High Conflict Institute

Splitting America – Part 2: Left and Right Brain Conflict Resolution

2012-01-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

In the previous blog, I wrote about the dynamic of “splitting” – the tendency for some people to see others as all-good or all-bad, and the contagious nature of this highly intense emotional process. This seems to have entered our political process with today’s attack ads. They may seriously split America, unless we realize how this works.

Brain research may help explain this process. It appears that we have two basic systems of conflict resolution associated with the right and left hemispheres of our brains. (This dynamic is a different issue from political right and left.) The left brain is where written and spoken word content is mostly processed. Most of the time, researchers say that our left hemisphere is dominant, looking at problem-solving in a logical, detailed manner that is generally associated with mildly positive emotions, such as calmness, contentment and a sense of safety. This is where we tend to store and reflect on specific detailed solutions to previous problems, which helps in planning logical and detailed solutions to new problems.

Our right brain tends to take over when we are in a crisis or face a totally new situation. The right brain tends to respond much more quickly, in a defensive and protective manner – which also shuts down our higher thinking so that we can focus on fight, flight or freeze responses. Such an approach helps save our lives when facing an immediate, life or death problem. This defensive response includes splitting: fast all-or-nothing thinking, intensely negative emotional responses and extreme behaviors (running away, violently attacking or trying to hide). The right brain unconsciously and constantly pays great attention to people’s tone of voice and facial expressions, which are highly contagious during a crisis. Before you realize it, you may start reacting to a situation like those around you (running, fighting), in an effort to strongly defend through group strength. This group defense mechanism (contagious emotions) has saved humans for thousands of years. It’s like emotional Wi-Fi.

Anthropologists believe that modern human beings and our modern human brains have been around for approximately 150,000 years. About 50,000 years ago our vocal chords moved up in our throats, so that we developed the ability for speech and modern verbal language, rather than just grunts and shouts. About 10,000 years ago we moved from primarily being hunter-gatherers to an agrarian culture as farmers. This provided the potential to form much larger communities in stable locations. Then, about 5,000 years ago we developed written language.

This means that for most of our existence on earth we have had a social brain that helped us work together to solve problems, based on emotional Wi-Fi – without the benefit of research and historical analysis of political behavior. For most of our human history and brain development, we have been attracted to leaders based on non-verbal behavior, such as charm, strength, speed, aggression, dominance, and the ability to appear confident and clever. These characteristics are recognized by our right brains – our experts on non-verbal behavior. However, these characteristics can be easily manipulated out of context.

Our left brains have the ability to get the context – to gather a wide range of written information about candidates. We can read history, read about political candidate’s full backgrounds of behavior, and predict much more accurately which candidate will meet our goals in the long-run. Yet, if we don’t understand our right-brain tendency to follow leaders based on appearances of strength, charm and wit, we will resort to electing leaders simply because they are good at grabbing our attention.

Today’s political world of attack ads encourages splitting: simple, emotional, all-or-nothing views of complex problems, by identifying “all-bad” individuals and groups – and attacking them. Human history is filled with this simple mistake. Let’s not let it happen again, now that we are aware of its dynamics.

(The last blog in this 3-part series focuses on the power of modern media in promoting splitting.)

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author ofIt's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don't Alienate the Kids!. He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Revision: Request for High-Conflict Workplace Examples

2012-01-24T08:53:00.001-07:00

We're seeking case examples of high-conflict people and behavior at work, including customers, employees and bosses, for a new book I’m writing. It would help to know specific behavior and patterns of behavior they demonstrated, and how they were handled (or not) and how things turned out – disasters and success stories. A page or two is sufficient, with identifying information disguised. You can even do this anonymously, as I am looking for general examples to use in demonstrating a management method, not looking for exact information. Thanks! Bill

Submit your case studies to: info@highconflictinstitute.com

Splitting America - the new contagion in American politics

2012-01-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

The concept of “splitting” in relationships has been studied for decades, especially when borderline or narcissistic personality disorders are involved. Splitting occurs when a person views others as either all-good or all-bad, with no grey areas and with an emotional intensity that is contagious – but uninformed. Others come to believe that a certain person really is all-good or all-bad. Splitting is an unconscious process for those with personality disorders and its contagious nature is generally an unconscious process, unless you know to watch out for it.

Splitting is a common dynamic in many high-conflict child custody disputes in family courts. Randi Kreger and I described this dynamic in our recent book: SPLITTING: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

It also is a dynamic in hospital and substance abuse treatment programs, commonly known as “staff splitting,” when there is a patient in the program with a personality disorder. That patient tells other patients and staff that one employee has acted extremely badly and another has been extremely wonderful. Unless staff recognize when splitting is occurring and how unconsciously contagious it is, they start hating each other and viewing each other as all-good or all-bad. They totally disagree over their treatment of that patient, seeing her or him as a total victim or as totally to blame for their own problems. Rumors start flying and bitterness escalates. I have consulted with organizations where this was occurring, and once they learn about the splitting dynamic, they usually become immune to it and are able to work together well again – although occasionally some workgroups become split beyond repair.

The current election climate and attack ads remind me of this splitting process, in that candidates are describing each other in terms of being all-good (themselves) or all-bad (various other candidates), with no grey areas and with an emotional intensity that is contagious. Recent attack ads seem to run along these lines and we will see a lot more before November. Uninformed voters who are not aware of this dynamic will become convinced that the target of the split (the attack ad’s target) is crazy, stupid, immoral or evil. An Op-Ed piece in USA Today on Monday was even titled: “Why U.S. Politics Divides into Good and Evil.” Splitting is an intensely emotional experience, without room for rational analysis or discussion, and can occur in a mob-like manner that supersedes any quest for information.

I doubt that any of the candidates has a borderline or narcissistic personality disorder, since a personality disorder is a long-term pattern of interpersonal dysfunction and internal distress. However, politics is an area that is known to attract people with narcissistic traits and people with these traits can often succeed for a while in their work, even though their close personal relationships usually are marked by chronic difficulty.

In their book, The Narcissism Epidemic, authors Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell, explain that narcissists often are chosen as appealing leaders in groups, until the group gets to know them. They see themselves as leaders with outstanding skills – and the group believes that at first as well. But then, their leadership role is short-lived, as group members catch on to their serious deficits and no longer see them as leaders. In fact, the research on leaders in business shows that the narcissists demonstrate more volatile leadership, which hurts the stability of the company over the long run – and stability is what really adds value to the business. The less narcissistic leaders did the best, according to Twenge and Campbell. The narcissists’ overconfidence eventually ruined them. While they continued to see themselves as superior, their peers saw them as inferior as leaders – and threw them out when they could.

Keep this in mind as the elections and attack ads progress. Narcissists and borderlines can’t help themselves, but reasonable people can stop the splitting of America by becoming aware and explaining this dynamic to others.

(This is the first part of a 3-part blog. The next one focuses on brain research which may help explain about why we are so vulnerable to “splitting.” The last part will focus on the role of the today’s changing media in increasing splitting in society.)

Marriage is Declining: Part II

2012-01-19T13:18:00.001-07:00

I was very appreciative of the feedback on my blog last week (1-12-12) about marriage rates declining. The responses triggered a look into more research statistics and some more thoughts for family professionals. Here’s some results:

Remarriage rates: I don’t know if this has changed since 2004, but a U.S. Census report showed that the remarriage rate for men 25 and older who were divorced was about 52% and for women was about 44%. This study indicates that men remarry sooner than women (not a surprise). (www.remarriage.com)

The speed of remarriage: An interesting article in Newsweek a couple years ago reported that American kids experience their parents’ divorce, new relationships and re-marriage faster than kids in other countries, such as Sweden – which has a higher cohabitation rate. This was surprising, but they found that 40% of U. S. children in two-parent families (married or not) experienced their parents splitting up by age 15, whereas 30% of Swedish children experience a parental breakup by age 15. Then, new partners move into the child’s household within three years of the divorce at a 47% higher rate than in Sweden. (www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/08/14/americans-marry-too-much.html)

Since I was in Sweden last year, I would agree that there seemed to be less marriage but more stability of relationships. While I taught social workers who were providing divorce mediation services about dealing with high-conflict personalities, their level of conflict was reportedly less and I was told that only about 7% of families use court hearings to make their divorce decisions, whereas over 20% do in the U.S.

Incomes of cohabiting couples: One of the comments last week from Australia was that many couples are living in stable cohabitation relationships there, so that their incomes may be similar to married couples, rather than much poorer (which I had implied in my blog). I couldn’t readily find credible statistics on that, although several sources indicate that cohabiting couples in the U.S. have less income than married couples (although they have more income than single parent families). One reason for this may be that cohabiting couples want to get married, but feel they can’t afford it. (http://www.unmarried.org/cohabitation-f.a.q.html)

Some Thoughts: I generally believe that living as a single, cohabiting or married person does not make much difference for adults – the important factor is the quality of one’s relationships, whether with friends, lovers or spouses. However, these recent marriage statistics concern me in the long-term sense for society and child-rearing. They reflect instability of relationships, especially of parenting relationships, and a decrease in relationship skills concurrent with an increase in individualism. And “family instability” seems to be a factor in the increase in personality disorders. (Disorders of Personality: DSM-IV and Beyond, Millon, 1996)

There needs to be an increase in teaching and reinforcing conflict resolution, communication and negotiation skills. People shouldn’t get married because they are “supposed to.” They should get married because they are two people (of any sex) who have the skills for a committed relationship and because it satisfies them more. As a society, we need to provide more support for such skills and satisfaction, rather than endorsing an extreme “do your own thing” philosophy (which reinforces narcissism) or a guilt trip (which reinforces unhappy marriages). It doesn’t need to be “me versus us.” It can be “me AND us.”

B.I.F.F.s for Business and Professions

2012-01-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns

By Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.

Businessestoday have many opportunities to deal with HCPs as customers, suppliers,contractors, partners and in negotiations over future business relationships.Professionals face similar situations, as they often operate as smallbusinesses and deal with HCPs on a regular basis.

Allbusinesses and professions create expectations, but the expectations of HCPs areoften very unrealistic. This can lead to angry outbursts, customer relationscomplaints, consumer affairs complaints, licensing board complaints, rumorsamong colleagues, bad publicity and lawsuits. B.I.F.F.s can help you managerisks and reduce the distraction of draining emotional issues of HCPs.

The goalisn’t to avoid all HCPs in business and professional work – you can’t ever succeedat that (see Chapter One) because HCPs are usually not obvious at the beginning.Instead, the goal is to contain the emotional challenges and stay focused onthe services that you want to provide. When handled correctly, most HCPs can besatisfied customers, productive employees and even sources of future work.

This chapterwill include B.I.F.F.s for a high-conflict client and a high-conflict businesspartner.

A Disgruntled Client

For manyyears, divorce mediation has been a significant part of my work as a lawyer andsocial worker. After almost thirty years, I received a letter with thefollowing general message (it is not the exact letter, as mediation isconfidential).

Dear Sir:

You met with us on Sept. 9^th for our divorcemediation and we scheduled another meeting for Oct. 15^th. We are nowcancelling that meeting, because both my wife and I (and my attorney) believethat you did not handle our mediation properly. You allowed many criticizingand blaming comments to be made and we accomplished nothing. I paid for themediation and I would like my money back. Please respond promptly. We havefound another mediator who does it correctly.

Sincerely, Disgruntled Client

I rememberedthis case, as this client came late, took two phone calls on his cell phoneduring our meeting and left early. He made several blaming comments toward hiswife, did not take responsibility for solving problems and yet interpreted heras being unreasonable. This is not unusual for a first session in mediation andI expected to slowly get him to solve problems over the next 3-4 sessions. So Iwas surprised. However, after I got over my surprise and anger at this letter,I sent the following B.I.F.F. response:

Dear Client,

Thank you for your letter expressingyour concerns about our mediation session. After doing nearly 1000 divorce mediationcases and teaching a course in mediation at two law schools, I have learnedthat people have different styles of providing mediation services. I am gladthat you have found a mediator that fits you. Best wishes in completing yourdivorce.

Sincerely,

Mr. Mediator

I neverheard from him again. You may wonder why I didn’t tell him directly that Iwouldn’t refund his money. I believe that I performed my services totallysatisfactorily and that he acted inappropriately. There was nothing that I neededto apologize for and I think this letter makes it clear that I did not believethat I did anything wrong. I didn’t want to make him think about a refund anyfurther, as raising the issue and then rejecting it was more likely toinfluence him negatively than just telling him that I’m very experienced, thatmediators have different styles and that I wish him well. This was the leastlikely approach to increase his defensiveness, and it appears to have helpedhim let go.

Send “BIFF” to Washington!

2012-01-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Jon Huntsman declared he would stop campaigning for President. Too bad, he seemed like a reasonable person, by and large. I couldn’t agree more with his comment on the way out: “This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks not worthy of the American people and not worthy of this critical time.” (Several news sources) Of course, he threw in a few of his own attacks during his months in the campaign.

This year is expected to sink to the lowest depths of negative ads and hostile political speech in recent history. I think the U.S. public wants civility, but is fascinated by disdain and disrespect. If we were to turn off the news or refuse to vote for individuals who communicate this way it would immediately stop. But the opposite seems to be happening. People are eager to hear what politicians say about each other – the worst seems to get the most attention and Jon Huntsman couldn’t get attention by mostly being reasonable.

I think there should be a candidate out there who gets attention by using BIFF responses. These are statements that are Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. This could fit well in the age of Twitter. A political BIFF could go like this: “I respect my opponent’s sincere efforts to solve this problem. He/she has suggested that we do ABC. But this idea has been studied and tried on several occasions in the United States and in other countries, and this idea failed repeatedly. Instead, we need to do XYZ. This isn’t about bad people or who’s smart or who cares. It’s about what works and what doesn’t work. Thank you.”

Can you imagine certain candidates saying such a thing? Well, I would actually encourage them to do so. Some candidates say that they are not going to “go negative,” but then they still do – to the extreme. I think we need a candidate who can stay positive and encourage others to do so.

If you want to get attention without going negative, just avoid making it a personal attack. For example, don’t use the other person’s name - let the debates be about ideas. When the media pays more attention to the extreme disdainful remarks of others, have a sense of humor about it. Point out how being positive and talking about issues gets ignored. Blast the dynamics of superficiality, rather than specific people. Everywhere you go, point out that you refuse to make it personal. You can totally disagree with the ideas that are presented, and explain why your ideas make more sense. Point out that when some politicians compare others to Hitler or Stalin or the “worst ever _________ (you fill in the blank),” that this is a gross manipulation of the defensive side of the brain, which shuts down logical thought in favor of “fight or flight” responses. This manipulation should be obvious by now and has nothing to do with the issues. But don’t make it personal back. Be above all of that. Re-focus to the real issue and keep it simple.

People really do want to understand the issues and vote on them. I don’t understand the economy. I don’t know where jobs come from. Can someone really start explaining that, instead of saying it’s all Obama’s fault (reducing the complex issues of healthcare to “Obamacare” makes it personal and tells me nothing) or that Romney has nothing to offer because “he likes to fire people” (so personal and out of context it’s useless). These attacks really shut down logical thinking. Let’s talk about substance and policies. I find it ironic that it took young people in the streets to teach us about the 1% and the 99%. And that I learned how SuperPacs work from 10 minutes on a fake news show on Comedy Central.

See, you can be Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. If anyone wants to send a copy of my little BIFF book to Washington, let me know.

Marriage is Declining Rapidly! Does it Matter?

2012-01-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

I read this week that there has been a significant decline in marriage rates, especially in the past two years. 57% of adults got married ten years ago, but only 51% are getting married now. Last year, only 9% of 18-to-24 year olds in the U.S. were married, compared to 45% in 1960. And the Pew Research Center reports that from 2009 to 2010, 13 percent fewer people in this age group got married. (Christian Science Monitor, January 2 & 9, 2012) We are seeing a rapid decline.

In 2011, The Economist (June 23^rd issue) reported that only 45% of all households include a married couple, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So what’s the big deal, you say? Couples are just living together instead of getting married. Hey, I’m no prude. I did that myself before I got married. But the studies show that the problem is the big impact on the kids – and on long-term economics.

The National Marriage Project at Rutgers University in New Jersey reported in 2005 (USA Today, July 18, 2005) that cohabiting couples break up at twice the rate of married couples in the U.S. and that 40% of cohabiting couples have children – who get to share these more rapid breakups. In Europe, cohabitation rates are even higher, although divorce rates are lower and more children grow up with both parents – even when they’re not married.

When I started practicing family law in 1993, the average age of a child when parents divorced was about 8 years old. The average age of a child when unmarried parents split was about 4 years old. As high-conflict divorce appears to be increasing, the age of children growing up in conflicted arrangements also appears to be getting younger and younger.

So what are the implications of all of this? Children have less stability and more exposure to parents in conflict or loss of contact with one parent. It’s not surprising that the research on the development of personality disorders suggests that each younger generation has a higher incidence of these disorders. In our book Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Randi Kreger and I explained that about ten percent of the U.S. population has a borderline or narcissistic personality disorder, but about 15% of young adults age 20 to 29 have one of these disorders. One of the causes of personality disorders is instability in early childhood. You need stability to develop confidence, relationship skills and the ability to cope throughout your life.

The other major implication – for adults as well as children – is that unmarried folks are poorer. Researchers indicate that at least half of income inequality in the U.S. is due to this changing pattern. Households with only one parent (who mostly have only a high school education) are getting poorer and married household (mostly with college education and two incomes) are growing more well-to-do, according to The Economist (June 23, 2011)

In the 1960’s, 76% of college graduates were married and 72% of high school graduates got married. Nowadays, the census shows that woman who get married are much more likely to have a college degree than just fifteen years ago. For women with college education, only 6% of babies have unmarried mothers; whereas 44% of babies of high school graduates have unmarried mothers. (The Economist, above)

For society, the message seems to be that marriage does matter – economically and to the well-being of children. If we care about our collective future, we need to care about the stability of family life – including making relationship skills an important part of education. (See our New Ways for Families program: www.NewWays4Families.com) For individuals, the message seems to be that you should seriously plan on getting married someday, for your own economic good as well as your child. And if no reasonable prospects are handy, it may be a good time to start taking some college classes – that is, if our nation’s economic priorities will make it affordable.

High Conflict Symposium @ the Willamette University School of Law

2012-01-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I gave an all-day seminar to approximately 100 family professionals (lawyers, judges, mediators, counselors, social workers, domestic violence victims’ advocates, etc.) in Salem, Oregon at their bi-annual “High Conflict” Symposium. It was held at the Willamette University School of Law. We really focused on specific methods of helping high conflict people (HCPs) and also helping parents who are dealing with a high conflict co-parent. We agreed that these methods should be taught to parents and teenagers, who are dealing with a surprising amount of hostility from peers on Facebook and other social media.

One of the biggest points was the paradigm shift to guiding parents to make decisions, rather than making so many decisions for them. This is not an easy shift and it takes practice. They seemed to like the E.A.R. statements (see article “Calming Upset People with E.A.R.”) and we ended with practicing B.I.F.F. responses (see BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People).

It has been so rewarding to me personally to see people understand and successfully apply these techniques. They were designed to be simple and easy to remember under pressure. There was a lot of experience in the room and it was a nice size group to have a sense of a community really dedicated to helping families.

I was disappointed to hear in the opening announcements, that the position of Mediation Coordinator for the county circuit court was being eliminated. Mediation is the method I believe that is most likely to efficiently help potentially high conflict families make reasonable decisions. Once they are in court, such families become so defensive that the children and one or both parents may never be able to communicate reasonably again. Many non-family professionals do not realize the damage to our society that is being done by cutting funds that help bring peace to children – the future of our nation.

Strategic Questions For Dispute Resolvers

2012-01-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

By Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.
© 2011 by High Conflict Institute

Asking questions is one of the most powerful – and often misused – tools for professionals in dispute resolution settings, whether legal, workplace, mediation or anywhere. When you are dealing with high-conflict clients, it is especially important to consider the timing of different types of questions and also to know what questions you should never ask. Whether you’re meeting with an individual client or meeting with two or more clients together (such as in mediation or solving a workplace problem), the following principles generally apply.

Slow Down

The secret to managing high-conflict clients is to manage your own anxiety. One of the things that most professionals do when they’re anxious is to ask lots of questions. It gives the illusion of being in charge and of working on the problem, which distracts us from our fears or uncertainties regarding how to deal with a potentially difficult client. However, this often makes things worse and interferes with the most important first issue, which is forming a positive working relationship.

High-conflict clients usually have a history of broken relationships with family, friends and professionals. Thus, they feel extremely anxious when seeking the services of a new professional, or being required to use the services of a professional that they don’t want (such as a court evaluator or when required to use a workplace coach). Their anxiety is contagious, so we often catch it and – without even realizing it – pepper them with questions. Our own anxiety is also contagious, so that high-conflict clients often increase their resistance to us when peppered with questions, and the power struggle begins – and may never end.

Equally as problematic, is when they respond in the opposite way, so that they stop trying to say their concerns and become passive and just answer the professional’s many detailed questions. In this case, they assume that the professional will figure everything out and take care of it, with little participation by the client. Then, if the professional missed something important to them (which usually happens), they become very angry.

First, Form a Working Relationship

With high-conflict people (HCPs), the issue’s not the issue – their personality is the issue. (For an explanation of this, see my book It’s All YOUR Fault!) For the professional, this means that your relationship is the issue more than anything else. You don’t need to know all the facts when you are forming your relationship. You need to establish a comfort zone for the client, so that he or she will feel committed to working with you as an ally, rather than as another person to be mistrusted or attacked. Ask getting-acquainted types of questions and demonstrate your interest in getting to know your client, more than getting to know the “case.” The threshold issue for HCPs is: Are you friend or foe? You want them to feel that you truly want to help them and that you see them in a positive light.

You also want your client to feel comfortable enough with you to spontaneously share uncomfortable information – without worrying that you are going to become impatient, criticizing or judging. HCPs often have embarrassing information about things they have done or things that have happened to them. Yet this uncomfortable information often makes the difference in your work, so you don’t want to discourage it from coming out. Let the client know that you are interested in knowing everything that’s important to them about their case, even if it’s difficult to discuss. Don’t be surprised or criticizing if this type of information suddenly comes out later on – it often takes them time to trust you.

To build this trust, at the start just get your client talking – about anything! When your client is talking, show your strong interest and concern. E.A.R. statements can be particularly helpful here. These are statements that show Empathy, Attention and/or Respect. (See article: Calming Upset People with E.A.R.) Your positive responses to your client when he or she is anxious will go much further in establishing a productive working relationship.

Second, Ask Open-ended Questions

Only after you have “connected” with your client(s) should you start asking questions relevant to the problem at hand. However, start with open-ended questions, rather than questions to get to the “core” of the problem, as you see it. You may miss the core of their problem completely, if you focus on your perception of the details too soon. Open-ended questions could be: “What are your concerns?” “What are your goals?” “What’s your picture of a positive outcome to this dispute?” “What do you think is really going on in this situation?” “How do you think the other person(s) see this dispute?” “What questions do you have for me?”

If you’re dealing with several people, make sure that you give everyone a chance to answer these open-ended questions first, before focusing on the details for any one person. In many group settings, mediators or managers often start trying to solve the first problem that they understand. Resist that urge and let everyone get their concerns on the table – or on a written list – before asking detailed questions. The benefit of this – especially if there is a high-conflict person in the group – is that the HCP is treated as an equal; no more or less important, and receiving no more or less attention in general.

As a mediator working with two or more parties in a dispute (especially if they include a potentially high-conflict person), I try to summarize their concerns after everyone has had a chance to speak. I find that high-conflict people tend to become more adversarial if you focus on them too much (they believe you are agreeing with them and become more aggressive), or if you focus on someone else too much (then they feel jealous or threatened that you are agreeing with that person). The best approach seems to be to briefly summarize each person’s comments or the group’s comments after everyone has spoken, then move on to the next task. It can help a lot to be strict about not getting into one person’s details too soon, until everyone has spoken and felt heard.

Third, Ask Your Detailed Questions

While it may feel slow to take this step-by-step approach, it will increase your chances of success – especially if you are working with a high-conflict person. Now ask your Who, What, When, Where, How and Why questions, to fill in your understanding of the case. Try to address these questions to everyone involved in problem solving, such as both parties to a dispute or a group solving a problem.

Make it a team-building activity, rather than appearing to be solving the problem yourself with one party. HCPs are very willing to sit back while you work hard to solve their problems. But when you are done, they will almost always reject your solution. They need to participate to the maximum of their potential, if they are going to buy into the solution. It has to be their solution, not yours. This is true, whether you are meeting with one client, two parties or a group of several people.

Don’t become overly concerned about understanding every detail. With HCPs, the details are often distorted anyway. If they are lying to you, they will have to build a more and more creative story to build on what they have already said, and you don’t want to push them into a corner. If they are describing unbelievable details with all sincerity, don’t make a big deal of confronting them with their inconsistencies by saying: “How could that be?” “That’s bizarre!” or “That couldn’t have happened.”

Instead, you can say that it sounds unusual and you will need documents or other witnesses if you are going to present this information to someone else. Your client may simply back down and say they don’t have documents or witnesses and drop the subject. That’s fine. You don’t need to trap your client or prove that they are wrong. What really matters is finding solutions – more than finding the best details. They can often solve a problem going forward, even when they disagree on the facts.

Of course, if you are dealing with a legal issue – especially one regarding illegal behavior, such as abuse, violence or theft – then you will need to get more detail, which is often best obtained by speaking to each person individually.

Fourth, Ask “What’s Your Proposal?”

Rather than focusing on the past with HCPs in a relationship dispute, progress usually comes with focusing on the future. Once your client(s) have answered the previous questions (which may take a long time, or may go very quickly), then ask them to make proposals. (For more about making proposals, see our free article Yes, No or I’ll Think About It.)

If they start out making proposals earlier in the process, you can gently say: “That’s great that you already have a proposal. Write that down and we’ll get to it very soon when we focus on making proposals. But first we need to hear each person’s concerns and goals.”

In the proposal stage of the discussion, if an individual slips into blaming others or two parties start arguing about the past, just ask: “Then what’s your proposal?” This avoids getting stuck on irresolvable facts and viewpoints, and is also avoids admonishing the parties about what not to say. It puts the burden on the parties to work hard to come up with proposals. You don’t need agreement on the past, if you can get agreement on what to do in the future.

Fifth, Ask About Relevant Issues the Parties Didn’t Raise

As an experienced dispute resolver, you know many of the problems that can arise in the future for people with a particular problem. If you have worked on their expressed concerns first, then it can be totally appropriate for you to raise other potential issues later on that they may need to address, or to think about for the future. “Have you thought about such-and-such, which often comes up when people are dealing with your type of situation?” Or: “You may want to consult with an expert on ABC before you finalize these decisions. Do you know of someone or would you like a referral?” As long as you leave the decision-making up to them, you can raise almost any issue. The parties are often very appreciative, because they are absorbed in the present dispute and unlikely to see the larger picture that you may see.

Also, when dealing with HCPs and those coping with them, it is tempting to be so glad that they reached an agreement or that time is up, that we tend to avoid asking details that need to be asked. “What if someone doesn’t make the payment that is required? Here’s some options you may want to consider.” Or: “What will you do if you don’t reach an agreement? Do you know what the alternatives will cost you?” These are questions that the parties may not know to ask or want to think about, but will discuss if you raise them.

By saving these types of questions until later in the process, you assist the parties first in addressing and resolving their own concerns, rather than taking over the process from them. With HCPs, this can really help build toward making agreements, rather than rushing into specific narrow issues at the start will leave them feeling uninvolved in the solution and less respected as a person.

Questions to Avoid with HCPs

Dispute resolvers often inadvertently ask questions that make things worse. These same questions may do fine with ordinary people, but with HCPs they backfire.

Avoid: “Would you be willing to try such and such?” This question implies that you or another party have figured out the problem and the person being asked is essentially a passive party whose opinion isn’t being sought – just their consent. This also implies that you, as a dispute resolver, think that this is a good idea. So it brings pressure with it and possible power struggles may emerge if an HCP is involved. It’s much better to ask: “What are your thoughts or questions about that proposal or idea?” This leaves room to like it or dislike it. If the respondent dislikes the idea, then you can simply ask: “Then, what would you propose?” Don’t become invested in one particular solution, otherwise they are less likely to do it or will blame you if it doesn’t work.

Avoid: “How do you feel about that proposal?” Instead, ask “What do you think about that proposal?” High-conflict clients often feel terrible about any ideas except their own, so you don’t want to get them focused on how they feel. Instead, by asking what they think, it reinforces logical problem-solving and may help them stay focused on what will work, rather than how awful it may feel.

Avoid: “Why didn’t you say that before?” This shifts the focus to the past, which triggers defensiveness and justification and more unnecessary conflict. In fact, it isn’t really a question – it’s a criticism. Many times, parties get stuck in arguing about the past and why they should have done things differently. This can simply be avoided by saying: “What’s important is that we have a proposal now.”

Avoid: “Don’t you feel better now?” after solving a small problem. High-conflict people tend to have a lot of “all-or-nothing” thinking and defensiveness. When little problems get solved, it’s tempting for professionals to ask this question as a form of validation for the professional’s efforts and in order to boost that client’s optimism. This usually fails miserably with HCPs. They usually feel compelled to explain how they are victims of circumstances. They are most comfortable in the position of helplessness. They get more sympathy and assistance that way, and they may have grown up truly abused or entitled, so that they don’t see that their actions make any difference. So their response will usually be to get angry and say: “Of course not! Look at all of the problems we’re still facing. What we did today is meaningless compared to those! No, I don’t feel any better now!” The lesson here for dispute resolvers is to Forgetaboutit!

Talk Less and Listen More

After supervising hundreds of role-play exercises in professional trainings, one of the most common statements I hear from participants is: “I realize I talk too much and don’t listen enough.” This is especially true when working with high-conflict clients. In short, professionals usually do better if they talk less and listen more.

By avoiding asking too many questions too soon, and adopting a more patient, step-by-step approach, you can often help high-conflict people reach an agreement, help them feel good about themselves and put less stress on yourself in the process.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well as books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!" and other books about managing high conflict people. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit:http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Happy New Year! HCI at 4!

2012-01-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

We’d like to wish all of our readers, followers and customersa happy and productive New Year. High Conflict Institute (HCI) is 4 years oldthis month! What an adventure it’s been, with both ups and downs! When we (MeganHunter and Bill Eddy) established HCI, our goal was to provide trainings tolegal professionals – primarily family law related – in understanding andmanaging high conflict personalities. Megan had worked with the Arizona SupremeCourt on family law programs (evaluating child support guidelines, trainingjudges in family law, etc.) and Bill was a Certified Family Law Specialistattorney in California, with a background as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

SEMINARS
We soon found that many others were interested inour trainings, including lawyers, judges, and mediators in all areas of law; humanresource professionals, law enforcement, healthcare administrators, collegeadministrators and homeowners associations. Then we received requests forseminars from overseas! In 2011, Megan spoke in several cities in Australia andBill spoke in Sweden, as well as giving seminars in several provinces inCanada. About 25% of our seminars are now in Canada.

On the down side, we quickly discovered that it was not productiveto sponsor and promote our own seminars. Partly this was due to the economycrashing the year we began, and partly because live seminars depended on localpeople and our base was international, based on the Internet. Instead, we havefocused on providing seminars to existing organizations that are seeking speakersand trainers on managing high conflict people – including many state andnational bar association conferences, state and federal judicial conferences,mediation conferences, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, and manyothers. We now have a panel of seven speakers, based in 3 countries.

BOOKS
Publishing books was a surprise development for HCI.At first, we just sold Bill’s books (published by two other small presses), butin 2009 HCI took over publishing Bill’s existing and some new books, and some otherauthors. Megan went to publishing conferences and really learned the field. Sheturned our website into a beautiful Internet business, selling books, CDs, DVDsand even coffee mugs with our sayings on them (“The Issue’s Not the Issue”“Don’t Work Harder Than Your Clients”).

The down side of an Internet business is that we weredevastated when we were successfully hacked early in 2011 and our beautifulwebsite was down for several months, operating on a very limited basis whileMegan and Bill were busy giving seminars. This experience lowered our lowincomes, and Megan realized she needed to spend less time on HCI and more timeearning another income. So we decided to split HCI into two separatebusinesses: Megan now does publishing (now titled “Unhooked Books,” whichincludes “HCI Press”) and Bill does seminars, consulting and developingnew methods as HCI. We find we are each more efficient by focusing our effortsmore narrowly. We are still very interconnected, as Megan is one of Bill’sspeakers and Bill is one of Megan’s authors, and we promote each other’s workthrough our joint monthly Newsletter.

METHODS
A surprising new area was developing simple methodsfor interpersonal conflict resolution with high conflict people in manysettings. Bill developed the “E.A.R. Technique” for calming upset people, the “B.I.F.F.Response” to hostile email and other communications, and the “C.A.R.S. Method”of conflict resolution for the workplace – or any setting. In 2009, wedeveloped the “New Ways for Families” court-based method for managing highconflict divorces, which has been adopted in six cities in the United Statesand Canada, and also adapted for Collaborative Divorce. Bill is now working onthe “New Ways for Work” coaching method, for dealing with potentially highconflict employees to see if they can learn conflict reducing skills (or not).We hope this will be out in 2012, published by Megan with training by Bill.

The downside for New Ways for Families is that it has notgrown yet in the United States as we had hoped. But on the upside, two courtsystems in Canada have been awarded $500,000 grants to use and study New Waysfor Families for 3 years. We are hopeful that it will be successful there, thenit should grow rapidly.

Overall, it has been a very personally rewarding experiencefor us over these past 4 years, helping individuals, families and professionalsdealing with high conflict situations. Our hope for 2012 is to build on what wehave done. We plan to grow into the workplace with our new books and training,while maintaining our strong involvement in the legal field.

We wish you a rewarding and growthful year as well! And we’dlove to hear from you!

Bill and Megan

MDIC and COAFCC Joint Conference

2012-01-04T08:43:00.001-07:00

Colorado AFCC & Metro Denver Interdisciplinary Committee
Advanced Skills for Managing High Conflict Parents
Friday, February 24, 2012
click here for more details!

The full day seminar will include the latest research on personality disorders and ways to distinguish those who can change from those who cannot, as well as ways to reduce the negative impact that parents with these disorders have on their children.

2-Day Training! Managing High Conflict Clients with New Ways for Families

2011-12-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

On January 20-21, in Mission Viejo in Southern California, I will be presenting advanced skills for professionals dealing with the difficult behaviors of high-conflict people, whether as individuals or when involved in family problems, especially separation and divorce. High-conflict people (HCPs) tend to have a predictable pattern of:

· Preoccupation with blaming others

· Difficulty accepting responsibility for their own behavior

· Uncontrollable negative emotions

· Personal attacks, even against those trying to help

· Working hard against their own self-interests

· Triggering conflicts among professionals

· Seeming disinterested in ending their disputes

On DAY ONE, participants will learn about high-conflict personality styles, recent brain research which helps understand them, and numerous tips for managing high conflict clients. In the afternoon, I will give an overview explanation of the research basis and four-step structure of the New Ways for Families method for divorce cases, including a video of a sample case going through each step.

DAY TWO focuses on practice exercises, emphasizing four advanced skills which are paradigm shifts for professionals, including: Providing Structure, Reinforcing Client Self-Management, Guiding Parents to Teach Children Skills, and Teaching Clients How to Make Family Decisions under stress. The New Ways for Families method will be explained as one approach that incorporates these Four Advanced Skills. However professionals do not need to be at all involved in New Ways for Families to benefit from the skills learned in this 2-day training.

For mental health professionals and lawyers who are interested, after this 2-Day training you will be eligible to be listed as New Ways for Families professionals on the New Ways website: www.NewWays4Families.com. and eligible for listing on authorized local panels in cities where they exist or are forming.

To sign up for this 2-day training, contact: www.mediatewest.com/events or call 949-374-2600 by Jan. 15^th.

Compassion for High Conflict People

2011-12-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

As the year draws to a close and we focus on holiday celebrations, wethink about others including the less fortunate. All year long, at our websiteand in seminars we talk about high conflict people (HCPs) and how to deal withthem. Sometimes we forget to emphasize compassion for them as well.

No one chooses to be a high conflict person or to have a personalitydisorder (there’s a lot of overlap). High conflict people have a lot ofall-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors and arepreoccupied with a Target of Blame. From my experience, they are highlydistressed and lack the skills for satisfying relationships. They get stuck inconflict because they feel on the defensive, not because their goal is to makeother people miserable. They have great difficulty healing and accepting loss.It is too painful, so instead they fight to avoid losses and defeats – eveninsignificant ones. I think of having a high conflict personality as a seriousrelationship disability.

They tend sabotage themselves by pushing people away in an effort toavoid being abandoned (borderline HCPs), insulted (narcissistic HCPs), ignored(histrionic HCPs), dominated (antisocial HCPs) or betrayed (paranoid HCPs).They cannot see their part in this problem, so they often escalate theirself-defeating behavior – and therefore experience even more distress.

Just because many high conflict people are successful at something intheir lives does not mean they do not feel pain and lack meaningfulrelationships. It’s easy to pick on them when they seem to be successful on thesurface, such as having wealth, power, incredible beauty or other superficialrewards. Of course, most high conflict people do not have wealth, power,incredible beauty or other superficial rewards. The research shows that personalitydisorders are more prevalent among low-income people.

Over a century ago, Sigmund Freud wrote that love and work are themost important aspects of a human life. Yet close relationships in love andwork are where high conflict people have the most difficulty. In his book “TheSocial Animal,” David Brooks points out that close relationships are far moresuccessful at making people happy than work, money or real estate. The deeperthe relationships, the happier the person. How tragic it is that we seem tohave a growing population of high conflict people who will not be satisfied anddon’t know why.

While it’s easy to be critical of them and want to screen out highconflict people from our lives, it’s important for us to work on this issue asa society. Since people with personality disorders appear to be increasing (andmost high conflict people seem to have personality disorders or traits, whichmeans they don’t have insight into their own behavior and don’t change theirdysfunctional behavior), this problem is not one we can ignore. With HighConflict Institute we are committed to educating professionals and the generalpublic about these problems and how to set limits on high conflict behavior –while also having more empathy, attention, and respect for high conflict peoplethemselves.

Tis the season for compassion. We wish you and yours – and all theHCPs in our lives – a pleasant holiday season!

3 Leadership Lessons from the Iraq War

2011-12-14T10:36:00.001-07:00

I started writing thismonth’s eNewsletter article (“Building a Team Against the Problem”) beforerealizing that this month was the “end” of the Iraq war, with the troops (well,some of them) coming home. In reflecting on that war, there are three leadershiplessons that stand out and fit with this theme:

First, Builda Team Against the Problem: Thereis a stark and important contrast between the very short “Gulf War” led byGeorge H.W. Bush (“H.W.”) 20 years ago and the “Iraq War” led by his son,George W. Bush (“W”) which has lasted over 8 years with over 4,000 U.S.soldiers dead, over 40,000 seriously injured (not counting mental injuries) andover 100,000 Iraqi’s dead. “H.W.” was an experienced diplomat who put a greatdeal of effort into building a true coalition of nations to carry out the Gulfwar, which stopped Saddam Hussein in his tracks and successfully contained him.“W,” on the other hand, took the opposite approach of refusing to listen to theprior coalition (not even consulting his father) and when nations such as Francewouldn’t join him he changed the name of “French Fries” to “Freedom Fries” inthe White House dining room. Without a team, the United States became isolatedin the world and seen as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Second,Don’t Think in Terms of Villains: International problems are much more complexthan heroes and villains. "W" thought in terms of villains and targeted SaddamHussein to be eliminated – a major step in changing the culture of conflict inthe world by justifying the elimination of one sovereign leader by anothercountry. When Saddam was finally captured and executed, it was barely a drop inthe bucket of the Iraq War. Yet the international tone had changed, with AlQueda and its sympathizers seeing Americans as people who could be targeted andeliminated. We need to remember the beheadings of Americans during the earlyyears of the war and the rapid growth of anti-American radicals in the MiddleEast. When leaders speak in terms of pure villains, it tends to change theculture into one of war at all levels of society. Even "W" said he realized thismany years later.

Third,Don’t See Yourself as a Hero: During the war planning, Donald Rumsfeld ("W"’sSecretary of Defense) saw himself as far superior to planners in the StateDepartment and other agencies. He cut them out of the serious planning. He alsoenvisioned the Iraqi people enthusiastically greeting the U.S. troops, evenbringing them flowers. According to journalist Bob Woodward, when his teamheard from an analyst who said that there was a serious risk of chaos after theinvasion, he disdainfully dismissed that point of view and it wasn’t evenconsidered in the war planning.

“W”heroically declared “Mission Accomplished” on an aircraft carrier in one of themost dramatic mistaken judgments of the war. While he was acquired a secondterm as President, he soon thereafter was vilified as incompetent and earnedone of the lowest ratings of a modern President before his term ended.

But thisis analysis is not just about “W.” President Obama – known to usually havecollaborative instincts – also appears to have succumbed to the allure ofworking as a hero without building a team. His healthcare initiative was hisidea, although he tried to build a team around the specifics of the plan. Buteven Charles Schumer, Democratic Senator from New York, commented in 2009 thatthis was not a priority for over 70% of Americans, who were satisfied withtheir healthcare plans and much more concerned about their jobs and their homes.So this allowed Obama to become an easy “target of blame” and much of the pastthree years has been spent with “Obamacare” being attacked by Republicanswithout enthusiastic defense from Democrats (many of whom would have muchpreferred a “single payor” plan).

Likewise,President Obama found and executed Osama Bin Laden. The American publicresponse was one of surprise and then almost disinterest. The Pakistaniresponse was bitter resentment and relations have not been the same. Why, whenthis seemed so important years ago?

Today, welive in a world of participation decision-making. A leader can’t go it aloneand expect the team to thank him. (It’s not surprising that the Occupy WallStreet movement made consensus decision-making a top priority.) You have tobuild a team against the problems that the team helps identify and the teamhelps implement. In the elections of 2012, hopefully we will learn theselessons and elect (at the city, state and federal levels) leaders who areteam-builders more than self-identified heroes against all the self-identifiedvillains.

Excerpt: It's All Your Fault

2011-12-13T09:57:00.002-07:00

Arbitration

Arbitration is a more formal dispute resolution process. It’s built into the power structure for many organizational grievances and conflicts, including those based on labor management contracts, homeowners association procedures, or government agency procedures. While these may also offer neutral mediation, many have arbitration clauses built in to their rules. Arbitration is more formal than mediation, with certain procedures that must be followed, and the decision-maker is the arbitrator, not the people in conflict.

Arbitrators are supposed to be familiar with the laws and rules applying to your dispute. Therefore, going to arbitration may force the HCP to learn about the

laws and rules and the potential consequences of not following them. If the

HCP loses in arbitration, it usually costs them something important, such as a

sizable settlement, their job, or a piece of property. Also, the loser in arbitration often has to pay some or all of the other person’s attorney’s fees, as well as the arbitration fees.

Simply having to go to arbitration sometimes influences HCPs to change their

behavior. The last thing many HCPs want is to have someone else making decisions about their behavior. For example, Narcissists may feel belittled and Antisocials may feel dominated. On the other hand, Histrionics may enjoy the attention and Borderlines may believe that the arbitrator will be “all good” (splitting) and will therefore take their side. So you have to Analyze Your Realistic Options about this. Arbitrators may be found through local organizations or through the American Arbitration Association at www.adr.org. This organization also has mediators. The Association of Conflict Resolution mentioned above (www.acrnet.org) under Mediators also has arbitrators listed on its website.

Rod Blagojevich: A Charming, Persuasive Blamer with Negative Advocates

2011-12-08T10:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Rod Blagojevich, former governor of Illinois, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for fraud and corruption. One of the questions some asked was "Why didn't we see this before we elected him?" The answer may lie in understanding high conflict people ("HCPs") - people with high conflict personalities.

CHARM: HCPs are often very charming and highly persuasive (and sometimes very intelligent and attractive) at the start of any relationship - especially when they want something from you (your vote, your money, your love). They can look very good for a while (6-12 months), so that few people suspect that they regularly engage in highly negative behavior behind the scenes.

PERSUASIVE BLAMERS: HCPs are preoccupied with blaming others - whether its in politics, at work or in the family. Its mostly just part of their personality, so they don't even see this as a problem. When they act badly, they say its someone else's fault. In elections, they are often the ones who present themselves as heroes against all the other politicians, who they describe as terrible villains. The ones who are the best at this manipulation never admit any weakness and keep everyone's attention on the "villains."

NEGATIVE ADVOCATES: HCPs are so persuasive that they can gather many people around them who have been charmed and don't see the coming disasters. In fact, their Negative Advocates can be even more persuasive than the HCP himself. But these Negative Advocates are generally "emotionally hooked" by the charm, and generally uninformed. Once they see what's really going on behind the scenes, they quickly abandon the HCP.

Rod Blagojevich was thrown out of office by the Illinois legislature without a single vote in his favor (no more Negative Advocates). Now he gets 14 years in prison.

In this coming election year, avoid the speeches of charm and blame, and try to look objectively at the record and behavior under the surface. Don't be fooled by smooth talk and confidence. Otherwise, you may be the next Negative Advocate for the next failed politician.

Georgia Chapter of the AAML - tips for dealing with high conflict clients

2011-12-08T08:15:00.001-07:00

On December 2^nd I had the opportunity to give a one-hour presentation to the Georgia Chapter of the AAML (American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers) in Atlanta, at the State Bar of Georgia building. Over 100 lawyers received tips for dealing with high conflict clients (and opposing parties and an occasional opposing counsel).

Many of the participants particularly like the BIFF method of email and other communications when dealing with high conflict people (HCPs). This method continues to be helpful to individuals going through divorce with a high conflict spouse or partner, as it helps avoid responding to rudeness with rudeness. It also helps reasonable people avoid appearing to be high conflict people, as their emails do not contain over-reactions to problems.

The AAML is in all states and a very experienced group of attorneys. I enjoyed speaking with them as a group, and also meeting and talking with many members before and after the presentation. We’re all learning how to deal with the increase in high conflict divorces these days.

Managing Personality-Disordered Parents

2011-12-08T07:47:00.001-07:00

I just finished a two-day seminar on Managing Personality-Disordered Parents, sponsored by the AFCC (Association for Family and Conciliation Courts) and the University of Baltimore School of Law. This was an intensive program and there were over 30 highly experienced therapists, lawyers, judicial officers and staff, parenting coordinators, Guardians ad Litem, mediators and others participating. They had great interest in this subject, as personality disorders appear to be increasing in society and especially in high conflict divorce cases. They also had many challenging questions and contributed a lot of their own experience to the discussion.

The main point of the two days was that we need to really shift our thinking away from focusing on making decisions for personality disordered parents and instead focusing on shifting more responsibility back to these parents by providing them with Structure and Skills for participating more in making decisions – while still protecting their children and providing the children with skills as well. The skills are flexible thinking, managed emotions and moderate behaviors. More specifically, these skills include writing reasonable emails, making reasonable proposals, and managing their own stress (which is one of the most important parenting skills these days). These are all difficult skills for personality-disordered parents, yet they are essential skills for raising children. If the parents lack these skills and get stuck in family court battles, the children are more likely to develop similar problems themselves – as they learn to mirror their parents’ dysfunctional behavior.

I was very encouraged to have two full days to help these professionals work on the cognitive shift from making decisions for these parents, to helping them learn small skills in small steps to participate more appropriately in making decisions themselves – to their maximum ability. This approach takes quite a while to learn fully, so we included some practice exercises as well. One of the main benefits I hope I communicated was that by engaging personality-disordered parents in learning positive skills, it also reduces the stress on professionals – as they ASSIST the parents in learning theses skills and INSIST on them using their skills making as many decisions as possible. Of course, professionals may still have to make some of the decisions, but as parents work to the maximum of their ability they may apply these skills in helping their children grow up more successful in their own lives.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don't Alienate the Kids!. He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Managing High Conflict Personalities in Family Cases – January 6, 2012

2011-12-06T08:26:00.001-07:00

On January January 6, 2012, I'll be delivering a seminar on Managing High Conflict Personalities in Family Cases. This event is sponsored by the Marion County Bar Association. We'll meet at the Paulus Lecture Hall at Willamette University College of Law. The full address is: 245 Winter St., Salem, Oregon.

For full details on the event visit this site: http://www.marioncountybar.org/archives/1850

Applications for 6 NASW and 6 MCLE Credits will be submitted.

QUESTIONS? Contact David.L.Bertram@ojd.state.or.us or phone 503- 584-4754 for more information.

Georgia Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers

2011-11-29T08:29:00.001-07:00

I'm speaking at their meeting on Friday, Dec 2. Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Managing High-Conflict Clients: Ethics and Risk Management

2011-11-25T08:59:00.001-07:00

On November 22, I gave an all-day seminar in London, Ontario, to about 80 therapists, child welfare professionals, family lawyers, and other professionals involved in workplace, healthcare and other settings. The topic was “Managing High-Conflict Clients: Ethics and Risk Management.” Everyone agreed that this topic could be useful for anyone, not just professionals.

While the therapists and some others were taking this seminar to maintain their ethics credits, they said that they found it particularly practical for managing and helping any clients in today’s world. They said that the tips, such as E.A.R. Statements and B.I.F.F. Responses would also be helpful to their reasonable clients – to help them deal with the high-conflict people in their lives. For example, there were concerns about helping high school students dealing with cyber bullies and helping homeowners deal with high-conflict neighbors.

I am realizing how broad and relevant this issue is to everyone these days and I’m excited that 2012 will have High Conflict Institute giving more workshops than ever before. The seminar in London was organized by Solutions on Site and I discussed future seminars with them, including this topic of managing high conflict clients, as well as training therapists, mediators and lawyers in a future 2-day seminar in New Ways for Families program methods in other parts of Ontario.

It’s interesting to me that Canada has embraced these methods for dealing with high-conflict people in so many provinces. I really enjoyed my time there.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns, and Don't Alienate the Kids!. He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit:http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

The Psychology of Conflict

2011-11-25T08:52:00.001-07:00

I just finished two long weekends of teaching Psychology of Conflict at Pepperdine University School of Law, to a combined class of law students and Master in Dispute Resolution (MDR) students. What a great class of students! Of course, I emphasized dealing with high-conflict people (HCPs), as they are the biggest psychological issue in conflict resolution today. Many of the students have had a mediation course and I gave them several practice scenarios of individually working with an HCP and working in mediation with one or two HCPs.

They are eager to know how to manage HCP clients and had numerous questions. I really wish that all law students and other conflict resolution students could have such a course, to help them prepare for staying balanced and “unhooked” emotionally from the demands and confusion that HCPs can bring to ordinary conflict resolution situations. It is often first year lawyers and young professionals in all areas who get caught up in struggles with HCPs. It’s hard enough learning general conflict resolution techniques, but learning how to deal with the emotional intensity and personal attacks of an HCP make it really hard if you don’t know what to expect.

But these students now know what to expect and they have learned many tools for understanding and managing their clients. While it will certainly take practice, they have a real advantage in already knowing that when it comes to high-conflict clients:

“It’s Not About You!” It’s about their lack of skills.

“The Issue’s not the issue.” HCP thinking is the issue.

“Don’t work harder than your clients.” Or your client won’t work at all.

“You’re not responsible for the outcome.” Just your standard of care.

These are lessons many experienced professionals don’t know about high-conflict clients. I appreciate the opportunity that Pepperdine has given me to teach this course to such a sharp group of students. The sooner that all professionals and students learn about HCPs, the easier it will be for everyone.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns, and Don't Alienate the Kids!. He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit:http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Elder Mediation – A Growing Field for Family Mediators

2011-11-22T07:41:00.001-07:00

Recently, I participated in a panel of speakers in LosAngeles at an Elder Mediation Institute for the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA). Elder law is a rapidly growing area of expertise and need.It focuses on the needs of older people while they are still alive, such aswhere they live (independently, assisted living, skilled nursing care), whomanages their decisions and finances (themselves, conservators, trustees, etc.)and dealing with government benefits (such as social security, Medicare, etc.). The issues usually center around whetherthe elder needs assistance, what kind of assistance, and who should participatein decision-making. Elder mediations usually involve the older person and hisor her adult children – and sometimes siblings, grandchildren, nieces, nephews,friends and caregivers – in discussing decisions that may include elder law andother non-legal but essential issues.

There was a demonstration mediation and I was very pleasedto see some of my experienced students (from a prior elder mediation training –see September posts) using several methods of managing an elder mediation withat least one “high-conflict” person present. While some mediators prefer to domostly separate caucuses to resolve disputes, I strongly believe that eldermediation should be done primarily in joint mediation sessions. They involvelong-term relationships, which hopefully will continue long into the future, sothat they need assistance in working together rather than pulling apart.

When the emphasis is on separate sessions, it’s easy for theparties to “split” into those who intensely favor what the elder says he or shewants (usually more independence and self-determination), and those whointensely favor what they believe is in the elder’s best interest (usually morecare provided and more control by others). This “splitting” dynamic isparticularly present when there is a high-conflict person involved – whetherit’s the elder and/or one (or more) of the adult children. The solution, ofcourse, is to guide the family in working together to integrate all of theseconcerns, so that the decisions include: maximum independence given thecircumstances, maximum self-determination, maximum care provided and control byothers only to the extent necessary.

In elder mediation, the family can be treated as a team andby working with the family all present most of the time, the elder can feel theteam working on his or her behalf, rather than being stressed by how poorly hisor her family gets along. Many elders with high-conflict families express thatconcern when these decisions are being made: “I wish you could just get alongwith each other.” Joint mediation sessions provide an opportunity to managetheir communication (even if it’s just temporarily) and see each other asteammates, rather than as adversaries. Of course, there may be moments when themediator(s) meets with each person separately, but the focus should be on theteam against the problem rather than allowing them to focus on beingadversaries against each other.

Of course, managing high-conflict families takes a lot oftraining and practice. I commend the SCMA for having this afternoon instituteon this growing problem and the organizers for designing a great demonstrationand discussion of how mediation can help bring the family together as well asneeded professionals.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns, and Don't Alienate the Kids!. He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit:http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

It’s all YOUR Fault! Congress is Looking a lot Like a High-Conflict Divorce

2011-11-22T07:26:00.001-07:00

Once again, congress is looking a lot like a high-conflict divorce. I’m not an expert on politics, but I am quite familiar with the patterns of dysfunctional behavior and how to manage it in high-conflict divorce. Essentially what works is the opposite of what we’re seeing in congress. Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned.

AVOID “ALL-OR-NOTHING” THINKING

High-conflict parents often draw a line in the sand – even before negotiating how they are going to share the children! They believe that they are so right that everyone else will come around to their way of thinking. Of course, this convinces everyone else that they are narcissistic and have no compassion for their children. Instead, what works is to build a team of parents first, then address the problem. We do this most effectively in methods like mediation, collaborative divorce and lawyers negotiating cooperatively. Going to court with a high-conflict case to let the judge decide usually frustrates both parents – and the judge.

AVOID EXTREME EMOTIONS

High-conflict cases often involve one or both parents sending nasty emails, yelling at the other in front of the children, and crying to everyone who will listen – all about how bad the other parent is. This raises more concern about the “blaming” parent than it does about their “Target of Blame” (the other parent). Yet high-conflict parents lack insight about themselves. What works best is to quiet down and vent privately, out of hearing of the children, the decision-makers and with one or two best friends or a therapist.

AVOID EXTREME BEHAVIORS

It’s not unusual to hear about a desire to eliminate the other parent in high-conflict divorces. Some parents say that the children would be better off if the other parent left town or was dead. This is horrible, yet this lack of empathy can arise as a case becomes more and more of a stalemate. Does this sound familiar? When one party’s goal is to eliminate the other party in the next election, I don’t think it bodes well for the nation. We need both parents and we need both parties. You can’t “win” in today’s world with just one point of view. It’s like the sound of one hand clapping. We need multiple points of view to deal with a rapidly changing world. Perhaps it’s because the world has become so confusing that we slip into extreme solutions. We can’t let ourselves be seduced by this kind of thinking if we’re going to survive – together.

AND DON’T ASK THE CHILDREN TO DECIDE WHAT YOU CAN’T

One of the trends in high-conflict divorce is to have the children play a major role in decision-making. Sure, we should hear their thoughts and concerns. But parents should act like adults and make the hard decisions without putting the children in the middle. Likewise, it seems that congress wants to have the voters decide the hard decisions. Of course, voters aren’t children and should decide who gets elected. But once they’re elected, politicians should make the hard decisions so that we can have 2 years and 4 years of focusing on our own decisions, while trusting them to learn about and make the national decisions for us. Don’t ask us to do the job you were elected to do.

Maybe next year we should elect mediators and collaborative professionals, who know how to quietly build agreements that work, instead of electing extremist politicians who loudly promote disagreements - that don’t work. What do you think?

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns, and Don't Alienate the Kids!. He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit:http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

HCI Pattern Analysis - for Parenting Disputes in Divorce

2011-11-15T11:29:00.001-07:00

HCI Pattern Analysis™ is a powerful new software service that assists parents and professionals dealing with a high conflict person (HCP) in a parenting dispute. This program reflects the combined efforts of High Conflict Institute (HCI) and EVDense Corporation. The following is a brief explanation.

Why Analyze Patterns?

HCPs have predictable patterns of problem behavior. They frequently over-react to situations with all-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, and extreme behaviors (domestic violence, making false allegations, spreading rumors, abusing children, alienating children, hiding children, hiding money, etc.) If you are a parent facing a possible HCP in a separation or divorce, you may be very worried about what he or she will do: Will they lie and manipulate professionals and the court? Will they take extreme and abusive action toward you as the separation and divorce proceed? Will your child be abused by the other parent or become alienated from you? These are realistic concerns.

If you are a professional (lawyer, counselor, evaluator, parenting coordinator, mediator, judge), then you may be concerned that other professionals will not really understand the seriousness of one of the parent’s dysfunctional behavior. You may wonder how you can explain what’s going on to other professionals. In high conflict cases, many professionals become focused on one or two events and exaggerate or minimize their significance.

What parents and professionals often miss is the pattern of HCP behavior, which is so important in making realistic decisions and obtaining effective court orders, if necessary. Fully presenting the patterns of behavior in a case to family law professionals will help the parents (including HCPs) and their children, instead of hurting them further or exposing them to unnecessary risks.

What is HCI Pattern Analysis™? click here to learn more!

Teaching Law Students to Prepare for High Conflict Clients

2011-11-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

On Nov. 3^rd I gave a morning seminar to law students at California Western School of Law in San Diego on Negotiation and Mediation with High Conflict People (HCPs). Even though they didn’t have cases yet, they were very sharp in recognizing high-conflict traits in family, friends and work settings. One of the hardest aspects to accept about HCPs is that they do not reflect on their own behavior and therefore become preoccupied with blaming others. So the students learned that they should avoid trying to convince their future clients to have insights about themselves. That is just a frustrating waste of time, and unnecessary for resolving disputes, yet many legal professionals spent years before they learned about this. Hopefully, I saved them from blaming themselves or their clients when they do not change. Instead, we focused on four key factors that help HCPs reach settlement:

Connecting by giving them Empathy, Attention and Respect;
Providing lots of structure, including teaching them how to make proposals and how to communicate using BIFF responses (see BIFF book);
Reality-testing by maintaining a healthy skepticism, while avoiding fighting with clients over their perceptions (“You might be right! I’ll never know. I wasn’t’ there.”); and
Educating clients about consequences.

I also told them that if they are dating, they should wait at least a year before making a major commitment, because high-conflict behaviors (such as significant lying, domestic violence, financial problems, lack of empathy and remorse, extreme mood swings) do not always come to the surface during the first 6 to 9, sometimes 12 months. Beyond that it is much rarer to suddenly discover that your partner has a high-conflict personality. However, HCPs often have a “sugar-coated” personality at the beginning, so it is particularly helpful to be patient and open-minded, rather than swept off your feet.

Overall, they seem much more prepared for managing high-conflict clients (and opposing parties and opposing counsel) now, and they have my book High Conflict People in Legal Disputes which should help them in their first few years of practice. I wish them well!

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit:http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Article: Strategic Questions for Dispute Resolvers

2011-11-15T08:43:00.001-07:00

by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.

Askingquestions is one of the most powerful – and often misused – tools forprofessionals in dispute resolution settings, whether legal, workplace, mediationor anywhere. When you are dealing with high-conflict clients, it is especiallyimportant to consider the timing of different types of questions and also to knowwhat questions you should never ask. Whether you’re meeting with an individualclient or meeting with two or more clients together (such as in mediation orsolving a workplace problem), the following principles generally apply.

Slow Down

The secretto managing high-conflict clients is to manage your own anxiety. One of thethings that most professionals do when they’re anxious is to ask lots ofquestions. It gives the illusion of being in charge and of working on theproblem, which distracts us from our fears or uncertainties regarding how todeal with a potentially difficult client. However, this often makes thingsworse and interferes with the most important first issue, which is forming apositive working relationship.

High-conflictclients usually have a history of broken relationships with family, friends andprofessionals. Thus, they feel extremely anxious when seeking the services of anew professional, or being required to use the services of a professional thatthey don’t want (such as a court evaluator or when required to use a workplacecoach). Their anxiety is contagious, so we often catch it and – without evenrealizing it – pepper them with questions. Our own anxiety is also contagious,so that high-conflict clients often increase their resistance to us whenpeppered with questions, and the power struggle begins – and may never end.

Equally asproblematic, is when they respond in the opposite way, so that they stop tryingto say their concerns and become passive and just answer the professional’s manydetailed questions. In this case, they assume that the professional will figureeverything out and take care of it, with little participation by the client. Then,if the professional missed something important to them (which usually happens),they become very angry.

To read the full article, click here.

Washington State Bar Association Continuing Legal Education

2011-11-10T07:48:00.001-07:00

On Oct 24, I presented on “Understanding and Managing High Conflict Personalities in Legal Disputes” in Seattle, for Washington State Bar Association Continuing Legal Education (WSBA-CLE). There were about 60 attorneys in the seminar room and over 90 online! They were set up in the most technologically sophisticated manner I have ever had, with hand-raising and questions from the online folks as well as in the room. This made for a very interactive seminar for all.

Questions focused a lot on managing high-conflict clients, but also managing high-conflict opposing parties, opposing lawyers and even law firm managers. The issue of high-conflict people continues to grow, especially for lawyers as we deal with conflicts often involving one or more high-conflict personalities. I asked for a show of hands about the people in their high-conflict cases. About two-thirds said that there is one high-conflict person (an HCP) driving most of their high-conflict cases, and about one-third said the majority of their high-conflict cases have two or more HCPs.

As with other seminars, they particularly liked the “BIFF Response” method and the “E.A.R. Statement” for calming upset HCPs or anyone. I made it clear that you don’t need to diagnose someone to help them in a legal case. If the lawyer simply suspects that someone is an HCP, then he or she should use these types of techniques in managing the case for everyone’s benefit.

What’s amazing to me is how few people know that there are methods available that can help significantly in dealing with high-conflict people. Fortunately, there are now another 150 or so professionals in the Seattle area who have several ideas to help them in the future in their cases. This is a seminar that all attorneys and law students could use. After writing about this subject for over 8 years, it’s encouraging to see the interest grow; and seeing so many professionals who really want to help their clients – even their high-conflict ones.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

PERSONALITY PATTERNS: Myers Briggs vs. High Conflict Personalities

2011-11-10T07:38:00.001-07:00

For the past three years I have been teaching a law school class at Pepperdine University’s Strauss Institute of Dispute Resolution for two long weekends in the fall. Masters in Dispute Resolution students are also in that class. Each year, a professor from the Pepperdine Business School presents the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, which is a personality questionnaire used often in business and other settings for over fifty years. The “types” include four dimensions with a range of preferences regarding communication, gathering information and decision-making: Extroverted to Introverted, Sensing to Intuition, Thinking to Feeling, and Judging to Perceiving.

These terms have specific meaning in terms of information gathering and decision-making. Their definitions were created over fifty years ago and are not the common usage for their terms, so that “Feeling” is an activity related to decision-making, rather than talking about how someone handles their emotions. The Myers Briggs is a personality inventory of normal personalities and how they fit together in the workplace and other settings. We need the other types in work groups and organizations to help us gather information and make the best decisions.

On the other hand, High Conflict People have some different basic personality patterns. They tend to have a lot of “all-or-nothing” thinking, many have difficulty managing their emotions, they have more extreme behavior and they are preoccupied with one or more “targets of blame.” Many of them have personality disorders or some maladaptive traits but not enough for a full disorder. The main point about high conflict personalities is that they are dysfunctional types of personalities and tend to increase conflict in the workplace, in neighborhoods, volunteer organizations and in families.

The question that students often ask is: Where do high conflict personalities fit on the Myers Briggs? The answer is that they don’t! There is no relationship between the normal types identified by Myers Briggs and the abnormal, dysfunctional personality types which have a lot of high conflict behavior. In other words “Not to worry!” For example, if you are a “Feeling” type of personality in the Myers Briggs, it means you may be more likely to be using social engagement in gathering information to make decisions. This is totally unrelated to the common characteristic of high conflict people of having difficulty regulating emotions, such as loud outbursts, sudden an intense anger, bursting into tears easily, or other emotional extremes.

A high conflict person in the workplace can be difficult to manage, so that the methods I write about are often helpful, especially the 4-step C.A.R.S. method of Connecting with Empathy, Attention and Respect; Analyzing realistic options, Responding quickly to mis-information, and Setting Limits of mis-behavior. (For more about this method, see my book It’s All YOUR Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything.)

With high conflict people, you don’t have to do any personality analysis – and you shouldn’t try to diagnose the person as having a personality disorder or not. If you suspect someone might have a high conflict personality, then simply use the C.A.R.S. method in your response. You can use these tips with anyone. On the other hand, ordinary communication methods and conflict resolution methods that work with almost everyone else often fail with HCPs.

Bottom line: Myers Briggs measures normal personality types and how they gather information and make decisions. High Conflict People tend to have abnormal personality types, which increase and prolong conflict, rather than contributing to conflict resolution, with many of them having personality disorders as well. Regardless of whether a conflict is between people with different normal styles or involving someone with a high conflict personality, there are many ways of understanding and resolving conflict. I help this distinction is helpful. For more information about managing disputes with high conflict people, please see our website: www.highconflictinstitute.com.

Advanced Skills for Managing High Conflict Families to the Association of Family Law Professionals in Ft. Myers

2011-10-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

On Oct. 21, I presented Advanced Skills for Managing High Conflict Families to the Association of Family Law Professionals in Ft. Myers, Florida. This was a great interdisciplinary group of about 70 lawyers, therapists, and judges. The four advanced skills for professionals included:

1) Providing Structure for High Conflict Parents;

2) Reinforcing Client Self-Management;

3) Guiding Parents to Teach Children Skills; and

4) Teaching Clients to Make Decisions.

This is a serious paradigm shift for family law professionals, who are used to making decisions for parents, especially high-conflict parents. And this was the ideal group for this new presentation and discussion (and they’re not shy!), who had previously had my 2-day presentation on understanding and managing high conflict people in Ft. Myers and Naples, Florida. Just as in Texas the week before, this was a very experienced group who are ready to try new, innovative methods. The hardest part, as they pointed out, was that it is very counter-intuitive to hold back and help parents struggle with learning decision-making skills, instead of just making the decisions for them. However, I gave them practice exercises and they said they were going to use some of this approach starting right away the following week.

I also showed them segments of the New Ways for Families video, which demonstrates a judge, a lawyer and counselors using this approach of shifting the emphasis to helping parents learn small skills in small steps, rather than focusing on parents’ bad behavior or just making decisions for them. While there are no plans to try this comprehensive method here at this time, the advanced skills for professionals that it involves will be used individually. The judges present even plan to use some of these tips in their courtrooms.

I also introduced them to a new method for understanding and explaining patterns of high conflict behavior, called the EVDENSE Digital Diary. This is a brand new method of using a computer screen to show patterns of abusive behavior, false allegations, poor parenting decisions, and positive behaviors, for use in custody and visitation disputes. It really addressed the problem of family law professionals and the courts becoming excessively focused on one or two events and exaggerating or minimizing them, while missing the larger pattern of ongoing behavior. High Conflict Institute is partnering with the computer software company which developed the digital diary, and in November we will announce our plans. If you’re not on our HCI eNewsletter mailing list, you can sign up on our site and receive the November issue with this announcement and details explaining how this can help in difficult cases.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

What’s Your Proposal?

2011-10-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

Recently I spoke at the Texas AFCC (Association for Family and Conciliation Courts) in Ft. Worth about the need for family law professionals to provide more structure and more skills for high conflict families, and about the New Ways for Families program. They are looking for more ways to help high conflict families stay out of court and help their children, instead of fighting over them. I gave a more thorough explanation than I have in the past about why high conflict families get stuck in conflict, and that professionals need to really shift their thinking from making decisions to assisting parents in learning and practicing their own decision-making skills.

The “BIFF Response” method and “Making Proposals” were particularly appealing to this group for working with, rather than against, their most difficult clients. BIFF Responses focus on how to deal with those angry emails that many reasonable parents and professionals get during high-conflict divorces. By being Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm, anyone can calm a conflict and feel better about themselves while still being respectful to the other person. (For more on BIFF Responses, see my new book BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email, and Social Media Meltdowns.)

“What’s Your Proposal?” is a great question to ask when someone is engaged in high-conflict blaming or talking about the past. Whole discussions can be structured around this method, which includes thorough preparation with clients for it to be effective, including explaining how to respond to any proposal. (For more on this technique, see the article Yes, No, or I’ll Think About It at our website.)

The Texas AFCC group seemed to appreciate these specific tips, since many of them attended one of my seminars before on understanding and managing high conflict people. I’ve been to Texas several times over the past few years, including Dallas, Denton and Austin. It’s a real pleasure speaking to people who want more positive methods, given the stress and anger so often associated with working with high conflict families.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

National Conflict Resolution Day

2011-10-20T08:12:00.000-07:00

Today (Oct 20) is National Conflict Resolution Day, as established by the Association of Conflict Resolution (ACR). This is also ABA Mediation Week, as declared by the American Bar Association (ABA).

To me, the most important thought for conflict resolution professionals, volunteer mediators, and everyone else, is that the future depends on conflict resolution skills for everyone: the ability to be flexible, create new options, really hear each other's point of view, make proposals, make new proposals, and accept limitations and sometimes sacrifice our short-term individual wants for our long-term collective needs (delayed gratification, etc.)

Needless to say, these skills are diminishing in today's culture. This means that we (all of us) need to put more emphasis on reaching out to young professionals starting their careers and to teenagers and younger children.

A couple weeks ago I spent an hour answering questions in a teleseminar format from teenagers who volunteer with the North Star Youth Court in Fairbanks, Alaska. They had excellent questions about resolving conflicts with high-conflict people in their volunteer mediations and in their lives. I was impressed with how sharp and interested they are.

I think we all need to reach out to young people such as these to explain and promote conflict resolution skills. Our future may depend on it!

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Workplace Coaching for High Conflict Situations

2011-10-18T11:33:00.001-07:00

On October 3^rd I presented a tele-seminar for the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) Workplace Section’s Conflict Coaching Committee, on Coaching for High-Conflict Situations. Conflict coaches are being sought more and more to assist employers and Human Resource Professionals in dealing with high-conflict behavior in the workplace, from bullying to bad-mouthing to major disruptions of work groups. I focused on two different coaching approaches: First, the C.A.R.S. Method is an approach I developed for assisting individuals who are dealing with a high-conflict person (HCP), such as a customer, co-worker or a boss. This method includes four steps that helps the coach connect with the client and focus the client on things he or she can actually do to deal with an HCP. It’s based on the book It’s All YOUR Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything.

The second approach I call “New Ways for Work,” which is a new method for coaches with a structured workbook for 3-6 individual sessions, depending on the assignment. This method is designed for potentially high-conflict employees who are in the early stages or pre-stage of progressive discipline. The employee may be valuable to the organization, but has engaged in high-conflict behavior, such as hostile and blaming emails, vague verbal threats, confrontations with co-workers, etc. A manager, H.R. person or other administrator may require the employee to attend 3 of 6 sessions with a coach specifically trained in this method. Then, after the employee is finished, there can be a meeting with the manager, H.R. person or other administrator, to see what the employee has learned. Then, there can be a meeting with another employee, when appropriate, using a method such as The Exchange (developed by the National Conflict Resolution Center, where I do some mediations) or some form of mediation. I hope to have this method ready in early 2012.

The listeners had good questions, including wanting to know more about the BIFF response method that is taught in both of these coaching methods. It is based on the method described in my recent book on this subject: BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns. This method really helps clients focus and manage their emotional response when attacked in print. I have provided many consultations on this method and received good feedback after clients have tried it. In general, it really helps to simply and structure what coaches are doing with clients, so that the client isn’t just becoming reliant on the coach, but learns skills to use in the future on his or her own.

For those who are interested in more about the New Ways for Work coaching method, check out our website in early 2012 (www.HighConflictInstitute.com) for the publication of the materials (Client Workbook and Coaches Guidebook) and training dates for using this method with potentially high-conflict clients. Much of the work with high-conflict clients is dealing with their resistance to positive growth, so that it really helps if the coach is a mental health professional.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

New Ways for Families sponsored by Medicine Hat Family Services

2011-10-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

On Sept. 30^th I gave an all-day training in the New Ways for Families method to 26 mental health professionals, lawyers and agency staff in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, sponsored by Medicine Hat Family Services. They are preparing to start up their New Ways program in January, with 3 years of funding from the Safe Communities Initiative to handle most of the separation and divorce cases that involve a conflict over the children in their Family Court.

The training emphasized several paradigm shifts of the New Ways method:

· Skills before Decision

· Teach small skills in small steps with lots of repetition and encouragement

· Guide parent decisions, rather than making decisions for them (as much as possible)

· When new conflicts or decisions arise, remind parents to use their skills

· If parents return to court, have judges quiz them on how they are using their skills, before hearing evidence and argument

In reality, these shifts are hard to do for professionals who are used to making decisions for high-conflict parents and getting frustrated and angry with them. However, the group was committed to really learning and practicing these skills in role-play exercises using the New Ways Parent Workbook throughout the day. As several emphasized at the end of the day, it’s a lot more satisfying and effective to remind parents to use their skills and have success, rather than arguing with what they’re doing wrong.

This was Day Two (the “live day”) of their 2-day training, after many of them saw the Day One training by DVD. I really enjoyed my day with them and wish they great success.

For more information about New Ways for Families, see the website: www.NewWays4Families.com.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Maximizing our Resources for Texas Families

2011-10-06T11:28:00.002-07:00

I'll be speaking at the 2011 11th Annual Texas AFCC Statewide Conference October 12-14 at the Texas Wesleyan School of Law in Ft. Worth, Texas.

For more information or to register, click here!

Why I Wrote Splitting

2011-09-29T09:17:00.002-07:00

I started writing Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderlineor Narcissistic Personality Disorder after several years as a family lawattorney. Randi Kreger had asked me to write the book to help many of thefamily members who contacted her website with questions about dealing withdivorce when a spouse had a borderline personality disorder (BPD). With my background as a therapistbefore I became a lawyer, I knew about BPD and other personality disorders.

For twelve years I was a therapist (LicensedClinical Social Worker), working in psychiatric hospitals and outpatientclinics with children, couples, and families. Most of my work focused onsubstance abuse and depression. But many of my clients were involved in legalcases, frequently divorces.

Throughout my career as a therapist, I was alsoinvolved part-time in mediation – a method of resolving disputes out of court.I decided to go to law school to set up a comprehensive divorce mediationsevice and graduated in 1992. I opened a law and mediation office in San Diego,spending half of my time as a divorce mediator and the other half as anattorney in family court.

When I first began representing clients in courtcases, I was quite surprised and naïve. Perhaps because of my background as atherapist, I did not realize that family court was still such a highlyadversarial process. I had assumed it was an information gathering process,with a benevolent, all-knowing judge somehow figuring out the family anddeciding what should be done -- much as a therapist diagnoses and treats aproblem.

It turned out I was projecting my ownexpectations onto the court system -- a big mistake. Instead, I found thatfamily court cases are now dominated by high conflict divorces with highconflict personalities -- and that these personalities are primarilyunrecognized and untreated Borderlines and Narcissists.

After a dozen years as a therapist (LicensedClinical Social Worker in California) and 18 years now as a family law attorney(a Certified Family Law Specialist in California), I have seen some clear patternsto these cases and recognize some common principles for handling them. Yet most court-related professionals seemunaware of these problems -- and their possible solutions. This made my life infamily court much more difficult. So I tried to explain this problem to others.

Ironically, when I first started trying to telllegal professionals about personality disorders in the 1990’s, they were highlyskeptical and largely disinterested. I told my lawyer colleagues about thesedisorders and they said it sounded pretty strange. I told judges and they saidthat this issue was irrelevant. I told my mental health professional friendsthat many of the high-conflict cases in family courts were driven by one or twopersonality disorders and they encouraged me not to talk about it for fear thatsuch people would be stigmatized and decisions made solely on the existence ofa personality disorder.

However, I kept talking about it and eventuallyI was asked to speak at legal conferences, judicial training seminars andprograms for mental health professionals. By 2002, when I met Randi Kreger, Iwas finishing a book for professionals about this (High Conflict People in Legal Disputes).

My approach in Splitting and in my seminars is to educate people about thesedisorders, without judging people and without making assumptions about theirspecific abilities. These disorders have patterns of behavior, but they varywidely in terms of parenting skills, etc. In some cases, one person has such adisorder – or traits, without the full disorder. In other cases, both peoplehave these problems, although to different degrees. I have even had cases inwhich a parent with borderline personality disorder has been the better parent,so that none of this is clear cut. In Splitting,we try to explain this so that people focus on patterns of behavior, ratherthan using these personality labels.

So my goal was and is to educate everyone: professionals,people going through a divorce, and their family members about general patternsto understand and deal with. With this knowledge, people can make betterdecisions, manage their divorces and post-divorce lives, and grow strongerthemselves. Based on the feedback Randi and I have been receiving, it seemsthat we are helping many people who previously felt alone in facing theseproblems. We are always interested in your feedback.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Mental Health Professionals: Working with High Conflict Clients: Ethics and Risk Management

2011-09-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

On Sept. 15^th I presented “Working with High Conflict Clients: Ethics and Risk Management” to over 300 mental health professionals in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, sponsored by J & K Seminars. This was a new approach for me, in that I combined the issues and behavior of high conflict people (who often have personality disorders or traits) with discussing ways to manage them in the therapy setting, rather than legal settings – like family court, mediation, etc.

I focused on the ethical risks for therapists: problems with confidentiality, child abuse reporting, problems of dual relationships, sex with former clients, and so forth. Therapists are at risk of raising their clients’ expectations too high and then becoming targets of blame, when clients take out their disappointments on those trying to help them. But there are many ways to manage these issues while helping high conflict clients. Many of them benefit from therapy, if the therapist understands and manages the risks involved. I also enjoyed being in Pennsylvania, just a couple hours away from where I grew up!

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of "It's All Your Fault!", "Splitting", "BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns" and "Don't Alienate the Kids!". He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Elder Family Mediation Advanced Training: an evolving area of mediation

2011-09-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

I just finished a 2-day Elder Family Mediation Advanced Training in Los Angeles. It was sponsored by La Sierra University School of Business Center for Conflict Resolution Adult Resolution and Mediation Services (ARMS). About 25 mediators and future mediators attended and participated in intensive exposure to several elder law and caregiver presentations, as well as role-play exercises. This is an evolving area of mediation, with many legal and financial issues to address in mediation, as well as family dynamics and the problems raised when there is someone with a high-conflict personality in the family. Yet the group was energetic and eager to learn how to truly help families facing issues of an aging person (often a parent), including inability to care for themselves and their finances.

I was totally impressed with the thorough organization of the training, which totaled 4 days. I spoke at the last two days on managing high-conflict clients in mediation. The need for strong structure of the mediation process was made clear in the practice exercises, when several family members were participating and one of them was a high-conflict person. As with all high conflict work, you can’t just listen to a lecture. You have to practice skills and make several paradigm shifts in how you interact with high-conflict individuals. The group realized this and made good efforts to take risks and expose their weaknesses in order to become stronger mediators. Overall, I finished the two days feeling very encouraged that mediation is the best way to go in handling elder issues, and that this group of mediators will become some of the best around in the near future. I look forward to encouraging them and to future training in this field.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don't Alienate the Kids! He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6418967

The Negative Behaviors of High Conflict Parents in Divorce

2011-09-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday, September 16, I gave a seminar on managing high conflict divorce to over 85 family lawyers, counselors and a couple family court judges in Milwaukee. It was sponsored by the Medical College of Wisconsin and it was their first event bringing together these two groups of professionals. Counselors (or “behavioral health professionals”) are increasingly dealing with the emotional effects of high conflict divorce. We discussed at length that the negative behaviors of high conflict parents in divorce are being passed on to their children, which may become part of the children’s personalities growing up. I discussed the large research study on personality disorders done by the National Institutes of Health, which indicates that personality disorders may be increasing in society and that younger people may be at higher risk than ever before.

With this in mind, the group was very receptive to the idea that our work with high conflict parents needs to focus more on skills than on decisions, and to reduce the adversarial nature of divorce as much as possible. It was a great experience and there is a good likelihood that I’ll be back next summer to present more of this information. I’m very encouraged by the shared desire to really help high conflict families, rather than to judge them or criticize them. After all, their children are the future for all of us. And with the collaborative efforts of professionals, such as I met in Milwaukee, I think we really can make a difference!

Thanks!

Bill

Essentials for Elder Family Mediation Training

2011-09-20T08:06:00.001-07:00

I'll be speaking on the 20 and 21 of September at the Center for Conflict Resolution at La Sierra University's School of Business. Day one will cover “Understanding High Conflict Personalities to Effectively Manage the Mediation Process” and on day two I'll give a seminar on “Understanding High Conflict Personalities to Effectively Manage the Mediation Process”.

Two of our books, Managing High Conflict People in Court and High Conflict People in Legal Disputes were specifically written for those who deal--on both sides of conflict--with high conflict plaintiffs, litigants, and defendants.

Guest Blog: Randi Kreger Psychology Today: Read This Post Before You Send That Angry Email

2011-09-15T09:33:00.002-07:00

"There's something about the Internet--the quick responses, the anonymity--that almost begs for a hostile response. Online newspapers are being forced to devise policies about their comments sections that allow for healthy conversations but discourage hate mail and ad hominem attacks. And who hasn't wanted to rip out a response to an angry ex or arrogant coworker?

But peace, baby, peace. Angry emails sent in the heat of the moment can ruin relationships, get you fired, and prove downright embarrassing. Attorney and therapist Bill Eddy (the author of Splitting)has come up with a popular and easy way to make your point and set limits without regretting what you said the morning after. It's called B.I.F.F., and it stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. It works for responses in real or online responses in all types of situations, including legal proceedings."

Read the full blog: click here!

Learn how to deal with High Conflict People. Earn CEUs

2011-09-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

Working with High Conflict Clients: Ethics and Risk Management (Sept 15th) - Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, CFLS

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Managing a Blamer with an Assertive Approach

2011-09-08T09:27:00.001-07:00

Excerpted from Splitting...

...After thehearing, the judge ordered Sam and Sarah into a custody evaluation, and awardedSam temporary custody of their son, Jay, pending a full evaluation and hearing oncustody. Sarah was given visitation three days a week, with exchanges at hercousin’s house, and required to undergo a substance abuse assessment.

Sam alsoproduced a deed showing that their home was only in his name, claiming it washis separate property. His attorney said that if anyone should move out, it wasSarah. He said that she could stay with her cousin. The judge seemedsympathetic with Sam and told Sarah she must move. Her temporary restrainingorder was dismissed.

After Tammy said that Thomas had molested theirdaughter, the court counselor was required by law to contact Child ProtectiveServices (CPS) and inform them of the sexual abuse report so that it could beinvestigated. To be safe, the court counselor recommended that Tammy have temporarycustody and that Thomas have supervised visitation until an investigation couldbe done.

Soon afterward, the court ordered a fullpsychological evaluation of the family and a hearing on it in three months.Until the hearing, Thomas was ordered to have three hours a week of supervisedvisitation at a local agency, which he had to pay for.

Thomas was a trusting, problem-solving person.Known as being friendly and cooperative, he originally believed he would easilysucceed in his case. But after he was ordered to have supervised visitation, hewas furious: “How could the judge assume I’m guilty and make such an order? Whydidn’t you tell the court Tammy was lying? If she’s going to make a bunch ofallegations, then we need to make even more allegations against her.”

His attorney responded, “Slow down. This is justthe beginning. We can’t be passive, but we can’t be too aggressive either. Thisis the court’s procedure, and we need to follow it as perfectly as we can. Wehave to take the high road and expose her false statements while not appearingto make wild accusations ourselves. How you appear to the court is just asimportant as getting out the facts. We now have a lot of work to do toaccomplish both. We have to be very assertive."...

To learn more about the Assertive Approach for yourself or your clients, purchase your copy of Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with a Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The above was excerpted from Splitting, to read more of this passage, order your copy of Splitting by visiting www.unhookedbooks.com. To learn more about Bill Eddy, visit www.highconflictinstitute.com. To learn more about co-author, Randi Kreger, visit www.bpdcentral.com.

High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It's All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don't Alienate the Kids!. He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: http://www.HighConflictInstitute.com

Bill Eddy Attorney, Mediator, and Clinical SocialWorker

Randi Kreger -Co-author of Stop Walking on Eggshells, author of The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook and The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder

Quick Start Guide (for Avoiding A High Conflict Divorce)

2011-09-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

© 2011 by Bill Eddy and Randi Kreger(Excerpt from SPLITTING: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, by Bill Eddy & Randi Kreger, published by New Harbinger press, 2011)

The more prepared you are, the less likely you will be to have a high-conflict divorce. While these hints can’t fully protect you, the sooner you take action on them, the better off you will be.

1. Develop an emergency plan. Your partner could assault or evict you at any time. Figure out a safe place to go, get some ready cash, and think about who can help you on short notice. Copy important records and keep them in a safe place. (See chapter 5.)

2. As soon as possible after they occur, write down accurate details of problems and events between you and your partner (and others) that could become issues in court. Keep a journal or other written record of anything pertinent. If other people were present, write down their names. Save email and text-message correspondence in a safe place, especially copies of hostile, harassing, and controversial exchanges. (See chapter 5.)

3. Communicate very carefully and respectfully with your partner, because anything may be introduced into evidence. Make any emails, whether initiated by you or in response to your partner, brief, informative, friendly, and firm (BIFF; see chapter 4). This is especially true if your partner’s emails are hostile. Avoid setups for violent confrontations, such as physically fighting over papers, or pushing and shoving. Indicate that you want to settle issues out of court to keep things calm, but always be prepared for the realistic possibility of court. (See chapters 4, 5, 13, and 14.)

4. Protect your children from conflicts between you and your partner. Don’t say anything against your partner, no matter how provoked you might be, because anything could become evidence. Avoid:

To read the full article click here!

Bill Eddy is an attorney, therapist, mediator and the President of High Conflict Institute. Bill and our affiliate trainers are available to present 3-hour and 6-hour training sessions to organizations, large and small, in understanding and managing incivility and other high-conflict behavior. We have provided such training to law offices, hospital administrations, human resource departments from colleges to railroads, homeowners associations and staff, and others. Bill is the author of several books, including: BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns (HCI Press, 2011). For more information about our seminars, books, CDs and DVDs, please visit www.HighConflictInstitute.com.

Incivility in the Workplace: A Growing Problem

2011-09-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

Civility Training at Work

By Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.

Times have changed. Incivility is growing in the workplace, as well as in most areas of our society. How big of a problem is this? Why is this happening? And what can be done about it – as individuals and as organizations? The two main points of this article are to explain why the most effective civility training focuses on specific skills, rather than simply admonishing people to be civil or decent, and to explain why such training is best when provided to a whole workgroup or organization at the same time.

A Growing Problem?

In August 2011, a front-page newspaper article stated that incivility in the workplace is growing, as reported by the American Psychological Association. According to a poll by Civility in America, 43% of American workers have experienced incivility and 38% say there is increasing disrespect in the workplace. Another study showed 86% of workers saw incidents of incivility in several firms.[i]

Effective January 2009, The Joint Commission, which sets the standards for hospitals nationwide, adopted new leadership standards for conflict management in hospitals, because of “intimidating and disruptive behaviors” by some healthcare professionals and employees that could affect patient care.[ii]

In July 2009, a “Civility Toolbox” for California attorneys was implemented after being developed by a Civility Task Force because of the “perceived decline in civility in the practice of law.”[iii]

In July 2011, a squabble between congressional members hit the national news for a week during the debt ceiling debate, when one member sent an email (copied to several others) telling another member “You are the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives…. You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!”[iv]

These events indicate a growing problem with incivility throughout our society. However, not everyone acts this way. Now appears to be a good time to strongly address this problem before it grows out of control. First, we need to understand what may be driving this behavior, so we can most effectively reduce it.

What Causes Incivility?

There seems to be several causes feeding this problem.

A CULTURE OF BLAME AND DISRESPECT: We currently live in a Culture of Blame and Disrespect, so that television, movies, the internet and even newspapers emphasize the misbehavior of individuals more than issues of real substance: Who said what disrespectful statement to whom today? Who walked off a TV show or out of a political meeting? And what acts of the worst individual violence were done – and by whom? It’s as if to say: “Don’t you ever act this way – and we’ll show you again and again how to do it!”

Brain researchers have recently discovered that we have “mirror neurons” in our brains, which cause us to imagine ourselves doing the exact same behaviors of the people we see around us and to feel what they are feeling – perhaps to prepare ourselves to do the same behaviors if necessary.[v] They report that our mirror neurons even imitate the behavior of people we see on a 2-dimensional screen (TV, computers, etc.), although the effect may be slightly less than it would be in person. Thus we may be absorbing the behaviors associated with violence, disrespect and the current cultural preoccupation with blaming others while avoiding responsibility. Whether we actually act on these behaviors may depend on our closest colleagues.

Incivility is an angry act. Brain research informs us that watching other people’s facial expressions of anger or fear can hook the amygdala in our brains with lighting speed. The amygdala grabs our attention, shuts down our higher thinking, and prepares us for “fight or flight.”[vi] In many cases, incivility may be part of this protective/defensive response, such as the congressman suggests above. He justifies his statement by saying it was simply a response to the congresswoman’s attack on him.

Such negative behavior is clearly inappropriate in modern situations and often backfires. Yet we are repeatedly exposed to examples of incivility, presented as newsworthy behavior from the highest levels of government, business and entertainment. While such statements are criticized by some, they are defended and applauded by others. This behavior – and the lack of agreement about it – makes us more anxious as a society, and research shows that we are more likely to absorb the emotions of those around us if we are anxious.[vii]

With this knowledge, it’s not surprising that incivility is growing in our culture. Rather than emphasizing the positive behaviors necessary for the success of a culture, we are preoccupied with entertainment and news images that emphasize the negative – because it’s what grabs our attention and that’s what sells. Unfortunately, this is also what we learn to mirror.

HIGH-CONFLICT INDIVIDUALS: Recent research indicates that “high-conflict” personalities are increasing in our society. People with these personalities tend to have a lot of all-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors, a preoccupation with blaming others and a lack of self-restraint.[viii] [ix] Making rude and uncivil comments may be part of their personalities, so that it feels totally appropriate to them and they are not even apologetic or embarrassed by this behavior. On the other hand, some people may not have “high-conflict” personalities, but they may believe that rude comments and behavior are an appropriate response to someone else’s uncivil behavior.

For example, is the congressman above a high-conflict person? Or is he simply responding to a high-conflict person with appropriate comments? He justifies his behavior because of his perception that her behavior was unjustified. (He said she had spoken about his position on the issues after he had left a public meeting, so that he had no chance to respond.) Many people take this justification approach these days. Some are high-conflict people themselves, with a long-standing pattern of blaming others and a lack of self-awareness of their own negative behavior. Others are generally reasonable people who have become “emotionally hooked.”

For example, one management educator suggests in his book that it is appropriate to respond to rude behavior with a disdainful public response. (A man who was hassling a waitress was publically told by another customer that he was the perfect example of an asshole. “The entire place roared, and the asshole looked humiliated, shut his trap, and soon slithered out, while the waitress beamed.”[x]) Unfortunately, while momentarily satisfying, this approach is often just as uncivil as the rude behavior it is allegedly confronting. Instead, there are skills that people can use to respond to rude behavior without being uncivil in return. But these skills need to be practiced and part of the social environment.

ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP: People who study the social behavior of animals say that all mammals have a natural “dominance hierarchy.” There’s an “alpha” wolf or dog or baboon who is in charge of the pack. It’s common to have physical fights among these animals, until the dominance hierarchy has been established and the loser backs off. Then there is peace and stability, and the pack follows the leader’s lead behavior – often for quite a while. When the alpha finally loses the ability to remain dominant, then a new alpha emerges – often after a vicious power struggle – followed by a new period of stability.[xi] [xii]

This pattern seems to apply to humans as well, although mostly with verbal power struggles. However, long periods of peace and stability may be diminishing in today’s world, as businesses go through rapid upheavals and organizational change has become the standard. Not only is there increased anxiety as the hierarchy is constantly changed, but the worst power struggle behaviors of those on top may be repeated throughout the organization – as individuals try to defend themselves or jocky for higher positions. Uncivil statements are often part of these power struggles and the longer they remain unresolved, the more likely that they will spill over into the workplace at large.

Other research shows that we tend to adapt to the characteristics of the people around us. For example, if you are around obese people, you are more likely to become obese. If you are around people who smoke, you are more likely to smoke. And if you are around people who are happy, you are more likely to be happy.[xiii]

All of this suggests that the organizational culture is driven by the examples at the top and by those closest to us in the workplace. If incivility is part of that culture, it will easily spread. Everyone knows how to be uncivil these days, based on the training we are receiving daily from our larger Culture of Blame and Disrespect. However, if incivility is rejected in the organizational culture, from the top down to the workgroup, then people are more likely to restrain themselves and practice civil behavior.

With all of this in mind, the following suggestions are made regarding the ways that civility training can benefit organizations and individuals. The focus needs to be on specific skills for civil responses to difficult behavior or uncivil comments, and on training the whole organization at the same time, to provide shared skills and an organizational culture that promotes respect and problem-solving.

What Can Be Done?

Specific skills can be taught for responding to uncivil or “high-conflict” behavior, which are simple and easy to remember under pressure. When we provide seminars to organizations, some of our most popular skills are the simplest to learn – although they need a lot of practice under pressure. The following are four of examples:

1. Reminders, such as “It’s Not About You!”: This is one of the most powerful statements that gives employees encouragement, while also restraining their own temptations to respond with an attack on someone else’s uncivil behavior. They don’t have to defend themselves or prove anything, because “It’s Not About Me!” This saves an incredible amount of emotional energy and time. At our trainings, we present several such “reminders” which can be practiced regularly. A full explanation of each of these gives employees a logical basis for the reminders, as well as an increased ability to remember them. Without a full explanation and repetitive practice, employees are more likely to forget and engage in counter-attacks in response to incivility and the bad behavior of others in general.

2. BIFF Responses. BIFFs are usually responses to uncivil emails, letters, memos and public attacks, usually in writing. BIFF stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. Responding in this manner shifts the focus from attack-defend to information and choices. A good BIFF often ends a negative email or social media conversation that has been spiraling out of control. These brief responses can save energy and time, while earning respect for the person who is able to write a good BIFF. (See BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns at end of this article.)

3. E.A.R. Statements. E.A.R. stands for Empathy, Attention and/or Respect. By making statements which use this verbal technique, a person can respond to uncivil comments on the job with clients, co-workers and even supervisors. It takes the conflict out of the situation immediately. But it takes practice. In our seminars we include short and fun exercises for implementing this technique. (See article on our website titled: Calming Upset People with E.A.R.)

4. “That’s enough, Joe!” This is a skill for bystanders who witness uncivil behavior and for targets of incivility themselves. Incivility is fed by the laughter of bystanders or lack of opposition by bystanders. As incivility grows, such public disrespect is a more common occurrence. But an organization or workgroup can nip this in the bud by practicing calmly saying “That’s enough, Joe!” (or whatever the person’s name). This is a small and generally non-threatening message that’s easier to say than a major office confrontation or embarrassing public humiliation of the offender (tempting as it is). Also, an employee may feel safe saying this to an offender, whereas getting up the strength for a major or clever rejoinder may not be possible or appropriate (or safe). Of course, this also takes practice and some discretion in deciding when it is appropriate, especially when the offender is a supervisor. Just saying this to oneself about the offender can be reassuring and helpful.

These are four examples of several ways to avoid making uncivil comments or over-reacting to incivility. When individuals practice these techniques it empowers them to respond more quickly and confidently. This is much more effective than simply admonishing someone to be decent or civil, or feeling hopeless about incivility in today’s culture. When workgroups and organizations learn and practice these skills together, it gives everyone responses that they can share. Any co-worker can say “Remember, what Joe said is not about you” and a targeted co-worker will understand immediately. By understanding and learning these skills together, an organizational culture of respect and problem-solving can prevail. Such a culture can reduce stress on the job, and these skills can help employees in their personal lives as well.

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[i] Jayson, S. At Work, No More Mr. Nice Guy, USA Today, August 8, 2011.

[iii] California Attorney Guidelines of Civility & Professionalism, Adopted July 20, 2007, California State Bar Association.

[iv] John R. Parkinson, ABC News, July 17, 2011, http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/07/rep-allen-west-unloads-on-vile-unprofessional-and-despicable-rep-debbie-wasserman-schultz.html.

[v] Iacoboni, M. (2008). Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others.

[vi] Goleman, D. (2006). Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.

[vii] Goleman, above.

[viii] See Eddy, B. (2008). It’s All YOUR Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything.

[ix] Twenge, J. & W. K. Campbell (2009). The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement.

[x] Sutton, R. (2007). The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.

[xi] Grandin, T. & C. Johnson (2005). Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.

[xii] Sopalsky, R. (2001). A Primate’s Memoir.

[xiii] Brooks, D. (2011). The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement.