's men and women's wrestling.Typically not against each other, although sometimes.
In any case, there was a transition that occurred at some point where they couldn't get more excitement and literally couldn't get more attention to the sport by having good guys and bad guys, good gals and bad gals.
So what they ended up doing was making everybody bad. and the ratings just skyrocketed.Everybody bad, right?The underlying premise being that both teams are cheating and so therefore they had to behave poorly also.
And it created this whole era of just bad people doing bad things generating even greater emotional responses.And this fits very much with the neuroscience of emotion.
Emotions like awe, happiness, joy, meaning, pleasure.These are powerful emotions.
And I will not say because there's no data to support the idea that fear, anger, being threatened, et cetera, are more powerful emotions, but they tend to drive more behavior.
In other words, people will do more, this is well known in the field of behavioral economics too, people will do more to avoid losing something than they will to gain something, sadly.
But this is how our species is wired for evolutionarily meaningful reasons.So the point being that I think societally and perhaps interpersonally, because the two things mimic each other at every level, individuals all the way up to culture,
seem to be engaged in this like increasingly amplified emotional states.And now it just seems like combat is the rule of the day. And it's so sad and you kind of have to wonder where it goes next.
But it does seem like it rewards these high conflict personalities because they go undetected, right?
So now the coworker who's super angry about something they saw on the news and is trying to engage people or something or create an issue around something that like, is this really an issue?
I mean, there's some real issues in the workplace and at school, but like, is this really an issue?Like that person 10 years ago, everyone would have been like, this is a problem person and would have backed away.
Now it just kind of, because the mean has shifted, I think it goes, it's no longer signal above the noise.It's, as we say in science, within the noise.
Right.Well, what we're seeing is the, these kind of Media systems, I call them, are attracted to high-conflict personalities, and high-conflict personalities are attracted to attention.They want attention.
So there's this almost marriage of media exposure and high-conflict personalities. And so that's what pulls people together.I think everyone's looking for community these days.And it used to be around work, like a shared task.
But now we do so much of our work alone or tiny groups.And so you get a real sense of community.People used to get it from church or synagogue or mosque, wherever. And that's weakened.
And so we get that now a lot, the intense emotional community from politics.And so there's a community for you, and there's a community for you.
So they pull themselves together, they get that, I don't know, dopamine hit or whatever it is, and strengthens them.So what's happening is we're pulling apart.But to me, the answer is exposing the patterns and understanding our brains.
is recognize what's happening.This person's probably exaggerating when they say that those people are evil.This person's probably exaggerating when they say those people are stupid.
Whatever it is that we have to realize, OK, don't buy that completely.And what's fascinating to me, I don't know how it happened, but I get text message solicitations to contribute to campaigns from conservatives and liberals.I get both.
And guess what?They look like each other.And they're like, the end of the world is coming.You've got to give $10 or $100 to save the world.And the end of the world's coming because of them.
And it's fear-based, but it hooks your emotions.I know this stuff, so I can go, OK, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe away. But a lot of people don't know that this is happening.
They don't understand how emotions are contagious and how I think high-conflict emotions are more contagious.So to me, it's educating people about these dynamics so you don't engage so much with them.
Like I won't watch more than a half an hour of TV news, but you can have 24-7 TV news. 1995, 1996, when they allowed, they gave you licenses for radio and television that didn't have to tell the other side of the story.
Before that, you used to, the Fairness Doctrine, you have to say what the other side is.You're for a candidate, you have to hear from the other side. You didn't have to after 1995, 1996.
So we had MSNBC and Fox News slightly off center, slightly conservative, slightly liberal.Well, now we've had 30 years of that, much farther apart. and communities around each of these.
And yet if you go, okay, I'm probably hearing some exaggerations here, so I can check myself.And this person's trying to be a hero and demonize those people.I'm not going to do that.So, I'm not one for government regulation.
What I want is for everyone to be able to say, OK, I see what's happening.I'm not going to get my emotions hooked.
And I think, to me, that's one of the goals, is for people to learn I don't have to absorb the emotions, because that's where the problem is.People are emotionally hooked and uninformed.
what are some of the signs of a high conflict personality?Because in an ideal world, we avoid these people.And again, we're not trying to say that they're bad people.Some of them are bad people, some of them aren't.
But since I'm not a clinical psychologist, you are, you can make the assessment certainly better than I can.What are some of the ways to avoid these circumstances besides the first year rule.
And then let's talk about some ways to disentangle from these people based on their unique phenotypes.
So is there a question or set of questions one should ask themselves when they are potentially dating someone, potentially becoming friends with somebody, potentially becoming coworkers with somebody and so on?
Yeah, so what's interesting is often your gut feeling tells you something's up here.Like the person suddenly has a shocking opinion of somebody else.And they say, you know, that person's a total jerk.
And yet, you know that person, and they're not a total jerk.Suddenly, something's disproportionate.I think disproportionate emotions is often a trigger.I put in a lot of my books now what I call the web method.
is pay attention to their words, your emotions, and their behavior.So starting with words, do they use a lot of blaming words?It's all that person's fault.Do they use all or nothing words?
They seem to see things through a narrow lens, that there's all good, there's all bad. Unmanaged emotions, which they may or may not show, like I explained.Some people are good at hiding all that, even though it drives them inside.
And the extreme behaviors.Do they do things 90% of people would never do?And I'll give an example here.And this is, I won't say the city, but there was a mayor, there was someone who worked, who was a congressperson.
And they decided to run for mayor in their city instead of flying to go to Congress.But when they were flying to go to Congress back and forth, this is in California, I'll say that much.People can easily research this.
So this person flying back and forth one day, one night, standing, you know, there was a line to get your bags at the airport after you got off the plane.And he was told to wait in line to get his bags.And he said, don't you know who I am?
And he pushed his way to the front of the line and had an argument with the person behind the counter, said, don't you know who I am?I want my bag right now.And she said, you don't have it now.You can't have it right now.
And he pushed her and knocked her over. He shoved this airline worker behind the counter and knocked her over.This was a mayor of a major… Not yet.He wasn't mayor yet.He was a congressperson.
Anyway, so that means he's… Sorry, no knocking.I know some very decent congresspeople, but like, okay.Yeah. Woe in any case, right?This person could be any number of different professions.This is anti-social behavior.
But this is a high profile person.So this is all over the news the next day.This is 20 years ago, maybe 15 years ago, something like that.Goodness.
Anyway, so it's in the newspaper the next day and newspaper says congressman so-and-so gets into physical altercation with airline worker, knocks her over. Half the people said, that's terrible.And the other half of the people said, wait, wait.
He was sleep deprived.He was flying across country.You have to understand that he was stressed.And here's where my web method comes in.
90% of people would not have done that even if they were sleep deprived and I fly back and forth a lot and I'm not, I don't do that.
I would like to think 99% of people would do that.
To get physical with an airline person over a bag? The cutting to the front of the line is egregious.The shoving the airline person is beyond the pale.
Yeah, exactly.So anyway, so he's running for mayor.And I'm going, this guy's a high-conflict person.If he gets elected, he's not going to be a very good mayor.He's going to have a lot of trouble with the people close to him.
And so guess what happened?He gets elected. Within, I think it's eight months, he is, and this is before the Me Too movement got started, but people are reporting he's harassing women, sexually harassing women.
Women come into his office to meet with him, professional, experienced, important, and he's like wanting to touch them a lot.Inappropriately, they don't want to be touched. Anyway, so women start complaining about him.
Word kind of gets out, yeah, this happened with a lot of different people, that he's not sexually assaulting them, but he's treating them badly.
So it cuts across domains.It's not just in the office.It's there, but it's also at the airport.It's basically any time he's not getting what he wants, he throws a tantrum.
And that's the thing with personality disorders is a narrower range of behavior that's repeated in a variety of settings.So he's fitting all of that.So which personality disorder, I'm not going to diagnose him, but it narrows down to one or two.
So it's not context dependent.It is pervasive. And that word is in the diagnostic manual, that it's pervasive across, I think, several settings.I think that's the words.But let me just finish.Because the end of the story is, he's also
got committees and people that are supposed to accomplish things.He doesn't want them to think, he wants them to, he wants to do the thinking and tell them what to do.So he goes around alienating a lot of people.
Within eight months, he's out of office because enough people were upset.
And the way he got out of office is some of the heads of government told him, I think it was the city attorney or something, if you quit now, we'll help you with your legal expenses, because he's starting to get sued for some of this stuff, suing the city, suing him.
We'll help you with your legal expenses if you quit now.And there was starting to be a petition movement for some I don't know the mechanics, like a special election or something to get rid of him.
Anyway, within eight months he was out of the office, and now you don't hear about him in that city.
It's a very interesting, literally high-profile, although still anonymous based on this conversation, case.I wonder if on a more subtle or typical level, the following is informative or not.
I'm not looking for a validation of the example I'm about to give, but I've been very surprised at times how, a person who I'm with for the first time out on a meal will behave towards the wait staff.
Not explicitly disparaging of them, but sometimes mildly disparaging of them.Or I'm feeling as if the amount of of liquid poured into their glass was somehow an indication of how the waiter felt about them or didn't feel about them.
Like reading into these things where you're just thinking to yourself like, whoa, life must be really tough for you.Like who's paying attention to this stuff?And so that's one that I've noticed in people and it's proved informative.
It's really a useful thing to see.That's part of what you see, their behavior and their behavior towards other people. This was a brilliant thing.
I don't remember the name of the program, but there was a guy who was head of a company and he used to, when he was interviewing people for high-level jobs, he pretended he was a taxi driver or something, would pick them up at the airport.
as the taxi driver and see how they treated him as the taxi driver and then he gets in the interview room and he's the guy interviewing them.
And in some cases people treated him really disrespectfully and it's like, now I know this is not someone I want.
Clever.I made the decision to not work for somebody years ago. when I was on a very different stage in my career based on how that person treated a janitor.And it was amazing because it was one very brief interaction.
And it wasn't like this person yelled at the janitor, it was the dismissiveness.
And I remember it was this, your web approach, it was his, I guess I just revealed, it was his words towards the janitor, it was my emotional response was sort of like, I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.
I was like, hey, that was... It just felt like a very, what I would call the football play, unnecessary roughness.
It was mild from the perspective of like, no one got physical or called anyone names, but it was, but I remember thinking like, oh, like that sucked.And then their behavior was just to just go right back to what they were talking about.
And I knew in that moment, I was really crestfallen because in that moment I knew Oh my goodness, I can't work for this person.Like I just can't.
And I made the decision not to, and actually their response to my deciding not to, for a variety of other reasons too, confirmed everything that I suspected in that one little interaction.But it's interesting because we're trained to collect data
rather carefully, and we don't wanna make snap judgment.Somebody could truly be having a bad day, but in this case, it was the right decision to not work for them.Thank goodness.I thank my lucky stars.
I made some really bad decisions about people in my life.That was a really good decision. I never spent a day regretting it.And I went to work for someone else who was terrific instead.
So, but as you said, these things sometimes hit at a somatic level, as opposed to some sort of, wait, did, you know, some like very cerebral analytic thing.It kind of hits at a, what must be a very primitive circuit.
I can't help the neuroscientist in me wants to say like, it's gotta be something at the level of the body where we go, wait, that was messed up. Yeah.And you can't really point to a specific word, and then you start to question yourself.
That's the problem you wonder was, well, maybe their tone wasn't... Maybe it's my own perception, but I don't know, maybe the body doesn't lie.Maybe it knows.
I think the body is like a first responder, and that we should pay attention to that.And especially with high conflict personalities, especially
The con artists, which is part of anti-social personality, and the ones I've dealt with are very good at this, is their words are just right.And your brain is like soothed by them.You go, this person gets it, and I'm totally comfortable.
They're charming, all of that.And your gut goes, wait, they're out of sync.I have this cold feeling.Why do I have this cold feeling? And I think that they're aimed at your cerebral thinking, and that your guts kind of
gets it because they're in a way predatory, like antisocial tend to be predatory.
Those people have dead eyes.I've known a few.I've known a few men and women and their eyes are, I can only describe, and I'm a vision neuroscientist.That's like what my career has been.And those are two little pieces of brain right there.
And there's something about the deadness and I don't have a science to support what I'm about. to say there's something about the deadness in their eyes.Maybe their pupils don't change shape with levels of arousal the same way other people's do.
Cause we know that happens in healthy people with an healthy autonomic nervous system, but there's something lacking.And people make up all sorts of theories online.Like I'm not a big blinker,
When I'm concentrating, blinks break up my flow, and this is actually a way I can remember things.People have these theories about blinking, non-blinking.The research doesn't support any relationship between blink frequency and personality.
They had this whole theory about Zuck too, like he doesn't blink, therefore he's whatever, he's a robot.None of that holds up.What does hold up, however, is this mismatch between words and the affect that it creates in us.
It's sort of like it sounds right, but it doesn't feel right. I wish we understood more about this at the level of science.There are a lot of theories, not a lot of tools.Someday, I think, yeah.
Yeah, the tools for measuring this stuff are getting better.I wanted to ask you about other ways of just knowing if you're interacting with a high-conflict person when the cues are more subtle.
Are there other things or examples of the web method that come to mind?
For me, of course, dealing with court especially, there's a lot of stuff in writing.
And so being able to look at what's written, and a lot of blame words, the all or nothing words, she did this and she did that, and disparaging words, she's stupid or whatever.
or he's a bully, he's this and that, which triggers for me, maybe he is, or maybe the person saying it is, but it heightens my attention.
Yeah.How do you disambiguate between projection and a real thing, like online now?I mean, one of the fastest ways to get a popular social media account is for somebody to give advice about how to avoid bad people.
You know, name calling, gaslighting, narcissist, sociopath, psychopath, histrionic, like these are clinical terms that now the general public can leverages to like, you know, sort of amplify community.
And then in part, I understand from talking to people on the tech side is that social media is social.
The accounts that grow fastest are the ones where you don't need much language to convey what you're trying to convey, like a sport or dance or an animal.
and among the others that grow very quickly and therefore rewarding to people are ones where you're recruiting these negative advocates.
First of all, I wanna make sure that I get this point across and that is there's a lot of temptation to label people with like the mental disorders, the personality disorders. And it's absolutely essential that people don't do that.
If you think somebody might be a narcissist or might have borderline personality or be antisocial, keep that to yourself and adapt how you work with them to be more effective or be more cautious, whatever.
But the worst thing, I think, is people say, oh, and everyone agrees that person's a narcissist.So we kind of gang up on that person.That's not helpful.The goal is not rejecting people. The goal is adapting what you do.
to either manage the relationship, decide, OK, that's not someone I'm going to get close to, but I can still work with them or have them as neighbors or whatever.So I want to emphasize that, because I think you're right.There's a lot of that today.
And people come to me with that concern.They say, Bill, you teach about personality disorders.Yes, so people understand patterns of behavior and how to adapt your own behavior. I'm not teaching people to label other people.So that's real important.
Yeah, people go to school for many years and do 3000 plus clinical hours to learn how to do that, to do that properly.It's like saying, it's like diagnosing anything.
I mean, a dermatologist might be able to help diagnose a skin patch for potential cancer, but we're taught that we're not supposed to do that ourselves.
So we have to be cautious, but on the other hand, aware. And the more you're aware of patterns, like being aware of someone with an alcohol abuse issue, is to go, OK, I'm not going to be serving him alcohol with dinner.
He's a great person, but I'm just going to leave that out of the evening meal.Adapt to what we do rather than judging them.And I don't see people with personality disorders as lesser beings.I see them as having a different set of behaviors.
that they acquire pretty much in childhood.So I don't hold it against them.I may dislike their patterns of behavior, but I really don't hate people like that.I've been a therapist with clients like that.
So I think our awareness needs to be there so we adapt how we work with people.But I think the gut feeling is is so important.And as a therapist, I was trained, pay attention to your gut because that's going to help you with your clients.
And that's why the web method, their words, their behavior, but how I feel often gives me tips.
You mentioned before, and I think it's really important to highlight that
people's patterns of interactions across a lot of different domains, with the teachers in the school, with close family members, with the people that know them best at work, that these different types of relationships reveal a pattern.
And one of the things, just speaking from my own experience, is that I've tended to, where I've gone wrong, I've tended to overemphasize the importance of like a credential.
For instance, some of my past romantic relationships have been with people who are highly educated, some less higher education, all extremely smart people, some more formal, some less formal education.
But I think that I and other people sometimes will look at the CV of somebody.And of course, that's not the only indication of their values, et cetera.
But, and to overemphasize like, oh, well they did difficult things in a difficult setting and therefore must be a good person.
So would you say that these high conflict personalities exist more or less in high competition venues versus low competition venues?
I don't wanna make this about socioeconomic status, those things correlate, but all too often we tend to do the kind of good on paper analysis. and forget the like, how do they actually measure up in real life?
Yeah.I would say, first of all, that we see high conflict people in every occupation, in every culture, in every community, every economic status.
I think that, and I don't think there's research on this, but I think that healthcare and higher education are two fields where there's a slightly higher incidence of high-conflict people because there's a higher tolerance.
Oh, also I would say churches, and we get consultations with churches sometimes, there's a high tolerance for behavior that's outside the norm.
So you said higher education and healthcare in particular.So you're talking about physicians and universities?
Yes. Yes.Students and faculty and staff?Yes, both.Administrators sometimes.And I believe it's because of the higher tolerance.
Administrators.Just kidding.I've been blessed with good administrators.I've been blessed with great administrators.
Let me mention, I do a lot of consultation.And one of the things that people come to me about is, is people with little power bases like department heads in universities.
I remember one university I did a consultation with about a department head and they were a medical school and they had a high conflict person high up in the structure who was really
I was told, damaging some of the students' careers because they looked at them cross-eyed or something like that, so they wouldn't write the kind of recommendation that they needed.And how can we deal with this person?
Because they're embedded in their position.So I gave them a variety of tips. That's why I think people do need to have their eyes open in these fields.
And I want to add, since I'm talking about occupations, we see this a little bit more in non-profits and non-profit administrators.
Because again, non-profits are good people doing good things, but they have this higher tolerance for administrators of bad behavior because they're good people.
And that blinds people to- Because of the assumption they're good people, or because the mission is good?
The mission is good, and they're invested in this mission, so they must be good.Do you think that's part of what got them there?Yes.
And the thing that's so tricky is everybody's somewhat unique, but also these are some recognizable patterns of behavior once you know to look for them. And this is something we're doing much more in the workplace now.
And employers want to know, we want to promote this person.Is that a good or bad idea?Well, let's look at the patterns of behavior.Because once you put them in an embedded position, things are gonna be harder.I've been approached by city councils.
They say, we've got somebody on our city council that's a high conflict person.What do we do?Do we confront them?Do we publicly talk about them?All that stuff.I say, neither of those is good.Learn how to manage them until they move on.
And they often do because people slowly go, we don't like working with this person.
It's really interesting.When I was a graduate student, there was a department chair in the department, big personality, like big personality.
And I very quickly came to realize, also because I listened to the faculty that were under this person, that despite having this like big, like larger than life personality that you might,
initially placed into a category of diagnosis or something, that this person was an incredibly strong advocate for the faculty, and they loved that.And he was really beloved, and I think rightfully so.
And at a surface level, might have rubbed a few people the wrong way.I think as students, we were like, oh, whoa.It was almost like
didn't quite know how to like respond to it, but you very quickly got the sense of like a real kind of paternal nature in this person.So I point this out because sometimes these big personalities are really truly benevolent.
Now, I'm not saying he was a perfect human being.How could I know that?I don't know that.I didn't know him in all domains of his life.Although I did know his family and he seemed to have a great, strong family too.
But then by contrast, I'm thinking of the person I alluded to earlier, different department, different university, who was kind of like more meek, like certainly is more of the stereotypical lab scientist, but then, you know,
there was this interaction that I observed and I thought, well, that's really dreadful, at least that's not an environment I wanna be in.So sometimes these things don't match our initial impressions.
I raise this because sometimes we think big personality, aka high conflict personality, sometimes we think, hey, kind of quieter, nerdy type, and they're actually quite dreadful.So it doesn't always fit.And I think the problem with
the internet social media version of this, the typical version, because there's some great social media internet stuff, podcasts, et cetera, is that we default to what we see and what we hear, but we don't really have the data.
And we can get manipulated that way.That's what's tricky.But you raised several important points.I want to respond to them all, if I can remember them.The first is that this is, in many ways, quite nuanced.
The key thing to look out for with high conflict people a preoccupation with blaming others and not taking responsibility.So you might have a big personality that's not a high conflict person.
You might have a meek, quiet person who is a high conflict person. You can't go by what your eyes see and your ears hear.It's really a question of evidence.
And that's why I think maybe I got into this after I became a lawyer, that there's no way to quickly know, although you may quickly suspect, and then want to look deeper.
But I want to give an example, because now that I seem to have criticized department heads and all this.
Well, I cited at least one that is really wonderful.I've known some other great department heads.I mean, there are some chairs that are just like, these are, first of all, as a department head, sometimes there's a slight salary increase.
Usually it's trivial.These people don't do it for the money.I have a good friend who's also been on this podcast, who's a chair of neurosurgery at a major department.I mean, these are people who, they work, they're
butts off to try and make conditions better for patients, for professors, for clinicians, for staff.I mean, I'm not just saying this.I have no incentive for saying it.These people don't control my life anymore.
Well, I suppose my chair of ophthalmology, who's a wonderful person, does, et cetera.But the point is that there are some people that step up to the plate to lead that are really great And these are just not the people that we're focusing on today.
Right, right.And so the thing I want to emphasize, my favorite example is Steve Jobs.Steve Jobs, I would say, hands down was a high conflict person.Famous for it.
There was a guy in Silicon Valley who wrote a book, The No A-Hole Rule, and he talked about Steve Jobs in there because he knew Steve Jobs.He was in Silicon Valley.
So I remember reading his biography, like a thousand pages or whatever, and what stood out to me was that he blamed people, Sometimes all or nothing thinking.They talked about his distortion.
Reality distortion field.
Reality distortion field.And that's exactly what high conflict people do.All or nothing thinking.You've got to do this.You can do this.People say, that's not possible.It's physically impossible, Steve.You can't do this.And then he would push them.
And one example that stood out to me was touchscreen, glass that you touch and it knows where you are.
I think, and I may have it wrong, but from reading his autobiography, that he harangued Corning Ware Glass Company, Corning Company, something like that, to create that.And they said, you can't do it.It's not physically possible.
He says, do it and do it in the next 90 days. And they did, they invented this thing that they probably would not have done unless he pushed them.So high conflict person, but I don't think he had a personality disorder.
People say, oh, he's an incredible narcissist.But personality disorder is characterized by lack of change. lack of self-awareness, lack of flexibility, and they shoot themselves in the foot and it interferes with their success.
He, I think, was close to that, but he had enough flexibility, and he picked a team that pushed back on him and he liked that.So he's an example to me of high-conflict person,
probably not personality disorder, and successful because he probably had some traits of these personalities.So what I see is you totally have to look for the evidence, that you can't make an assumption.
But if your gut says, maybe something's off here, pay attention to that.But look for the facts.Talk to other people that know this person.See them in other situations.Because there's incredible people like him
that accomplish a lot of really good stuff that you don't want to say, oh, we can't have him.Apple fired him in the 1990s, and he seemed to learn from that.He seemed to grow from that.People with personality disorders don't seem to grow and change.
And that's their problem.They're stuck.High conflict people, they blame others. If they have some traits, maybe you can do a workaround.So there's many people in position.
Surgeons are one group I want to mention briefly, because as a clinical social worker, I worked in hospitals and dealt with doctors a lot. As a lawyer, I've represented doctors in their divorces.
Several, I think, are high-conflict people, but most aren't.And that's what I want to say.Most department heads aren't high-conflict people.Most surgeons aren't high-conflict people, even though they get a reputation for that. Police is another area.
Military is another area.Probably slightly higher incidence because they're in a position where they can dominate and control people.But most police aren't like that.Most people in the military aren't high conflict people.They're professional people.
They like their job.They know their job.They have empathy.They work with people.So even though some of these occupations, there's a higher incidence, And that's certainly true for lawyers, I think.But most people, most lawyers aren't like that.
Most lawyers I know are really committed to their work, really want to help their clients.So I want to kind of be clear that this is nuanced stuff.
But when you're hiring people, when you're getting into a dating relationship, you want to watch more closely because it's the close relationships where high conflict behavior comes out more.
So the web method seems like a very good method, as well as paying attention to and maybe getting some information from other people close to that person in different domains of their life.That seems like a very, like, sage way to approach this.
Exactly.And because when you hear from different people the same problem, then that should raise your antenna.OK.A lot of people say, yeah, but this person can be really irritable.And you go, OK, oh, they're irritable in different settings.
I'm going to think about that.
What about when somebody is already involved with a high-conflict person and they want to disentangle? I could imagine a couple of different scenarios.Let's say disentangle from a professional relationship, disentangle from a personal relationship.
Probably some overlap there, but slightly different.Let's assume the high conflict person is a high conflict victim type.Then let's compare that to if the high conflict person is more of a combative type.Maybe we'll start with the combative type.
So if you're dealing with a combative, maybe even, dare we say, narcissistic type, I don't know that we should diagnose, but the stereotype that comes to mind, somebody that gets angry when you don't fulfill their expectations and blames others, does not take responsibility, and it's time you decide to, like the Homer Simpson meme, kind of drift back into the hedge.
Is that the way to do it, or do you lay a clear line and say, listen, I'm not gonna tolerate this anymore, I'm out?
It's really somewhat dependent on the nature of relationship.I do a lot of consultation, we do a lot of training with high conflict institute.So we get married people getting divorced, we get business partnerships.
where there's one partner that they're going, we got to deal with this.We have employees trying to get away from a high-conflict supervisor, and we have supervisors trying to deal with a high-conflict employee.So slightly different settings.
You know, the most common situation is going to be where somebody has a friend or a romantic partner, or a business professional partner they wanna get out of.So I suppose any of those.
A close, so a partner kind of relationship.
Yeah, something where the person expects to hear from you on a fairly regular basis, expects things from you.Could be professional things, could be personal things, but where there's an ongoing expectation that you show up
emotionally, physically, financially, whatever.
Yeah.So first of all, we strongly recommend against the direct hit is don't tell the person, look, you do this, this, this, and this, and that's terrible.And I don't want to be, I don't want to work with you.
I don't want to be in a relationship with you.I don't want to be close to you because of your behavior.
High conflict people puts them through the roof, they will defend themselves, and for the next months or years, they may put you in litigation, they may stalk you, depending on your relationship, they will hate you for that. They'll blame you.
They will blame you, and that fulfills their picture that it's all your fault.And now, look, you have violated the most basic thing, is that you will never blame me.So don't blame them.
Second thing is, don't blame yourself, because that reinforces to them.Like if you say, you know, I just can't, you know, I'm a sensitive person, and I just can't, you know, keep up with you.
I know I'm defective, and I know I'm no good at this, this, and this, and so I just have to end this relationship, and I
so much apologize, it's all my fault, you know, I do everything wrong, and I'm going to go really look at myself and get some therapy, and I'm so sorry, but I just can't, you know, keep up with you.
You're such a really good this, this, and this, and I just can't keep up with that. Well, they're gonna blame you for that.And you're, depending on their personality, if they tend to have borderline traits, they're gonna feel abandoned by you.
If they have narcissistic traits, they're gonna feel put down by you.They're gonna, because you're supposed to see them as superior.
If they have antisocial traits, they're gonna feel like, wait a minute, you know, you're supposed to be submissive to me, and yet you're walking away.So you don't wanna blame yourself. So you're going to go, well, what's left?
What's left is we aren't a good fit.Our goals have gone in different directions.I'm really ready for a career change.I want to go back to school.Or I just realized I'm not ready for a committed relationship.
So it's not about you and it's not about them.It's not about blame.You want to try to keep it away from blame.Now some people say it's dishonest to not tell them everything.And let's talk about brutal honesty.
High-conflict people really love brutal honesty, and they'll tell you, I'm just being honest.You're stupid or a jerk or whatever.That's high-conflict people.Reasonable people don't tell everybody every negative thing they think.
That's just not healthy for relationships. So it's okay to say, you know, we seem to be going in different directions or I have different plans I've realized I want to change.So those are basic principles.
The worst thing in ending a relationship or reducing contact is to go back and forth. The worst thing is to pour out your feelings to the person.
I had this people getting divorced, and they tell them, I'm so sorry, and I love you so much, and it was that.Pouring out your feelings to someone brings them closer to you.
So you wanna start holding back some, and the other person say, well, let's work, let's go to counseling, let's do this. And if you're not sure, go to counseling.I recommend that.But if you're sure, just say, you know, I'm kind of not there anymore.
I really need to be more on my own.So don't go back and forth, because that really makes it raw and sometimes presages violence in divorces.
A high-conflict person, especially with some of the personality disorder traits, can't handle the opening and closing, opening and closing.But the other thing, as I say, do it in steps so the person can adjust.
You might say, you know, I'm thinking about making a career change, or I'm thinking that maybe this relationship isn't the right one for me anymore.So the person gets used to the idea this may be coming to an end.
And then I'd like to move out and have more time alone to think. And then you're at a safe distance and you say, I've thought about it and we really need to get divorced.And let's go to a divorce mediator.I want to be amicable.
You know, I don't hate you.In many ways, I still love you, but we're just not meant to be a couple anymore. If there's kids involved, then I really want us to have a supportive relationship for them.If there aren't, then maybe this really is the end.
But it's step-by-step so this person can adjust to the fact that you really are leaving, but not too long and not too many steps, because then their expectations are raised, oh, maybe you're not really leaving.
So these are general principles, depends a lot on the specifics.
Yeah, that was very helpful in reference to the high conflict person, especially not placing blame on them.
I mean, I suppose in your own mind, you can hold all the litany of reasons why they are a terrible choice, or I guess more typically, if we're realistic, it's not going to be all black and white, right?
I mean, one would hope that at the first sight of really egregious behavior, people are like, I'm done, but typically it's a mix, right?I mean, this is, you know, professionally, personally, it's often a mix.
And, you know, I've certainly observed this professionally where people, you know, wanted to collect the degree or they were three years into a degree and like leaving was it's always an option. And yet sometimes it's not an option.
They have plans and financial obligations and sunk cost is a real thing.People always talk about sunk cost, like, oh, that's just sunk cost.Sunk cost is a real thing.
So I think, okay, so with the high conflict person, I think you beautifully illustrated how to not blame them, not blame yourself.Internally, you can hold any reasonable understanding that you come to, but you don't have to share all that.
And that you don't want to oscillate in any decision, but that perhaps things, some staging of the exit, not staging theatrically, rather staging meaning in stages, increments would be a better word.What about with the high conflict
victim playing person.That seems like it's a little trickier.
Let me back up a minute, because I want to say there's some times where you just need to get out and do it all at once, and don't ease yourself out.
Serious physical or emotional risks.
Yes.So you may need to get away before you hint that I no longer want to be married to you.And I've worked with people, consulted with them on established, you know, moving out when the other person isn't there.They and the kids go to a safe place.
They've got their lawyer. And then they tell this person that I'm getting divorced from you.Because people get killed when they separate with certain high conflict domestic violence people.
Also in the workplace, sometimes they're going to destroy, they're going to send emails, they're going to be really destructive.You might say, I'm going to leave in a month.And they're so angry that they're going to really destroy your business.
Well, this is why in the professional setting, forgive the word, because it's associated with this podcast often, but there are protocols for this in the workplace where if you have to let somebody go, there's a sequence of steps.
And sometimes it involves telling people, you know, go home, we'll ship you your things.That's one extreme.Go home now, and there's somebody waiting to escort you out type of thing.
Other times it's, you know, listen, you're going to finish out the month. but you're gonna finish that month out at home.Other times it's, hey, you're welcome to stay and continue to participate, but by X date, that's your final day.
So there's any number of different variations on these themes in the professional setting.And it sounds like there's any number of different variations in the personal setting too.
It's nuanced. And that's where getting consultation, having a therapist, a lawyer, a high conflict consultant, someone that you kind of walk it through with, maybe even practice what you're going to say with.
A third party observer seems really key, right?
So yeah, so mostly gradual, but sometimes fast.Really depends. Now, you asked about the person who plays the victim.
And I would suggest that that's very common with high-conflict people, that when aggressive behavior doesn't work, they switch to, oh, how can you do this to me?I'm so sad.
And what's interesting, the word that I didn't come up with, this other people came up with in divorce settings, where let's say you're divorcing someone with high-conflict personality. And they're like, I hate you.I hate you.
Don't leave me kind of personality.And so I'm divorcing you.And they're like in a rage at you.And then, no, I'm really leaving.Then they switch and beg and plead.And I've got cases where people say, and my ex-to-be just seduced me.
And somehow I went along with it because it felt real good. And it's back and forth from the high conflict person and they call it hoovering.You go, hoovering, where did that word come from?The hoover vacuum.
What happens is they vacuum, they suck you back into the relationship.And it's very common with some of the high conflict personalities.They can't stand to lose you, and when rage doesn't work, then they try to seduce you back in.
And some people have allowed themselves to get back in, and that's not good.You've got to be ready for that.Don't be surprised by that, and don't give in to that if you're sure it's over.
If you're not sure it's over, get couples counseling and see where it might go.
I know a number of people who, let's just say, conceived children very in close proximity to the ending of the relationship, and therefore there was no end to the relationship until several years later.
I don't know of a single case where that led to a persistence of the relationship, for better or worse.So this sounds like it falls under the rubric of hoovering, right?
People are leaving and then they end up, you know, one more time or just to try and make the pain go away type thing.And then they're bringing, you know, more of an attachment.I mean, obviously a child is a forever tie, as they say.So, Yeah.
I wouldn't say it's the majority of cases, for sure.But it's a common symptom with high conflict people.And you hit on it.It's like they can't handle the pain.And so they really bring the person back in.
But if this is the direction you're going, you need to let them start coping with the pain, either step by step or if it's dangerous, all at once.But don't go back if you can help it.
These are very helpful.They're not even tips.This is very useful information for everyone listening.I'm sure they agree.We had a guest on this podcast, Jonathan Haidt, who's written the book, Anxious Generation, The Coddling of the American Mind.
And he mentioned some statistics that younger folks, so high school and younger have seemed to,
lost or are losing the capacity to arbitrate among themselves, that now more typically if there's a conflict, and here we're assuming not extreme conflict or anything criminal, but where there's a conflict between two kids at school,
and they bring it to the authorities.When I was growing up, that was called tattling.You were called a rat and it got you semi ostracized if you did it.You learn quickly, don't do it.Either you learn directly or you learn by observation.
You don't be a tattletale. He claims that nowadays there's more of this lack of ability to arbitrate and kids calling out other kids publicly or publicly, and that parents are doing it now too.
And this seems worrisome in that it seems like it would foster this group segregation and cultivating through emotional contagion, blaming of others and negative advocates.
I mean, I don't want to blame social media for everything because I love social media for certain things.I exist on social media for a number of things that I believe are truly benevolent.So I'd be hypocritical if I said I didn't like social media.
I love social media for certain things.But are you concerned about this?I mean, this seems like a real issue.I mean, the profession of law.
exists because of a lack of ability for people to arbitrate among themselves, but that's not what we're talking about here.We're not talking about people bringing therapists or lawyers to really help mediators.
We're talking about just people going to the authorities or online and trying to create some drama for what, to what end?
Yeah, I think in some ways, to some extent, that's high conflict parents who see everything in all or nothing terms, see their kids as offended by other kids, or they're protecting their children.
And I am concerned about it, and I also agree it isn't just social media. In many ways, I've been watching this since families got smaller.So, I remember growing up, most families had several kids. The divorces I do now often have one or two kids.
And that's been true in many ways since the 1970s.And a lot of it has to do with birth control.So don't just blame social media, also blame birth control.
That when people could decide how large a family they have, they decide to have smaller families. Birth control pills came out in the 60s and the 70s, suddenly we started noticing people are having two kids.
And by the 80s, 90s, 2000s, a lot of people have one kid.My most high conflict divorce cases have one kid. because it's hard to share one kid.It's a little bit easier to share two kids.It's a lot easier to share four kids.
It's like, you can have them for the weekend.I'm not going to fight with you about that.Please take them.
And the small family, and this is, I think, structurally a lot, the small family structure is feeding parents becoming enmeshed with their kids, some parents.And so their kids become their partners, especially in these high-conflict divorces.
Now dad's a bad guy, mom's a bad woman, and the child, especially often the oldest child, now is my best friend, my kind of junior partner in the world. And that's where you see a lot of, you start getting alienated kids.
Now they hate dad and mom's perfect, or they hate mom and dad's perfect.
Parental estrangement is growing like crazy as a phenomenon.We're heading towards the holidays in a few weeks and months, and this is going to come up.
I actually did an Instagram live with a really skilled therapist named Mathias Barker, who specializes in, among other things, parental estrangement.It's so common now.Kids just deciding, I'm done with my parents.
And it's partly the culture is fulfilling that, that we're now seeing everything in like opposing terms, all or nothing terms, etc.
And the big message I want to get across with this with all parents and kids is it's a question of skills, that the kids aren't growing up with the skills to manage the nuances.
And so we teach a lot of our skills and we teach parents, teach these to your kids in divorce.Flexible thinking, teach them flexible thinking, teach them manage emotions, teach them to moderate their behavior, Teach them to check themselves.
Wait a minute, am I doing something here, rather than always you, you, you.
And we developed a method, we call it New Ways for Families, which was designed for high-conflict divorce cases for both parents to kind of learn these skills and practice, either with a therapist or a coach or just watching online and typing in answers.
to practice these four.We call these the four big skills for life.And this is, I think, what parents need to teach their kids, is you can solve that problem.Tell me what happened.OK, let's talk about what you could say to Johnny.
And we teach skills we call ear statements, empathy, attention, and respect, a statement that shows that.And so we teach parents.
Teach your child, you know, your best friend who just broke up with you might be feeling hurt about something, maybe something they said.What can you do?
So we encourage kids to help their kids manage the situation, and we encourage them to manage their relationship with the other parents. They come back from a visitation or access from a weekend, let's say, with dad.
And child says, you know, dad didn't look at my drawing.I drew a picture and dad didn't look at my drawing.High conflict parents says, oh, your dad's a jerk.You know, I always hated that about him. A reasonable parent says, oh, that's sad.
Well, you know what?Next time, if he doesn't look at the picture right away, maybe wait an hour and then show him the picture again.Maybe he got busy, maybe this or that.Teach your child to manage the relationship, even with the other parent.
And those parents don't have high conflict divorces. High-conflict divorces have the other.Your dad's a jerk, you know, forget about him.He'll never pay attention to you.
And that's when you see parents estranged or alienated, the kids alienated from the parents.
So you think that with increasing number of siblings, kids learn how to work things out among themselves?Yes.
That's another big part of it is you have to find out how to share.So I had three siblings and we grew up and it's fascinating.
You're one of three or you had three others? I'm one of four, so I have three others.That's a good size kit.
A brother, two sisters, so four.And what's fascinating for me, and I think it helped shape my personality and approach to life, is we grew up without television.We didn't have something to watch after school.We had to deal with each other.
So, you know, we might play kickball in the backyard or we might read or something or other.But we had to learn conflict resolution with each other.And our parents were like, you know, you go talk to your brother, Bill.
I don't have time to hear your complaint.And so, structurally, it's shocking going from that to doing people's divorces with one or two children.And even two is better than just one because they do learn.
to share, but parents feel so guilty today, and that's our culture is really not fair to parents, I think.To know that, you know, teach your child ways to deal with it themselves.
I'll say I have one sibling, we get along terrifically well, we're exceedingly close.
But I can recall when we were kids, if we were getting into the scrap, my mom or dad would say, just sort it out among yourselves, just don't get any blood on the carpet.It was like that, it was like that.
But then again, my mom's from New Jersey and so it's like a different style, right?Anyone from New Jersey will understand that was a joke. But the point being that we learned pretty quickly how to sort things out.
My sister and I have had a few conflicts over the years, but we get along terrifically well.We vacation together for our birthdays every year.But both of us had a lot of friends in the neighborhood.
I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of boys my age.She grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of girls her age.And so I quickly learned in that big pack of boys.
And then I entered sports and got involved in things where it was like big packs of boys.Like that's just kind of how it worked out. a bunch of young men and then men, that, you know, you couldn't say certain things or it was going to mean trouble.
Yeah, you'd get punched in the face if you say that to me.Right.
But nowadays that would be considered like, oh, goodness.
And, you know, like, wait, obviously not a proponent for violence, but there were certain... I probably learned at 14 that there were certain things you didn't say to friends or you'd get into the scrap with them and then you'd remain friends.
And so we arbitrated among each other, but also just had a share How to – we would – I don't recommend this because I'll – well, whatever.
We used to do these like Dirt Clawed Wars where you throw dirt at each other's heads like – and occasionally someone would throw a rock and cut some kid and then – but that kid who threw the rock would get in trouble. with us.
It's not like we'd turn him into his parents.You just kind of knew like he plays dirty and then he wouldn't play dirty again.Or if he did, then he kind of knew it.There was just sort of an understanding of how people sorted out in groups.
And this stuff hearkens back to primitive circuitry that's present in all old world primates, right?Chimpanzees in particular.
I always tell people, if you want a really good watch and you wanna learn about human behavior, watch Chimp Empire, the Netflix series.Because it's basically the
It's the core circuitry of the primate brain in action, how people team up, how they cooperate, how they then – all the human behaviors pretty much are there except the technology development.
Those chimps aren't building rockets and electric cars but they're engaging in all the sorts of –
of behaviors, both hierarchical and non-hierarchical, romantic and professional, so to speak, chimps have professions too, to bring about cooperative and non-cooperative behavior and sort it out.It's fascinating.
And the chimps are our closest relative, I think, right?
Yeah, as far as I know.I mean, I have friends who are really into the genomics of all this stuff, so I want to be careful.But I believe so.They are old world primates.We are old world primates.So there's a common lineage there, for sure.
Yeah, yeah.But I want to really reinforce what you're saying is about the community of learning and kids growing up in the community of learning. And I think it plays a role with bullies.
Because what happens is the community of kids figures out who's bullies and confronts them with their behavior.And people ask me, well, are adult bullies?Because my book is about adult bullies. Were they bullies as kids?
And I'll say it seems to be pretty universally they were as kids.But most kids try bullying at least once, and they grow out of it because they get feedback.They learn that's not going to work.You're not going to have friends.
I'm not going to be around.So bullies learn to either change their behavior or to live on the fringe of the group if they don't change their behavior.
And so part of why we're seeing more adult bullies today, I think, is because they used to be on the fringe because, or they learned how to get along, but if they're on the fringe because nobody liked them and they didn't change their behavior.
What we're seeing today is bullies are finding each other. And this is one of the negatives of social media, I think.And I agree, there's a lot of good things.But this is one of the surprising things when I researched my book.
Bullies are finding a group for themselves.And instead of the group teaching them not to be a bully, The group reinforces being a bully, says you were justified in doing that.
And one of the shocking things is to find that school shooters have a support system online.
That they seem to, some of the research says they always have a social media group.They have peers that they're trying to somewhat impress and that may actually egg them on.
And that if they track down, they find these folks have, and I think they should look for that, find out who they've been talking to, who they communicate with.
And so what I think we're seeing is bullies are reinforcing their bad behavior rather than social pressure for them to learn good behavior, which is, for me, I've done a lot of group therapy.
I've treated people that go to Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and the group reinforces and teaches them good behavior. But bullies are finding other bullies and reinforcing their bad behavior.
And that's an issue we have to address, especially with young men, is that we have to get on top of that and redirect them into socially pro-social activities.And most people don't realize that.I didn't realize that.
Now that comes as a real surprise to me as well.Are there female bullies and male bullies online?Or is it more typical that there are groups of male bullies online?
I haven't heard about female bullies finding each other. Well, actually, I should take that back.And this gets into a sensitive area about personality disorders.But borderline personality disorder is one of the more treatable personality disorders.
And people become aware that they have this disorder a lot from internet information.But what seems to happen, there's a couple stages for them.They become aware before they change their behavior.
And like DBT, dialectical behavior therapy, is a really good treatment for that.But therapists, and my wife is a DBT therapist, said that they become aware of it before they change their behavior.So they do self-sabotaging things.
even though they shouldn't.I know I shouldn't do this, but.And then finally, they learn to change their behavior.Well, some people are discovering their borderline and finding other people online and reinforcing their borderline view of the world.
There's evil people and good people.And occasionally, they write reviews of my books and say how awful a person I am because I talk about personality disorders, even though I say don't identify anybody
And I believe personality disorders, in most cases, could be helped if they're open to that.So I think there's some degree of, say, female people with that personality finding each other and reinforcing that behavior.
But what I read was, and I cite it in my book in the, I'm trying to remember, I don't remember which chapter, but that some researcher at a university said, look for their social media connections.
And you'll find that there was a reinforcement of this behavior rather than people saying, hey, you can't do that, you've got to cut it out.
One of the best pieces of advice a colleague ever gave me was when I started teaching in the university to undergraduates, this was prior to my arriving at Stanford where I am now, I had this big class
And this colleague who's a neuroscientist, very esteemed neuroscientist, but also trained as a psychiatrist, he's an MD, he said, just remember the statistics on various psychiatric and personality disorders.
You've got 1% of the population is schizophrenic, you've got 10% at any time that's probably experiencing major depression, you've got borderline, you've got it.And he said, so when you look out on your classroom,
just understand that it's a not necessarily representative population, but that those challenges, he posed in the right way, he was patient-oriented, those challenges are present in that population.
I mention this now because it's something to keep in mind anytime one goes onto social media and reads comments.You have to run those comments through the filter of what we know about the frequency of those challenges for people.
which is not to say that every negative comment is coming from somebody that's borderline or sociopathic, but there's a high probability that if somebody is continuously doing that, especially in the blame game type scenario, that that's what's going on there.
Something I want to fit in here, and that is that we need to understand that people with personality disorders didn't choose to have them. And so I have a lot of compassion for people like that.
And so I have a lot of students over the years, and they write reflective journals.And occasionally, they put in their journal, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
And I remember this one woman said, so when you talked about borderline personality disorder, it was a little uncomfortable for me, but I found it helpful. And she was actually one of the better students in the class.
And so she had that level of awareness, but she was still working on herself to manage the emotional roller coaster and such.
And so what's important to me is some people with borderline personality disorder may be angry with me because I talk about it, because they're early stage with this.But other people say, thank you, Bill.That was helpful.
And so there's kind of a range there.But I also want to say three basic reasons I think people develop personality disorders.The first is genetic tendencies.And various researchers say like 20% to 80% may be
the genetic tendency, depending on the person, that early childhood, first five years of life, maybe attachment difficulties may be a driving factor, but also cultural environment.
Some people say the researcher in San Diego wrote The Narcissism Epidemic, and she says from her research that the decade you're born in, influences your personality development as much as your family.
I don't agree with that because she's not a therapist and looked at the mental health.She looked at big surveys, college students especially.But I think that's more significant than we realized and more significant than I used to think.
And so part of what you're saying is today's culture is reinforcing not taking responsibility whereas in the past you had to solve problems yourself.
On the positive side, it seems that even though family structures have changed quite a lot, even though culture is changing quite a lot, there's this wonderful feature of social media and the internet now, which is what we're doing right now, which is the opportunity for experts like yourself to come on and educate
And I think that as we started off talking about, it's probably about 90% of people do not fall into this high conflict personality category.
And what we're talking about, what you're educating us on is how to interact with this 10% in a way that brings about more functionality for everybody, more effective, professional, personal, familial interactions for everyone.It's not about just
ostracizing those with challenges.
So keeping with that, you know, what should most people, you know, do if they are feeling frustrated with someone that they feel, well, for instance, the, you know, 80% of your problems come from 20% of people in this case where I guess we're saying, you know, like 90% of problems come from these 10% of people, but really it behooves us all to try and figure out
how best to interact with others.And so you've spelled out a number of ways that we can do that today.
If you were to kind of highlight, I never want to pressure, but, you know, highlight, you know, one or two things to just keep in mind as one moves through the world, the web tool seems especially effective.
Is there anything else that you recommend that we just hold in mind as we navigate forward?Because it's quite a landscape out there.
Yeah, several things, and I can be brief with each of them.First, there's what I call the four forget-about-its.It's forget about trying to give the person insight into how they're behaving.That blows up the person.
Just like I said, don't blame them for you ending the relationship.So just forget about giving them insight.Instead, talk about what we can do now.Talk about options. Don't go inward with them, go outward with them.
So when you go inward, you escalate their defensiveness.So don't try to give them insight into themselves.And a lot of people say, how can I make him see that what he's doing is so wrong?
Or how can I make her understand that she's creating the problem we're trying to solve? Just forget about that.Talk about, okay, here's what our options are.Let's talk about what to do.Second is, don't emphasize the past.
And people argue forever with high-conflict people about the past, and you never resolve the past with a high-conflict person. And I'll tell you in a minute why that may be.Focus on what to do now and the future.Future focus, not past focus.
Maybe you need some information to understand a problem, but then emphasize the future.The third is don't focus on emotions. And especially don't yell at them, don't burst into tears, don't tell them how frustrating they are, all of that.
And this is what I'm gonna tell you now is a theory that I hope someone figures out.And that is people with personality disorders and high conflict personalities don't seem to go through the five stages of the grieving and healing process.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, sadness, and acceptance.They seem to get stuck at denial and anger.So what happens is they don't resolve things.They don't, quotes, get over things.They don't get over the divorce.
They don't get over the job loss.They don't get over having to sell their house because they couldn't pay the mortgage.They don't experience the normal human healing and grieving process. So they're stuck.
And so a lot of situations with them turn to anger.They're angry. but they're not resolved.So high conflict people are constantly talking about the past and how aggrieved they are.They shouldn't have done that to me.I was right to have done this.
And people start, when I say that, like students in my class, oh yeah, that's what I see.They keep repeating themselves.And they go to as many people as they can and tell the story.
I believe they're trying to grieve and heal, but they don't have the mechanism. And I don't know exactly why.So I'm hoping someday neuroscience will figure out what connection is missing and can we give people that so that they can grieve and heal.
Well, what that means is if you focus on emotions, you're focusing on an area that's unresolved and has a lot of hurt.And so if you say, well, how do you feel about that?They almost always say, I feel terrible.
I suggest not saying, how are you doing today? because the answer I get is terrible.You know what she did yesterday.You know what he did last week.So instead, do small talk.Do it about anything except about how are you feeling today.
So don't ask how you're feeling.Focus on thinking and doing. And an example I teach lawyers and mediators is don't say, how do you feel about that proposal?Say, what do you think about that?Could you picture doing that?How could you do that?
How could that work for you?Because if you focus, how do you feel?I feel insulted.I feel abandoned.And then they drown in that.And next thing you know, you've lost them. So avoid emotions.Don't focus on emotions, but acknowledge emotions.
Say, I can see your frustration.Now here's how I can help you today. The fourth is don't use names, don't label people, don't say you're a high-conflict person.And lawyers do that to motivate their clients.That doesn't work.
Don't say you have a personality disorder.You may be wrong, and that never motivates anybody. So that's the four forget-about-its.So that's key stuff for people to avoid.
So that was a long answer, but when you're ready, I have four simple tips for things to do.
That was a great answer.Would love to hear the four simple tips for people to pay attention to.
Okay, I'm so glad you asked that question.So we have what I call the CARS method, and we've actually trademarked this CARS method. Connecting, analyzing, responding, and setting limits.First is connect with the person.
So someone's angry with you, or you're trying to help somebody with their problem.Is connect with them. by giving them a statement that shows empathy, attention, and or respect.You know, I can see how hard this is.I see your disappointment.
I hear your frustration.I can understand.By saying I can, I'm showing I see them as an equal rather than looking down on them.So that's the empathy rather than sympathy. Pay attention.Say, I'll pay attention.Tell me more.
I want to understand your situation.And listen some.And so what I see all the time is people say, it's like, oh, good, because I'm going to listen to them.They don't have to prove, they don't have to fight to get my attention.
And high conflict people often are fighting to get attention because they've turned everybody off. And that's why I teach lawyers and therapists that.They're going to come to you as much as anything else to get your attention.
So let them tell their story.Listen to them.Acknowledge the emotion.So empathy, attention, and respect.Find something you respect about them.Respect the kind of work they do.You respect their relationship with their son or daughter.
or you respect their commitment to resolving this dispute.So use those words.And what's fascinating is I teach this to people who I consult with, and then they come back and say, I did that, and it really worked.The person calmed down.
I had one woman who said, my boss was giving me a hard time.And so I'd run into my office to try not to interact with her.
And I said, next time, especially like Monday morning or something, is go up to her and say like, you know, how was your weekend?And say, or say, you know, I appreciated the presentation you gave last week.
Give her some empathy, attention, and or respect.You don't have to do all three of these.Just any one of these often calms the relationship
And I remember checking back with this woman a month later and she says, guess what, Bill, now I'm her favorite employee.But she's picking on somebody else, so I gave somebody else your book. But the idea is connect with people.
So empathy, attention, and respect.And ear statements, we call it.And people say they really remember that, because you can use that with anybody, anywhere, even with your kids.Genuine respect, right?You're not puffing them up.
This all has to be honest.
Yeah, you're not puffing them up.
Yes.Think about that. Now, if you don't respect them and you don't have empathy for them, tell them you'll pay attention and listen.And often you'll start developing some empathy or respect for them.But you can always pay attention and listen.
So that's connecting.The second area, and these aren't exactly steps, but these are four areas high conflict people have difficulty.The second is emotions kind of cloud their thinking, so we want to help them think.So you want to move to analyzing.
Give them a way to think.So you're kind of calming the emotions, and now you're saying, let's think about this.So present problems as a choice.You could do this now or do this tomorrow.Or here's the options I see.
There's three ways you could approach this problem.So you're getting people thinking about the problem rather than reacting.And when you give a choice, it kind of forces them into logical problem solving.
So one way you can do this is, especially if you have a professional relationship, like employer, employee, therapist, client, stuff like that, is have them write a list.
They're talking, they're saying, this is wrong, and that's wrong, and that's wrong.You say, whoa, whoa, whoa.Write a list of these problems so I can get a clearer picture.When you write a list, you calm down. And I've had this over and over again.
Angry people, when they're writing a list, calm down.They start thinking about it.I've done this with a doctor once, and he was having trouble with the nurses.And it was like they're doing everything wrong.
All right, write a list of all the things they're doing wrong.And pretty soon, you start thinking, you know, there's this other thing they do, but it's not so bad, actually.And I want them to do this on the left-hand side of the page.
Because on the right-hand page side, we're going to start looking at what are possible solutions.And you really calm people down.I've done this as a media.I've had both people, okay, I want you to write two lists. like business partners.
Now say you're trying to decide whether to split up or keep the business partnership.
So I want you both to write a list, what you would do if you split up, wind down the partnership, the steps you'd have to take, and another list, what the steps would be if you could make it work between you.
So let's meet in a week and we'll look at your list. Come back a week later, they say, you know what?We both wrote our lists.We immediately called each other and realized we should terminate the partnership.
But we have one last big project we want to do together.And we realize now we can go our separate ways in peace.We really have different goals.It's not her fault.It's not her fault.This was two women who worked together. And so writing a list helps.
This is all under analyzing, the A of the KORUS method.Having the person make a proposal.Say, make me a proposal.
I tell managers, as soon as you can, tell your employees that now that I'm your manager, whenever you bring me a problem, and I want you to bring me problems when they're small, because conflicts that are small are much easier to resolve.
Always bring a solution to the problem.I want to hear your proposed solution, because you know the problem better than I do.You're getting them to think.So high conflict people, I believe, have a bandwidth for problem solving.
And some are brilliant heads of companies, inventors, all that stuff.They got a big bandwidth for conflict, but they also have a bandwidth for problem solving.You want to aim at that and bring that out. So that's analyzing.R is for responding.
High-conflict people, because they blame so much, are always saying, you should have done this, you didn't do that.Our tendency is to argue with high-conflict people, and that's a forget about it.
You're trying to give them insight, it's not gonna work.So instead, give them what we call a BIF response that's brief, informative, just straight information.Don't tell them you're wrong, just tell them what the information is.
And do it in a friendly manner, and have it be firm, have it end the discussion.Most commonly, BIF responses are in writing, and we teach this as an email method.
And we estimate there's about a million people doing BIF now, because we taught it to about half a million people. professionals and individuals.We've got four little biff books.We've got videos.
So it's brief, informative, friendly.
And those four things.Friendly is immaterial?Well, a touch of friendliness.So what I say, like someone writes to you and say, you know, you're doing everything wrong. And you're right back and you say, thank you for telling me your concerns.
Here's some information you may not, like say someone tells me, Bill, your methods are never gonna work.And I get instantly defensive.And so thank you for telling me your concerns.
You may not be aware, but about a million people are using this method now.And I wish you well. Something like that.So a touch of friendliness doesn't have to be a lot.And firm doesn't mean harsh.It just means try to end the hostile conversation.
So don't respond to their distortions maybe even when they say you've done this or misinformation or hostility.It's just give them a BIF response.And I tell that sometimes to Business owners, sometimes public figures.
They might say, like politicians sometimes, terrible things are said about them, and they go, but they're not true.And they're going to go, well, I'm going to ignore that, because no one will believe that.But then people believe it.
A great example, Domino's Pizza about 10 years ago.This is a great story.I love it, and I also eat Domino's Pizza. I won't get into the details, but somebody said something that grossed people out, and their stock just dropped.
Two employees did something to the pizza.So first, we're going to ignore that.Everyone's going to realize that was a dumb thing two employees did.Well, their stock dropped like 10% or something like that.
So two days later, the head of Domino's Pizza puts out a 90-second video. And it gets spread around.And what he says is, two former employees did this gross thing.And that doesn't represent us.And most important to us is our customers.
We're totally dedicated to you.This is never going to happen again.We've done everything to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.So they bounced right back.And in my mind, 90-second video?
Didn't do a 20-minute explanation of how we do this, just 90-second video, head of the company, put it out there, bounced right back.And to me, that was a BIF response, even though we never heard of it.Brief, informative, friendly, and firm.
So that's CAR, C-A-R.That's R, that's the responding.
What's S?The S is setting limits. And this may be the most important with high conflict people because one of their biggest problems is they don't stop themselves.They keep going in areas where most people stop themselves.
They keep talking, they talk a lot, they create a problem and keep creating the problem. They don't stop, and so people around them have to stop them.And we're not used to stopping other people's behavior.Most people manage themselves.
And part of writing my books is I believe today that we have more high-conflict behavior, and everyone needs to learn skills to set limits on bullies, on high-conflict people's behavior.It's all about behavior.
They're not bad people, but they don't have the self-restraint.So setting limits and key things here.Don't blame them.Don't blame yourself. Say there's a policy, there's a rule, there's a law.How it looks to people is do this instead of doing that.
So that behavior.And if you keep doing that behavior, here's what the consequence is. So I have a method I call SLIC.So everything, I've got initials.You've got a lot of acronyms.That's all right.Scientists have acronyms.
Military science and apparently... High conflict methods.So SLIC is setting limits and imposing consequences. So with high conflict people, you might set the limit.Like you say, you know, I'll give an example as a lawyer.
I represented a woman victim of domestic violence.Her ex-husband-to-be didn't have a lawyer.So that means he's allowed to talk to me.I have to talk to him, negotiate, solve problems.So he calls me up and he says, We've got to solve this problem.
You tell that blankety-blank-blank wife of mine.I said, hold on.You can't talk about my client that way.He said, I'll talk about her any way I want to.She's a blankety-blank-blank or whatever.So he didn't respect my limit at all.
So then I said, if you keep talking like that, I'm going to hang up. And so, it's up to you.He says, I'll talk about her any way I want, keeps talking like that.I said, okay, you've chosen for me to hang up.I'm hanging up now.
Call me when you're ready to be civil.So, end of call.Next morning, he calls me back.He says, Mr. Eddy, we have to solve this problem.My blankety-blank-blank wife, and I say, hang on.Remember, I'm going to hang up if you talk like that.
She says, oh no, no, no, don't hang up.We have to solve this problem.I'll try not to say those words. and he doesn't say those words, we get to address the problem.So the consequence is what stopped him, not the limit.
And I think it's a brain thing that they're so absorbed in the emotions of the moment that they can't picture that their behavior has a consequence.So if the people around them point out, There's a consequence if you do that.
It's kind of a jolt to them.Oh, I don't want that consequence.And so with high conflict people, you often have to tell them the consequence when you set the limit and be ready to impose the consequence.So that's setting limits, imposing consequences.
They have to go together with high conflict people.
Love it.And I know that those listening and watching really appreciate this.I mean, these are incredibly valuable. tools.
I mean I can say from my own life and I know observing the experiences of others and what people have shared with me that here I have to be careful because I don't want to place blame.
Let me phrase this correctly that the ability to navigate interactions with high conflict personalities well can lead to a dramatic improvement in people's lives, both for the non-high conflict personalities and the high conflict personalities.
And that a failure to do that does exactly the opposite. Look, I really want to thank you for doing the work that you do as a lawyer, as a therapist, the research that you've done.You're incredibly well researched and thorough.
You sent me papers in advance of this, in addition to having written all these books that we'll provide links to in the show note captions.I've read several of them, but I plan to read the others as well.You have a book specifically on relationships.
You have books on bullies.You have a book about five types of people that can ruin your life, and several others as well.So we'll put links to those as well as some other resources related to your work.
And also just want to thank you for, you know, being a contributor to public education.I mean, that's what this podcast is.People listen to this podcast in hopes of gleaning information that they can really apply and that they can pass on to others.
and you're doing incredible work.You're also teaching in the university system later today.So you're quite, quite busy and we're deeply appreciative that you took the time to come educate us.
So on behalf of myself and everyone listening and watching, I just want to extend a deep gratitude.Thank you.You're trying to make the world a better place and you are making the world a better place.
Thank you so much.I appreciate the chance to speak with you and get this out.
Great.Well, come back again and tell us more about bullies and the rest.There's a lot more to cover.We'd love to have you back. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Bill Eddy.
I hope you found it to be as interesting and practically informative as I did.To learn more about Bill Eddy's work and to find links to his various books, please see the show note captions.
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Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Bill Eddy.And last, but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.
