Bill Eddy: How to Deal With High Conflict People
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Welcome to the huberman lab podcast, where we discuss science and science space tools for everyday life. I am huberman and i'm a professor of neurology gy and optimal gy at stanford school of medicine. My guess today is bill eddy.

Bill eddy is a practicing lawyer, a professional mediator, a licensed therapist, and on the faculty of the school of law at pep dian university. He is a world expert in conflict resolution, in particular how to resolve conflicts with what are called high conflict personalities. I should be very clear that these high conflict personalities, as you'll learn today, are not in a category of so called personality disorders.

Now, IT is the case that people with high conflict personalities often also have borderline personality disorder or cystic personality disorder, or suffer from bipolar depression. However, as you'll soon learn, people who have this high conflict personality type could fall into any one of those three different categories, any combination of them, or none of them at all. These high conflict personalities essentially come in two flavors.

Some are very outward combative. They like to argue. They like to generate conflict in way that's very convert, very obvious. The others, which comprise about fifty percent of high conflict personality types, are very passive.

They played the victim, or they leverage other people, so called negative advocates, in order to achieve their goal of creating a lot of conflict where they always appear as the victim. During today's discussion, you'll learn how to identify these high conflict personality types based on some very simple questions that you can ask yourself about them. He also explains how to deal with these people in the workplace setting, in relationships, and importantly, of course, how to disengage from these people, not just in the short term, but permanently.

Now, across today's discussion, you'll realize that ability is very sensitive, both to the suffering that high conflict personalities cause for other people, and therefore how to identify them, avoid them and to engage from them. But he also makes IT a point not to demonize these high conflict personality types, instead as a mediator, as a lawyer and as a therapist, he is really most interested in helping people resolve their conflicts with these people and find the best, most peaceful path forward for conflict resolution. The ability is the author of several important books related to this topic and related topics, such as five types of people that can rule in your life is an excEllent book.

I've read IT and I highly recommended for everyone. He's also written books about adult bullies, which are becoming increasingly common online and in real life, and about mediating conflict resolution and separations and things like divorce and in family court situations where he spent a lot of his professional career as a lawyer. By the end of today's episode, you will have a lot of new practical tools for being able to identify these high conflict personality types and learning how to navigate forward and Frankly, away from them in the best way possible.

Before we begin, i'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching researchers at stanford. IT is, however, part of my desired effort, bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, i'd like to thank sponsors of today's podcast.

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Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to discuss this with you.

I've read your books. I learned about them from perhaps one of the smartest people I know. He said, you should check out this book called five two types of people that can ruin your life.

And I said, that's an impressive title. And I tore through the book, learned a ton. You have a number of other books. I mentioned them in my introduction.

And I suppose it's appropriate to say that you are an expert in conflict, conflict resolution and in particular, how to deal with people that are high conflict. So maybe you could just tell us what a high conflict person is. How common are these people in? How does this overlap with some of the more traditional diagnosis of personality disorders?

Yeah, it's fascinating because I started out as a clinical social worker working with children and families and psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clinics. But I really like conflict resolution. So I went to law school to get a law degree so I could do mediation, other conflict resolution.

And I practice family long. And when I started in family court, I noticed weight away that a lot of the conflict seemed to be driven by people's personalities rather than the legal issue, because I was also doing mediation in my office. I go to court in the morning, do mediation the afternoon, same exact issues in the morning.

People were stuck for two or three years in the afternoon, two or three mediation sessions, suctions went separate ways. So in family cord, a lot of people awesome to familiar with this. But since the one thousand eighties, there's been the use of the term high conflict families and family court.

Lawyers, judges, mediators, therapies identified high conflict families as repeatedly coming to court to make decisions as having a lot of hostility of just seeming driven in one direction, unable to be flexible and in many ways, unable to truly have empathy for their kids so they'd fight over their kids. And so high conflict families was a term when I became a lawyer, one thousand nine hundred and ninety three. I was like a minute, these are high conflict families. These have maybe one, maybe two people with high conflict personalities or traits of personality disorders, which all belt since one thousand and eighty, and working in hospitals, out patient clinics.

because you are also a clinical psychologist, clinical social work.

clinical social work. So I got a masters and social work in one thousand eight. one.

Then I became, I got license to do therapy on my own. So i'm a license clinically social worker in california. I can diagnose disorders. I can do treatment without supervision. I went through that that I became license.

So when I came in a family core ago, this is the same patterns when I was working, say, with people in the sake re spital, who had addictions, depression, all these problems. And my job is the hospital social worker was to help them with their outside problems, their family problems. So I did family counseling for the patients um with their job.

Maybe their employer wants to fire them because their behavior and I try to help keep their job um maybe they were getting evicted. Their landor's couldn't stand their behavior. And I solved one problem.

And I go, i've got you in a marriage counseling and your husband or wife's committed to working on the relationship ship. And i'd go, yeah, I complied something next day, bill, my landlord once kick me, okay. I convinced their land lord, to give one more chance.

Yeah, bill, my job wants to fire me. Can you help? What they have is a pattern of conflict behavior that doesn't get resolved. And that's the high conflict families that I saw on family court. So that's where that connection came from, which I would not have arrived out if I hadn't been a therapist and also a lawyer.

My understanding from reading your book is that this high conflict personality for type is equally distributed between men and women. What is the percentage of people that have this high conflict for type? And then maybe we can drill into a little bit of how that shows up its different forms of expression.

yeah. Well, let me say a little bit about the difference between high conflict personalities and personality disorders because we have a lot of research on personality disorders, including statistics, which i'll give you. We don't have a lot of research on high conflict personalities.

People have talked about IT, like I said since the one hundred eighties and family court. And my own observations with thousands of cases um a high conflict personal is is is pretty much men and women. My law practice, I represented pretty much fifty fifty men and women, mostly custody disputes, mothers and fathers.

So I got a good impression personality disorders there's a lot of research on, and and I mentioned in the book some statistics, and they came from the personality disorder research. So what they found, they studied at the ten personality dishes in the early two thousands of big study, national institutes of health, the alcohol is a subdivision of N I H. They want to see help prevent ent personality disorders, were with substance abuse, with domestic conflicts, with criminal behavior and workplace complex.

And so this study they looked at all ten personals came up with numbers. For each five of them seem prone to high conflict behavior. So these five I can give you statistics on, and I can give you breakdown, male and female, all from twenty years ago.

Big study, because IT hasn't been repeated since. So basically cluster b that's nsidc borderline anti social historical. But we see a lot of paranoid in legal disputes and some research as paranoid personality disorder is the most likely to sue their employer of the personality disorders.

So that's gotten an attention too. So here's some numbers. First of all, our clients personality disorder they found was about six percent of adults in the united states.

They found the statistics on the was thirty eight percent female and sixty two percent male. So that's a more heavily ily mail. Twenty years ago could be different now because of environmental influences.

Borderline, also about six percent. This was fifty three percent female, forty seven percent, almost fifty, fifty. And that shocked the mental health world because we've always thought of border line as a female this world. But maria, ana and the big name in treatment for borderline says he agrees. He thinks that's true.

And I think that's true as a family lawyer, because a lot of the men that we see engaged in domestic violence seem to have the border line personality pattern and the domestic violence is much more male than female then um anti social four percent and that's about seventy five percent male twenty five percent female histones about two percent. And they found this is about fifty fifty, which again surprised people because you think drama, center of attention, all of that. But and this may be very much environment, mental influence.

Our culture today teaches especially Young men to try to get attention. Do you write your skateboard behind a car or jump off off a building? Do all these dramatic things to get attention? Or social media and social media really encoded s that everyone wants attention.

And now you can have to fight forward in our culture. And so men, as well as women, are getting out there, often in dramatic ways. So he came out about fifty, fifty paranoid, about four percent came out, think IT was fifty seven to forty three percent somewhere right around that. A little more heavily female, but not all that, for our part altogether, is really roughly fifty, fifty.

Very interesting. And how does this high conflict personality cut through all these personality disorder? finot? Pes, um because oh and I should also ask, I could imagine that some people who are borderline perhaps are also history onic. Is that possible to fall into .

and and the study actually broke down some of that. So in the research stayed, particularly one that I remember is boring. And nurses, sis and IT came out around thirty eight percent overlap. So and I.

who were a borderline, also can often .

be stic personality disorder, icy. And so this is personality disorder over that. Now there's a whole continuing here.

So many people have traits but don't have a disorder. The current D. S.

M says the total personal discourses around ten percent. Now that's taking an average of studies from around the world. The study I quoted earlier in the U.

S, at fifteen percent have a personality disorder. So in in, in the U. S, we're seeing that that significant. That's one that said thirty eight percent over lap port lines.

And I think that with fits for me because when I teach wires from my own experience, I can say you have a client that comes on like a narses is they're very self center and putting you down, saying their superior, hear some tips to deal with them. But they also may have wide mood swings, which is more associated with water line. So you need to bottle up their ego, honestly, not, you know, pison for something that's real that they do.

But also, they really need empathy. They have White mood swings that someone that needs a lot of empathy say, wow, I can see help, said, you are, this is so important and they calm down. You have to use both sets of responsive to deal with someone that has that combination.

You mention borderline in history onic. There's a lot of similarity, so we see over overlapped with that. But i've seen every combination.

But what I don't know in family core is, is that the disorder or just traits and the disorder doesn't matter to me. It's the pattern that matters. Because if I see this pattern, I know I should do that. That's the key.

I can imagine that in family court is especially complicated given that some of these things, not all but some of these have a genetic components, certainly a situation component so you could potentially be dealing with um trying to work out a situation for the benefit of children that have some of the same personality disorders as their parents could be a really tRicky well.

what's interesting and it's very rewarding work when things can go well. When the lawyers get IT, the judge gets to everyone, gets IT what's happening. They can make orders that fit the situation and help protect children from bad behavior and help get parents some help.

So like substance abuse is is a bigger issue in family court and personality disorders, but almost necked and neck. We talk about sub interviews all the time openly. There's treatment. Everyone recognize the signs. We don't talk about personality disorders in our culture, and that's like flying under the radar.

I am just gonna pause you for a second there. I think it's such a key point um you know in a very interesting paper that you sent me which by the way will provide a link to in our shoonoo captions IT essentially kicks off by saying that you know the the movement toward explaining to people what L I think alcohol use disorder alcohol and is in the nineteen and eighties was a crucial a move forward for the judicial system. yes.

And I think nowadays people people generally understand that addiction is not just a lack of wheel power, that there are brain circuits that become hijacked by substances or behaviors, that these brain circuits were designed to promote our adaptive evolution, but they can be highjacked by behaviors and substances that render people really just unable to control their behavior. I think nowaday, that that box is checked. And and it's wonderful that the judicial system understands that, right, because then I can work with that. Um I don't think that the general public has yet come to the full appreciation of these personality disorders and these high conflict personalities and how pervasive they are um probably because of their prevalence is just sort of all around us and in all sorts of interactions .

and IT here's .

the question. High conflict actions tend to be quoted a dramatic yeah and there tends to be a almost a reward for dramatic behaviors. You said online, in politics, in the media, the more dramatic, the more silence. The more silence, the more people click, the more of the people watch. And then the algorithms are designed to look at me, like dwell time, which is nerd speak for how long people look at stuff.

And so you could see other stuff could be fed in the same way that for nearly, you know, seventy five years leading up to the one thousand nine hundred and seventy, alcohol use disorder was sort of fed by the culture. Do you have five P. M.

Happy hour? Yeah, coming up in science. I would go to scientific meetings and I was like, okay, five o'clock, its let's all drink. And I always thought this is kind of crazy, especially given that there was also a lot of concern about the end of interactions that drinking can create .

in the work environment. So high conflict behavior.

exact. So anyway, I don't want to rift too long on this. But first of all, this is just loading the important work that you're doing. Second, how should we think about this high conflict personality fino type? Should we be calling people out like, oh, you know, hey that's an arcesius hey that's that's a borderline history onic person or is there a more um I guess something that embrace a little bit more of the humanity and in the real issue at hand, I think that's what you're trying to do.

Yeah absolutely and you may seem me shaking my head. No, instead should be point this out of people that the last thing you want to do, in fact, don't do that. And the reason why is is personality disorders.

Oh, oh, let me just quickly distinguished in personality source, high conflict personalities, the difference. And there's a chart in the beginning of the book with two circles, overlapping, lot of overlap. But the main thing about personality distort is there stuck in a narrow range of interpersonal behavior.

So some aren't high conflict people. Some are, think about high conflict people is that they are preoccupied with blame, that blaming others is a big part of their life. So when you're dealing with a high conflict person whose blaming and has a personality disorder, you get a stuck pattern of behavior.

You get high conflict personalities or high conflict people. So they're persistent in acting that way. That's the overlap with personality source is they don't reflect, they don't change, they just keep blame as everybody out there. So recognizing the difference and similarity. So about half of people, I think, with personality disorders, and this is just my estimate, have high conflict personalities.

And about half don't I work with border lines in the psychosis, al nurses, is that don't blame other people nis, that are just self centered, but and borderline es, who are more frustrated themselves than anybody else. So that's an important distinction. You beautiful .

the distinguish between high conflict personalities and these personality disorders I just want to make sure um everyone here is again that about half of people with personality disorders would .

fall into this high conflict personal edition I don't .

have research at and that the distinguishing feature seems to be that high conflict personalities are often or constantly casting blame on others for the difficulties of their life essentially, and that's why they .

have conflicts that way and they escalate instead of getting worked on and resolved.

So I can imagine that the high conflict person doesn't always appear as high conflict. In fact, this is something that you've related to many times already in this conversation and certainly in your book, that sometimes these high conflict personalities come in kind of under the radar, and that can be confusing to people or they can go undetected for a long time.

Yes, so part of IT goes with the specific personalities. So high conflict people with borderline personality traits or historian ic personality traits are often more openly dramatic. And so they might really shock you that so they start yelling, screaming, throwing things just because you're having an average conversation, very disproportionate.

But some and attends to be more the anti social personalities. Some or cissie c personalities can look really reasonable on the surface. And they've actually had a lifetime of experience at looking good, which kind of covers up all the stuff under the surface.

And I think of of a couple examples. So for example, and ideals sometimes like domestic violence cases. So let say an abuser says in court, said, oh, well, I was helping her because he was so upset.

I took her keys away and I held her down on the bed because I was a would leave and get into a car crash. Well, there maybe rare vacations where that's true, but that's a common story that we get from domestic abuse ers um or in court. I've seen this uh where theyll be a very reasonable person kind of explaining the situation and their partner.

More often, a woman is just emotional as a mass, maybe even in tears. And people don't realize about eighty percent of divorces in court today. People represent themselves.

And so there's these conversations and the judges like, well, this guys being really reasonable and this woman's a mess. I mean, i'm i'm going to go with what he's saying. And so a lot of stuff slips under the radar of that way.

But gender wise, IT could be the reverse. And a lot of relationships people get into, people make themselves look really good. And then the negative stuff comes out weeks, months, maybe a year or later. So that's why we say wait a year until you decide to commit. Because nowadays, ys, who knows, you may have someone that really is good at covering their bad behavior.

Yeah, let's hover on that one particular point because this is perhaps one of the most important takeaway from your work. Could you just spell up this first year principal? Um and perhaps it's useful for us to also acknowledge that yes, there are a great many truly great stories about people who met one weekend two weeks later, got married and then we're hearing the story fifty years later when you've got grandkids and great grandkids, they thrived or people met, met, got engaged three months later or you know in some cases got pregnant months later and they have this wonderful marriage and family story to tell.

We hear these story, and they're really wonderful stories, right? I mean, a firm your belief in humanity when you hear those stories, and they are powerful. But in discussing a little bit of this with you offline, you probably have witness more cases where people rushed and the rushing to commit or to create LED to more problems than I did. good.

yes. And that's many, many of the high conflict divorces that i've worked on as a lawyer and before. That is a therapy ist.

And sometimes as immediate or are, in my mind, kind of the bad luck stories, got a decent person, usually my client, of course, but something happened. They got together too fast, and then all this stuff came out. And I really believe in today's world that IT IT is a matter of luck.

And that's why you should take a year to find out. And I did I draw the short straw in this relationship and I got this perfect looking person um great record all these good things. But close relationships is where personality disorder ters come out in a personal difficulty, and the high conflict behaviors mostly close relationships.

So they might, a woman might like them, but when you're home alone with them, they could be really terrible, yelling, hitting, doing all of this stuff. So that's why would say, way to year. I ve had a lot cases where people tell me we just, just fell in love.

IT was beautiful and everything was wonderful for about six months. And then when I committed to get married, all this stuff started showing up. But I got married anyway because I figured, well, time in love will heal up everything.

Only I didn't. So in today's world, there's a higher risk of getting a high conflict relationship, I must say. And the description you gave is what people often tell me.

They said my grandparents got married a week after they met, and they just celebrated their sixty at anniversary. They're still in love. Everything's wonderful.

Your grandparents tended to know who they were marrying. In today's world, not only don't you know you don't have a history, but high conflict. People have learned to cover up the full range of who they are, and they're not bad people.

And that's something I want to emphasize. They just have a different personality, and they may have been born this way, but they don't come with with markings, you know, they don't come with the music, like of jaws. Do, do, do, do they look good? And anybody, I think, is at risk of falling into a relationship like this.

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I definitely want to come back to this point that you made that you're not demonizing these people. You're talking about how to behave with them or how to not behave with them in some cases in order to um try and create the smooth as possible interactions, in some cases no interaction. But if we could have a still a bit more on this first year idea, my understanding is that no getting engaged or for that matter, married, no conceiving children and no moving in together in year. Wanna are those the critical except .

for the last one, is it's really don't commit like getting married within the first year. Sometimes moving in together is a good way to find out what it's like up close with this person.

Yeah, you learn a lot by living .

somebody that's right, that's right. And personality I disorder is part of the definition is interpersonal dsf unction. And that's close. That's close relationship. So if you haven't had that close relationship, you don't see what happens when you leave your socks out of the caps of the tooth pace. And some little thing is some huge storm.

Or when somebody sleep deprived, I would say you, can you learn a lot about somebody after a bad night sleep? You and them, right?

right? You know? But the key is patterns of behavior. So one thing I want to say is everybody get to angry sometimes, that's that's fine. Everybody yells sometimes, everybody criticizes sometimes.

But if they have a patent like there, a life hat pattern of relationship is to yell and scream and criticize all that, wow. This pattern is probably going to a keep going. And as I mentioned earlier, I believe with personality disorders, it's a narrowed mattern of behavior.

So it's more pattern driven in several different settings family maybe at work when there's close, maybe in the community when it's closed. So these are recognizable parents as recognizable as alcohol ism in addiction once people learn. So that's the key gave yourself sometime. See if this stuff comes to the surface.

Think you're raising a really interesting point, which is that although nowaday we have more information about people available to us by way of the internet and social media, you made the comparison with our grandparents era. And forty nine years old, my grandparents, actually, my grandparents knew each other from the time they were, like in the eighth grade. They allow ped when they turned eighteen.

When I got married, I think, to the dismay of one outside or the other side parents, but they were married more than fifty years. Yeah, and grandkids are obviously one of them at sara. So you have these stories, and we we love these kinds of stories.

Yeah, but as you point out, they knew each other very, very well and had for a long time. Nowadays, one can in court do their research, go online and look for things. But would you argue that that's not complete information.

right? I think I can be helpful. Um no, I told people google your partner and find out if there's some history there that may indefinitely.

But don't don't believe that sufficient. What I say that you really want to talk to is relatives and friends of this person. And what you really want to do is see them in an .

action with relative friends.

relatives and friends. Yes, because that's close relationships. That's the key. This is all about close relationships, and that's what catches people by surprise. They say this person looks good at work. Some people have worked together for ten years and maybe they were another relationships and they both got towards commiserated with each other.

I get together and it's like we've known each other for ten years, you know, we're going to have a great relationship and they find out this is like a stranger almost because it's a close relationship now. And that's the difference. To help people behave in a close relationship often trigger like personality disorder, that stuff fear of a ban in that, fear of looking inferior, fear of being dominated, fear of of not getting enough attention. The personality disorder have seem to have excessive fears in these areas.

Is IT fair to say that if somebody has a lot of stable friendships over, you know long periods of time, that that's uh a good indication um that they can maintain close relationships. But IT seems to me you'd also want to know like what is a close friend of that person? Do they actually spend time with them? You know do.

And likewise with cover because some work environments that i've been in are necessarily very non personal. You don't share much right where as other. Environments like I know the partners of everyone I work with now at the podcast.

That wasn't true for my academic colleagues. I knew some of my academic colleagues families I would have dinner with them at, but some of them less so. So IT context matters a lot.

yes. And and I say mention the word's stability, and that's really a key. So if they have close friends, they've had for ten, twenty, thirty years, had a really good sign.

Um bad science are, I don't want you talking to my family. They are evil. People theyll say terrible things about me.

You can't trust them. They'll end up. They'll turn on you. They'll hate you. All this stuff, you can't even ever talk to me. I can't even let you know who my film is and what they emails and phone numbers are. No, goodness, that's a warning site.

Definite morning said. Because everyone has conflict with family members at summer level. Yeah but you would hope that one could would feel comfortable allowing you to like, interact with their family.

And if if your families really difficult introduce your partner to your family, let them see this is a difficult family. And this is why I had to distance from them because a lot of people to be healthy do have to get some more distance. But it's a secretiveness. It's the just secret in general, are not a good thing for a relationships you that's that's the biggest piece that's missing in a way compared to fifty years ago when people knew there IT was hard to have family secrets fifty years ago. Now, even though people may be all over the internet, you might really know their secrets and that's what you need to find out.

What about advocates? So, you know, familiar with some high conflict individuals and some are more of the combat of type, others are more of the kind of what did you call IT sort of a quiet, manipulative victim playing type. And um both seem to be pretty good at generating advocates.

I guess you call these negative advocates people that will fight for them. Yes, right. By the way, this is all sounding a lot like modern politics and maybe we we'll get into that a little bit because this is an important reflection on what we're talking about.

But what about these negative advocates? If somebody has a lot of friends or advocates that they are kind of like on their side against that are also in a blame mode? yes. Is that a red flag?

yes. What's interesting and and I i'd like to time they learn more than neuroscience behind this. But high conflict people have heightened emotions.

The cluster b personality disorder ters are known as dramatic, emotional and erratic. That's the D S M five T R says that the manual for mental health professionals. And so their heightened emotions are contagious. And in general, what i've learned about this work a lot, as emotions are contained and high conflict emotions are highly.

So what happens, and I see this so much as as a lawyer and with other lawyers and with therapists, is the high conflict person comes into your office and says, i've been terribly treated by, let's say, my ex, you know, man or woman, because IT happens to both been terribly treated. And you've got to save me. You've got to protect me.

You've got to win. You've got to sometimes they say you have to destroy the other party. That's always a warning time when their goal is to destroy the other party.

It's not a good sign. But there so emotional is that, my goodness, this person been through so much. Now I have the emotions.

And what I teach to my seminars is I understands what to do with the amic door that the middle catches. The intense here tends anger, that those are heightened. And so now minds going, oh, bill, you've gotta do something I like.

My body wants me to take action, and I want to save this person from their evil coin rent, for example. And so what we see with negative advocates is there, emotionally hooked but uninformed. They don't really know what's going on.

And I give you an example of court case with a high conflict person, but their whole family and I had a case with false allegations, bal allegations my cant happen to be the father, the mother was making, false allegations of child's sexual life. And i've had all types of true cases, false cases. So this is a real problem, a real issue.

But there also are for false allegations in this case, that's what was happening. So the the mother brings her whole family. The judge realizes what's going on in the case because of the evidence presented and sanctions the mother for knowingly false allegations.

What is that equate to in the legal system?

So my client of the father spent like forty, about forty thousand dollars getting a psychological evaluation, having a trial, doing all of this atterley fees. And so the court made her pay ten thousand dollars of his attorneys fees and costs. So that's what the sanction is.

And there's a code section. This is knowingly false allegations of child abuse are basis to make one party pay the other party's fees. So she's ordered SHE never paid IT, by the way, and SHE won't no property.

We were able to get IT because he had property and other people's names. But the idea was that SHE brought her whole family there. SHE brought her mother, mother's boyfriend.

SHE brought her roommate, who was a psychology great student, who was like, encouraging her, oh, your daughter is being abused. That you've got to do something. These were all negative advocates.

And when the judge made her rolling and spelled out the information, that was very clear. I mean, we caught the mother lying SHE persuaded other people to live for her. We caught them in life. That was a really surprisingly open case.

And and the family started yelling at the judge, I said, this is, this is a crime and this is a and though the judge said, you take yourselves out of here immediately, or I will have the bell of, take you out and that they stood up and left and shelter. This is an a bomb ation or something like that. These were in the negative advocates.

They didn't know what the full picture was. They believe their family member, who was a skilled liar, I believe in, is very interesting. I got to talk to her therapies, a therapist SHE had. I was released to talk to her in.

The therapist IT was in open, was SHE has brought line personality disorder and that was an open thing and and the therapy said, and there is something else and I said anti social personality I disorder and he said, I can't say, but I wouldn't disagree with you is effectively, yes yeah. And with anti social, that's where you get a lot of lying and stuff like that, the rare case. But since I have the social work background and i've had many true cases of child sexual abuse, especially as A I can see the difference where as a lot of lawyers don't know what to look for.

But this was an exceptional case, anti social and board line personality disorder. He had a lot of trades, and at first the judges was very critical of micco ent us, and he would have supervised contact. But the supervisor said, this is fascinating.

When the child would be exchanged, the girl would like kind of what kind of tentatively towards the father. The mother dropped and left. Supervisor brought her to father. SHE was like, twenty eight, ten, and SHE see the father. And SHE looked the mothers out of side SHE jumped on him laugh and have a wonderful time.

I do have one question. It's not A A lit miss test question. But during call from um the particular case you were just describing whether the relationship had started very quickly had they moved together quickly decided excuse me, how they decided to have children together quickly, married quickly in other words um was your client a oblivious um because of the rate at which he were moving. And the analogy that comes to mind is if you're moving very fast, it's hard to read the the road signs.

I think he did and and much interesting as they got together when they were quite Young, I think maybe he was eighteen, he was twenty.

Something like that pretty yeah. And so .

excited knew all of that. Sure they did. And what's interesting is they they had gotten divorce. The issue I describe was after divorce custody issue, but they had gotten divorce maybe four, five years into their marriage, and SHE assaulted him, and he had the scarce all of this.

So he had actually custody of this girl, who was eight years old, when the story I just told you happened, which is also helpful, because he was verbal. SHE could describe, SHE actually describe how her mother covers her to say things that weren't true. But yeah, so they got together, Young, I think, quick, they make a divorce.

But the patterns continued. And that's one thing. We see a lot of high conflict. Dior's keep going even after the divorce. The actual divorce date is like a speed bump in the lifetime of high conflict if they have children together.

Hence the a wait to have children with somebody yes um if possible yeah uh you asked about emotional contagion and you make reference to the science um if I may i'll just share something that might be of interest to you into the listers um you're certainly right that the amiga la is a central hub for threat detection um what a lot of people don't know because it's just not discuss enough in the popular coverage of neurosciences that the amiga c can learn in the sense that it's highly prone to context dependent plasticity.

So you know this idea that getting emotionally charged, either negative violence like fear or positive valence like I like that that's true to an extent but over time the brain changes to in some cases like the feeling of a general to get a an associated dopamine e release with that. But a really interesting set of brain structures that um aren't discuss enough all just mention because because you asked about news science, I had a post stock in my laboratory by name of hey Young june of fantastic post stock who was looking at emotional contagion. We were interested in human subjects, but these were animal studies.

You buy one by one member of species is absorbed and then mimic by the another number of the species is very powerful aspect of human and non human behavior. And there's a structure in the brain called the cloud stream. Most people don't know about IT, which seems to be critical for this.

And and he did a beautiful set of experiments of showing that when animals observed other animals, either in a positive or a fear state, but in this case of fear state, they would or threaten state their own cloud's room to enter a singular cortex circuitry. In a course of mega set, those would light up as if they were in the experience, but not to the same degree. But over time, what one could see was a kind of heightening a plasticity of these circuit so that smaller threats.

Started to create larger internal responses that's both combining he guns work and in other work that's come out since. So what IT says is that our brains are very tuned to the emotional states of others. This is good empathy, for instance. Um but that over time we can our brains change to actually um require a lower stimulus to activate that that kind of negative advocate part of ourselves. yes. And and so perhaps this is a good segway into a discussion about what society now, not just in terms of politics, but you know it's one thing to be recruit to a camp but then once you're in the camp IT turns out if you if we think about through the lens of this work IT seems that IT requires less um negative stuff in order to stay in that camp but want to fight more and more um stridency in order to protect the cause so I make sense.

I think exactly. And as I mentioned in my book about bully, I think polar ization really demonstrates that. So once you're in your group and you see the other group is not only having a different point of view, but as the enemy, then your brain doesn't need to work on and anymore, that case close, they're the enemy.

The only question is, what do we do now? And the research saying that when you when you talk to the people in your group, rather than coming together, you move further apart. And to me, what's fascinating in terms of legal cases, especially in family long, is you have like the family I described, you have the family talking to each other.

You pull a lawyer into that, the lawyer talks to them, the lawyer gets heightened a anger. Maybe your commitment to save this person and maybe get a therapy ist into the picture. And they all just talk to themselves.

They pull further and further report. And that's often when we have our high conflict court cage. They come back to corner every six to twelve months, sometimes for years. I have cases where people been in court, like every year for eight or nine years. And in these cases where the divorce was done long ago, but people don't realize is the worst, custody disputes tend to happen after the divorce over.

And I think it's because people are spending more and more time talking to their own team, to their own group and appalls and for the report, their view of the other side is worse and worse and worse. And that I think the structure really matter. So I think politically, we have we have these two different universes that not know.

So they talk to each other and they really create a sense of community. People are looking for community and they find IT. But it's fed by, I think, the media ecosystem, which has their own media. And so we have these two universes talking to themselves growing further and for the report.

And that's why elections don't seem to have made a difference in any of this, because elections kind of decide who does government, but they don't resolve the adversarial communities, and they get a lot of attention. And sad to say, I think our culture has shifted from government at that. Politics as about government.

And the details and netiquette and the values of government are what's good for our group, good for our country. Unity, citizenship. We should be together in this the politics have shifted to entertainment.

The values of entertainment are be extreme, be emotional um an entertainment driven by drama you know for thousands of years and drama is opposing us against them. And as I mentioned in the bully spot, there's a terrible crisis. There's an evil villa and there's a superhero.

And if you have someone tell that story to their community, they will love that person. So now we have two communities in politics loving themselves and hating the other. And the election don't resolve that.

That's a speed bump on the road to high conflict, and that's not a good sign. And we have to find ways to bridge the gaps. And there are way you get people one to one talk each other.

There's a lot of groups trying to say let's let's connect rather than separate. And we get too far out of baLance. We're going to have bigger and bigger high conflict problems.

So we have to the more people's eyes are open to this pattern, the more they can say, hey, I seem to be part of this group, but I want to, you know, my neighbors think differently. I'm gona listen to them. It's listening that's missing.

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On the suggestion of my friend and former guest on this podcast, two time guest rick rubin um I started watching a documentary about the history of professional wrestling which everyone agrees is made up so it's just acknowledge that I recognize that um but it's a remarkable portal into some of the things that you're talking about because um IT all hinges on being able to create emotional responses in the crowd and just a very brief history of IT as I understand and i'm by no means an expert, but I took notes on this documentary as I do take notes, almost everything they used to have good guys and bad guys, good girls and bad guys yeah you know cause this men and women's restful um typically not against each other. Although sometimes in any case there was a transition that occurred at some point where they couldn't get more excitement and um literally couldn't get more attention to the sport by having good, good guys and bad guys, good guys and bad girls. So what they ended up doing was making everybody bad and the ratings just skyrocket.

Everybody bad, right? The underline premise being that both teams are cheating, and so therefore they had to behave poorly also. And IT created this whole era of just, just bad people doing bad things, generating even greater emotional responses.

yeah. And this fits very much with the neuroscience of emotions. Yeah, emotions like all happiness, joy, meaning, pleasure. These are powerful emotions.

And I will not say, because there's no data to support the idea that fear, anger, being threatened at sea are more powerful emotions, but they tend to drive more behavior. Two, in other words, people will do more. This is well known in the field of behavioral economics. Two, people will do more to avoid losing something right then they will, to gain something, sadly.

But this is how our species meaningful.

a reasons. So the point being that I think society, and perhaps interpersonally, because the two things mimic each other at every level, individuals on all the way up to culture seem to be engaging this like increasingly amplified emotional states. And now I just seemed like combat is the rule of the day.

And and it's so sad. And you have to have to wonder where he goes next. But IT does seem like IT rewards these high conflict personalities because they go undetected, right?

So now that the coworker who's super angry about something they saw on the news and is trying to engage people or something or create an issue around something that, like, is this really an issue? I think there is some real issues in the workplace and at school. But like, is this really an issue?

Like that person, ten years ago, everyone would have been like, this is a problem person and would have back to work. Now I just kind of um because the the mean has shifted, I think IT goes it's no longer signal above the noise. It's as we say within the noise.

right? Well, what we're seeing is the this kind of. Media systems, I call them, are attracted to high conflict personalities.

And high conflict personalities are attracted to attention. They want attention. So there's that almost marriage of of media exposure and high conflict personalities. And so that's what what what pulls people together. There's I think everyone is looking for community these days.

And IT used to be around work like a shared task, but now we do so much of our work alone or tiny groups. And so you get a real sense of community people to get IT from from church or snag mosque, whatever. And that weekend.

And so we get that now a lot, the intensive emotional community from politics. And so there's a community for you and there's a community for you. So they pull themselves together.

They get that that I don't know, dopamine hit or whatever IT is um and strengthens them. So what happens? We're pulling apart.

But to me the answer is exposing the patterns and understanding our brains is recognized. What's happening? This person is probably exaggerating when they say that, you know, those people are evil.

This person's probably exaggerating when they say those people are stupid. Whatever IT is that we have to really is okay. Don't don't buy that completely.

And what's fascinating to me, I don't know how that happened, but I get text message solicitations to contribute to campaigns from conservatives and liberals. I get both and just what they look like each other and they're like the end of the world is coming. You've got to give ten dollars or one hundred dollars to save the world, and the end of the world is coming because of them.

It's all fear based, and it's fear based. But IT looks your emotions. I know this stuff, so I can gay, okay, swap, swap, swap, wipe away. But a lot of people don't know that this is happening. They understand how emotions are contagious and how I think high conflict emotions are more contagious.

So to me, it's educating people about these dynamics so you don't engage so much with them like I won't watch more than half an hour of TV news, but you can have twenty four seven TV news. And since nineteen ninety five, ninety ninety six when they allowed um they gave your licenses for radio and television, they didn't have to tell the other side the story before that used to the the fairness stock and yet to say what the other side is. You're for a candidate you have to hear from the other side.

You didn't have to after nineteen ninety five and ninety six. So we had like mm, bc and fox news, slightly off center, slightly concerned as slightly liberal. Well, now we've had thirty years of that much for all the report and communities around each of these.

And yet if you go, okay, i'm probably hearing some exaggerations here so I can check myself. And this person is trying to be a hero and demonized those people. I'm not gonna a do that.

So i'm not one for government regulation. What I want is for everyone to be able to say, okay, I see what's happening. I'm not gonna get my emotions hooked.

And I think to me, that's one of the goals, is for people to learn. I don't have to absorb the emotions because that's where the problem is. People are emotionally hooked and uninformed.

What are some of the signs of a high conflict personality? Because in an ideal world, we avoid these people. And again, we're not trying to say that there are bad people. Some of them are bad people, some of them aren't. But um since i'm not a clinical psychologist, you are you can make the assessment certainly Better than I can.

What what are some of the ways to avoid these circumstances besides the first year rule? And then let's talk about some ways to disentangle from these people um based on their unique for types. So is there a question or set of questions one should ask themselves when they are potentially dating someone, potentially becoming friends with somebody, potentially becoming coworkers with somebody and so on?

Yeah so what's interesting, he's often you're gut feeling, tells you are some things up here like the person suddenly has a shocking opinion of somebody else. They say, you know that persons a total jerk and yet you know that person and they're not a total jerk, they suddenly someone s disproportion. And I think this proportion, that um emotions is often a trigger.

I put I put in in a lot of my books now, but I call the web method is pay attention to their words, your emotions and their behavior. So starting with words, do they use a lot of blaming words? You know, it's all that person's fault is do they use all or nothing works? They seem to see things through a narrow length that there's all good, there's all bad, unmanaged emotions which they may or may not show.

Like I explain, some people are good at hiding all that, even though I drives them inside. And the extreme behaviors do. They do things ninety percent of people would never do.

And I give an example here, and this is I I won't say the city, but there was a mayor, there was someone who worked, who was a congress person, and they decided to run for mayor in their city instead of flying to go to congress. But when they were flying to go to congress back and forth, this is in california. I'll say that much, people can easily research this.

So this person flying back in fourth, one day, one night standing, you know, there was a lying to get your bags at the airport after you got off the plane, and he was told to wait in line to get his bags and he said, don't even know who I am and he pushes way to the front of the wine and had an argument with the person behind the counter, said, don't you know who I am? I want my bag right now. And SHE said, you don't have IT now.

You can't have IT right now. And he pushed her, a doctor over. He showed this, this airline worker behind the counter and knocked her over.

This was a mayor of a major.

Not yet. He wasn't mayor. He was a congress person anyway, so that.

sorry, no, no lucky. I know some some very decent congress, we will. But like OK, yes.

But so in any case, right? This person could be any number of different professions. Like, yes, this is anti social behave.

but this is a high, high profile person. So this is in the order of the news the next day. This is twenty years ago, maybe fifteen years ago.

something like that. Goodness.

anyway, so it's in the newspaper the next day. And newspaper says, congressman, so and so get into physical altercation with airline worker knox. Over half the people said, that's terrible.

Any other half people said, wait, wait. He was sleeve deprived. He was flying across country.

You have to understand that he was stressed. And here's where my web method comes in. Ninety percent of people would not have done that even if they were sleeped deprived. And I fly back and fourth a lot, and i'm not I don't do that.

I would like to think ninety nine percent of people do that.

To get seconds .

ago with an airline person over a bag, the cutting to the front of the line is is agreeing that the shoving the airline person is like, yeah beyond the .

pale yeah exactly. So this is so, anyway, so he's running for mayor and i'm going, this guy is a high conflict person. If he gets elected, he's not gonna be a very good mayor.

He's gonna a lot of trouble with the people close to him. And so guess what happened? He gets selected with in, I think it's eight months.

He is. And this is before the me two movement godd started. But people are reporting he's harassing women, sexually harassing women.

Women come into his office to meet with him, professional, experienced, important, and he's like morning to touch them a lot appropriately. They they don't want to be touched anyway. So women started complaining about him where kind of gets out. Yeah, this happened with a lot of different people that he's he's not sexually assaulting them, but he's he's treating them badly.

So IT cuts across domains. It's like, yeah, so it's it's not just in the office. It's it's there, but it's also it's the airport. It's it's basically any time he's not getting what he wants, he throws a tetra.

And and that's the thing with with personally, this is now we're range of behavior that's repeated in a variety of the settings. So he's fitting all of that. So which person and I just i'm not gona diagnose him, but IT narrows down to one or two.

So it's not context dependent IT IT is it's pervasive.

pervasive. And that word is in the diagnostic menu that it's pervasive across, I think, several settings. I think that's the words, but let me let me just finish so please, because the end of the story, the end of the story is he's also got committees and people that are supposed to accomplish things.

He doesn't want them to think, he wants them to. He wants to do the thinking and told what to do. So he goes around alienating a lot of people. Within eight months, he's out of office because enough people were upset and the way he got out of office is some of the heads of government told him, I think he was the city attorney or something.

You quit now will help you with your legal expenses because he's starting to get suit for some of the stuff suit city showing him will help you with your legal expenses if you quit now. And there was starting to be a petition movement for some, I don't know the mechanics like a special election or something to get rid of him. Anyway, within eight months, he was out of the office and now you don't hear about him in that city.

It's a very interesting a literally high profile, although still anonymous based on this conversation case. Um I wonder if on a more superior typical level the following is informative or not. I'm not looking for validation of the example what about to give but i've been very surprised at times how .

um if a person who am with .

for the first time out on a will behave towards the weight style yes not explicit disparate ging of them but sometimes mildly disparaging of them or am feeling as if, uh the amount of of liquid pour into their glass was somehow an indication of how the waiter felt about them or didn't feel about them. Like reading reading into these things. Just think, wow, life must be really tough for you like who's paying attention of this stuff and and so that's that's one that i've noticed in in people um and it's and it's proved informative.

It's really a useful thing to see that part of what you see their behavior and their behavior towards other people. This was was a brilliant thing. I don't member the name of of the program, but there was a guy who was head of a company and he used when he is interviewing people for high level jobs.

He pretended he was a taxi driver. Something would pick them up at the airport as as the taxi driver and see how they treated him as the taxi driver. And then he gets in the interview room and he, the guy, interviewing them. And in some cases, people treated and really disrespectfully and it's like now I know this is not someone I want ever I made .

the decision to not work for um somebody years ago when I was on the different very different stage of my career based on how that person treated a genitor yeah and IT was amazing because he was one very brief interaction and IT wasn't like this person yelled at the janitor yeah he was the kind of dismissiveness yeah and I remember he was this your web approach IT was um IT was his eyes gas reveal there was his words towards the gender IT was my emotional response was all like, I felt like I being kind of kicked in the stomach was like that was like I just felt like like a very on what I would call like the football play unnecessary roughness yes, he was mild from the perspective of like no one got physical or called anyone names, but he was but remember thinking like, uh, like that right?

And then their behavior was just to just go right back to what they were talking about. And I I knew in that moment I was really crust fall. And because in that moment I knew, oh, my godness, I cannot work for this person yeah, like I just can't.

And I made the decision not to, and actually their response to my deciding not to, for a variety of other reasons, to confirmed everything that I suspected in that one little interaction. Yes, but it's interesting because we're trained to collect data rathers you know carefully, and we do not want to make snaps judgment. Somebody could truly be having a bad day.

But in this case, if there was the right decision to not work for them, think, goodness, I think my starts. thanks. Some really bad decisions about people in my life.

That was a really good decision. I never spent today regretting IT. I went to work for someone else who was terrific instead. So, but as you said, these things sometimes hit at at a synthetic level, as opposed to some sort of wait to you, some like very cerebral analytic thing that kind of hit that what must be a very primitive circuit.

I can't help the neuroscientist and me wants to say, like it's GTA be something at the level of the body where we go way that was messed up yeah and and you can't really point to a specific word and then you start to question yourself that's the problem you wonder was or maybe their tone was maybe it's my own perception, but I don't know. Maybe maybe the body doesn't lie. Maybe IT knows.

I think the body is like a first responder, and that we should pay attention to that. And especially with high conflict. Personal is especially the on artists, which is part of the antisocial personality.

And once i've dealt with a very good at this, is there words are just right and your brain is like south by them. You go, this person gets IT and i'm totally comfortable. They're charming, all of that.

And your coat goes, wait there they're out of sink. I have this cold feeling. Why do we have this cold feeling? And I think that they are, they're aimed at your your cerebral thinking, and that your guts kind of gets IT. Because they are, in a way predatory, like anti social, tend to be pretty. Those people have dead eyes.

I've known a few, i've known a few men and women and their as, or I can only describe them a vision neuroscientist that's like what my, the careers been and and those are two little pieces of brain right there. There's something about the death, and I don't have a science to support what i'm about. There's something about the deadness in their eyes.

Maybe there are pupils don't change shape with levels of areas all the same way other people's do because we know that happens in in healthy people and healthy autonomic nervous system. But there's something lacking yeah um and people make up all sorts of theories online like i'm not a big blinker. I don't when i'm concentrating blinks to break up my flow and and this is actually a way I can remember things.

People have these theories about blinking numbing. The research doesn't support any relationship between blink frequency and personality. Had this half theory about zc too, like he doesn't blame, therefore he's whatever is a robot.

None of that holds up. What does hold up, however, is this mismatch between words and the effect that IT creates in us. Yeah sort of like that sounds right, but IT doesn't feel right.

I wish we understood more about this. At the level of science. There are a lot of theories, not a lot of.

not a lot of tools. Someday I think.

yeah, yeah, the tools for measuring the stuff are getting Better. I wanted to ask you about other ways of just knowing if you're interacting with a high conflict person um when the cues are more subtle. Are there other things um or examples of the web method that that come to mind?

Well for me, of course, dealing like with court, especially this, a lot of stuff and writing, and so being able to look at what's written and lot of blame words, that all or nothing words SHE did this, and he did that disparate ging word. He stupid or whatever, or he is a bully. He is this and that which triggers for me, maybe he is, or maybe the person saying, IT is, but IT heightens my attention.

Yeah, how do you divide between projection and a real thing like online? Now, I mean, one of the most, one of the fastest ways to get a popular social media account is for somebody to give advice about how to avoid bad people. You know, name calling, gas lighting, nis, sociopath, psychopath history on IT like these.

These are clinical terms that now the general public can leverages to, like, you know, sort, amplify community. And then in part, I understand from talking people in the texas is that social media is social. The accounts that grow fastest are the ones where you don't need much language to convey what you're trying to convey like A A sport or dance or an animal and among the others that grow very quickly um and therefore rewarding to people are ones where there's um where you're recruiting these negative .

advice first. So I want to make sure that that I get this point across and that is there's a lot of temptation till label people with like the mental disorders, the personality disorders, and it's absolutely essential that people don't do that. If you think somebody might be a nurse system, might have border line personality, your bni.

So so keep that to yourself and adapt how you work with them to be more effective or be more cautious, whatever. But the worst thing I think is people say, oh, and everyone agrees that person nis is so we kind of gang up on that person. That's not helpful.

The goal is not rejecting people. The goal is adapting what you do to either manage the relationship, decide, okay, that's not someone gonna get close to, but you know, I can still work with them or have them as neighbors or whatever. So I want to emphasize that because I think you're right, there's a lot of that today.

And people come to me with that concerns, ability you teach about personality disorder ters. yes. So people understand patterns of behavior and how to adapt your own behavior are not teaching people till label other people. So that's real important.

Yet people go to school for many years and two three thousand plus clinical hours to learn how to do that ah ah to do that properly it's like saying it's like diagnosing anything, right I mean a thermal logic might be able to help diagnose a skin patch for potential cancer um but we're taught that we're not supposed to do ourselves right.

So we have to be cautious. But on the other hand, aware and the more aware of patterns like like being aware of someone with an alcohol abuse issue is to go, okay, i'm not going to be serving him alcohol with dinner is a great person, but i'm just onna, leave that out of the evening meal, adapt to what we do rather than judging them. And I don't see people personally is worse as less are beings.

I see them as having a different set of behaviors that they acquire a pretty much and childhood. So I don't hold IT against them. I may just like their patterns of behavior, but I I really don't hate people like that.

I've been a therapy ist with clients like that. So I think our awareness needs to be there. So we adapt how we work with people.

But I think the the gut feeling is is so important. As a therapist, I was trained, pay attention to your duck because that's gonna help you with your clients. And that's why the web melted there words, their behavior. But how I feel often gives me tips you mentioned before.

And I think it's really important to highlight that people's patterns of interactions across a lot of different domains, with the teachers in the school, with close family members, with the people that know them best at work, that these different types of relationships reveal a pattern. And one of the things, just speaking from my own experience, is that i've tended to where i've gone wrong, i've tended to over emphasize the importance of like a credential for instance uh some of my past uh romantic uh relationships have been um with people who are highly educated, some less pire education that all extremely smart people.

Some more formal some less formal education but I think that I and other people sometimes will look at the cv of somebody and of course that's not the only indication of their you know their values at seta but into over emphasize like, oh well, they you did difficult things in a difficult setting and therefore must be a good person like me. So would you say that these high conflict personalities exist more or less in high competition venues versus low competition venues? I don't want to make this about the economics data. So things corporate. But but you know, all too often we tend to do the kind of good on paper analysis yeah and forget the like, how do they actually measure up in real life?

Yeah I would say, first of all, that we see high conflict t people in every occupation, in every culture and every community, every economic status. I think that I don't think there's a research on this, but I think that health care and higher education are two fields where there's a slightly higher incidence, higher of high conflict people because there's a higher toe. Also, I would say churches and we get consultations with churches. Sometimes there's a high tolerance for behavior that outside the norm.

use at higher education and health career particular.

So we physicians .

and universities.

yes, yes.

So students and faculty and staff.

yes, both administrators sometimes. And I believe it's because of the .

higher tolerance administrators just getting out of minister lester with the greater minister.

Let me mention, I do a lot of consultation. And what the things that people come to me about is, is people with little power basis, like department heads in universities.

Um I remember one university I did a consultation with about the department head and they were a medical school and they had a high conflict person high up in the structure who was really, I was told, damaging some of the students careers because they didn't they looked at them cross or something like that so they wouldn't write the kind of recommendation that they needed. And how can we deal with this person? Because they're embedded in their position, so gave them variety of tips. But that's that's why I think people do need to have their eyes open in these fields. And and I want to, in the time talking about occupations, we see there's a little bit more in non profits and nonprofit administrators because again, non profits are good people doing good things, but they have this higher tolerance for administrators would be a behavior because they're good people and that lines people because the assumption they're .

good people are because they're or because the mission is good.

The mission is good and they're invested in these missions. So they must be good.

Do you think that's part of what got them there?

yes. And and that the thing that's so tRicky is, is that everybody is somewhat unique, but also these are some recognizable patterns of behavior once you know to look for. And this is what we're doing much more in the workplace now, and employers wanted know, we want to promote this person.

Is that a good or bad idea? Well, let's look at the patterns of behavior. Because once you put them in an embedded position, things gonna be harder.

I've been approached by city councils. They say, we've got somebody on our city council that's a high person. What do we do? Do we confront them? Do we publicly talk about them all that self?

I say, neither of those is good. Learn how to manage them until they move on. And they often do because people slowly go. We don't like working with this person.

It's really interesting. You know, when I was a graduate student that was a department chair in the department, big personality. Yeah, like big personality. yes.

And I very quickly came to realize also because I listen to the faculty that were under this person that despite having this like big, like larger than life personality, that you might initially like playing to a category of, you know, like diagnosis or something, yeah, that this person was an incredibly strong advocate for the faculty yeah, and they loved that. And he was really beloved IT, and I think gratefully. So you know and and you know at at a surface level might have rubb a few people the wrong way.

I think as students, we were like whole like I was almost like, but I didn't quite know how I had. I like respond, respond to IT, but you very quickly get the sensitive, like a real kind of Peterson al nature in this person. So I point this out because sometimes these big personalities are really, truly benevolent.

Now, i'm not saying, is a perfect human being. How could I know that? I don't know that. I didn't know him in all domains of his life, although I didn't know his family, and he seemed a great, strong family too. But then, by contrast, i'm thinking of the person I eluded to earlier.

Different department, different university was kind of like more meat, like like certainly as more of the the study typical lab scientist. But then you know there was this like interaction that I obtain. I thought like well, like that really dreadful, at least that's not an environment I wanna be in ah so sometimes these things don't match our initial impressions. I raised this because sometimes we think big personality aka high conflict personality, sometimes we think, hey, kind of you know quiet, nerdy type and they're actually quite dreadful yeah so IT doesn't always fit. And and I think the problem with the internet social media version of this, the typical version, because there are some great social media international staff podcasts uh, is that we we default what we see yeah and what we hear, but we only have the data and we .

can get manipulated that way. That's that's what's tRicky bit, but you raise several important points. I want to respond to them all if I can remember them.

The first is that this is in many ways, quite numerous. The key thing to look out for with high conflict people, a preoccupation of blaming others and not taking responsibility. So you might have a big personality that's that's not a high conflict person.

You might have a me quiet person who is a high conflict person. So you can go by what your I see and your ears here. It's really a question of evidence. And that's why I think maybe I got into this after I became a lawyer that there is no way to quickly know, although you may quickly suspect and then wanna look deeper. But I wouldn't give an example because now that i've seem to have criticised department heads.

and well, I decided at least one that that is really wonderful. I've known some other great department heads. I mean, yeah, some chairs there are just like these are, first of all, as the department head, sometimes there's a slight salary increase.

Usually it's trivial. Yeah, these people don't do IT for the money. I have a good friend who has also been on this podcast who is a chair of neurosurgery to major.

I mean, are people who they work their butts off to try and make conditions Better for patients, for professors, for for staff. I mean, i'm not i'm not just saying that that I have no incentive for saying, you know, these people don't control my life anymore. I suppose my chair of what who is a wonderful person IT does, it's set up. But the point is that there are some people that step up to the plate to lead. There are really great leaders, and these are just not the people that .

we're focusing on today. And so the thing I want to emphasize that my favorite example is Steve jobs. Steve jobs, I would say, hands down, was a high conflict person, famous there was a guy and solar on valley wrote a books that no ahle rule.

And he talked about Steve jobs in there because he knew Steve jobs. He was in sick valley. So remember reading his biography, like thousand pages or whatever.

And what stood out to me was that he blamed people sometimes, like all or nothing thinking. They talked about his distortion. Reality is a reality distortion field.

And that's exactly what high conflict people do. They all or nothing, thinking, you can do this. You can do that.

People say, that's not possible. It's physically impossible, Steve, you can do this. And then he would push them. And one example that stood out to me was touch screen glass that you touch. And IT knows where you are, I think.

And I may have IT wrong, but IT from reading his autographs, that he, her round corning wear glass company, corning company, something like that to create that they say, you can't do IT. It's not physically possible. Do IT and do IT the next ninety days.

And they did. They invented this thing that they probably would not have done unless he pushed them. So, high conflict person, but I don't think he had a personality disorder.

People are always even incredible. Nurses is. But personality disorder is characterized by lack of change, lack of self awareness, lack of flexibility, and and they shoot themselves in the fort, interference with their success.

He, I think, was close to that, but he had enough flexibility and he picked a team that pushed back on him, and he liked that. So he's an example to me of high conflict. Person, probably not person. Alan does were and successful because you probably had some traits of these personality.

So what I see is you totally have to look for the evidence that you can't make an assumption, but if your god says, maybe songs off here pay attention to that, but looked for the facts, talk to other people that know this person, see them in other situations because there's incredible people like him that accomplished a lot of really good stuff that you don't want to say, oh, we can have him. Apple fired him in the nineteen nineties, and he seemed to learn from that. He seemed to grow from that.

People with personality disorders don't seem to grow and change. And that's that's their problem. They are stuck.

High conflict people, they blame others. If they have some traits, maybe you can do a work around. So there's many people in position.

Surgeons are one group by one. I mentioned briefly because as a clinical social worker, I worked in hospitals and dealt with doctors a lot. As a lawyer, i've represented doctors in their divorces.

Several, I think they are high conflict people, but most aren't. And that's why won't say most departments had aren't high conflict people. Most surgeons aren't highly flick people even though they get a for that.

Police is another area. Military is another area probably slightly higher incidents because they are in a position where they can dominate and control people. But most police aren't like that.

Most people in the military aren't high conflict people. They are professional people. They like their job.

They know their job. They have empathy. They work with people.

So even though some of these occupations, there's a higher incident. And that's certainly true for lawyers, I think. But most people, most lawyers aren't like that. Most lawyers I know are really committed to their work, really want to help their clients. So I I wanna cannot be clear that this is no one stuff. But when you're hiring people, when you're getting into a dating relationship, you want to watch more closely because it's the close relationships where high conflict behavior comes out more.

So the web method seems like a very good method um as well as paying attention to um and maybe getting some information from other people yes, close to that person in different domains of their life. That seems like a very like sage way to approach this exactly .

and because when you hear from different people the same problem, then that should raise your antanas a okay, a lot of people say, yeah, but this person can be really irritable and you go, okay, so they're irritable in different settings. I'm onna. Think about that.

What about when somebody is already involved with a high conflict person and they want to disentangle? I could imagine a couple different scenario. Let's say, disentangle from a professional relationship, disentangle from a personal relationship.

Probably some overlap there, but slightly different. Let's assume the high conflict person is a high conflict victim type. Then let's compare that to if the high conflict person is more of a combat of type, they will start with a combat of type. So if you're dealing with a combat of maybe even there we say narcissist type, I don't know that. We should diagnose but but the the stereotype that comes to mind, somebody that gets angry when you don't fulfill their expectations and blames others does not take responsibility. And it's time you decide to, like the homer simpson mean, kind of drift back into the hedge um is that the way to do IT or do you lay a clear line and say, listen um i'm not can tolerate this anymore amount it's really .

so much dependent on the nature relationship. I do a lot of consultation should we do a lot of training with high conflict institute. So we get you know married people getting divorce.

We get business partnerships where there's one partner that they are going. We get a deal with this. We have employees trying to get away from from a high conflict supervisor. And we have supervisor is trying to deal with a high conflict employees. So a slightly different um settings.

You know the most common situation is going to be where somebody has a friend or a romantic partner or a business professional partner they want to get get out of. So I pose any of .

those close saw a partner kind relation yes.

something where the person expects to hear from you yeah on a fairly regular basis, expect things from you could be professional things, could be personal things, but where there's an ongoing expectation that you show up emotionally, physically, financially.

whatever yeah so first of all, we strongly recommend against the direct hit is don't tell the person, look, you do this, this, this and this, and that's terrible. And I don't want to be I don't want to work with you. I don't want to be in a relationship with you.

I don't want to be close to you because of your behavior there. High conflict, people put them through the roof. They will defend themselves.

And for the next months or years, they may put you in litigation. They may stock you depending on your relationship. They they will hate you for that.

blame you.

That will blame you and that fulfills their picture. That is all your full. And now look, you've you have violated. The most basic thing is that you will never blame me, so don't blame them. Second thing is, don't blame yourself because that reinforces to them like if you say, you know I just can you know I am a sensitive person and I just can, i'll keep up with you um I know i'm if and I know i'm I know good at this this and this and so I just have to end this relationship and I so might to apologize.

It's all my fault you right I do everything wrong and i'm gonna go really look at myself and get some therapy and i'm so sorry but I just can't, you know, keep up with you. You're such A A really good does this and this and and I just can't keep up with that. Well, they're going to blame you for that.

And you're depending on their personality, if they tend to have border line trades are going to feel abandoned by you. They have no statistic trades. They're gonna a field put down by you. They're going to because you're supposed to see them as superior.

If they have and take social trades, they are gonna feel like, wait a minute, you know you're supposed to be submissive to me and and yet you're walking away so you don't want to blame yourself so you're going to go what what's left is we aren't a good fit um our goals, we've gone in different directions. Um i'm really ready for career change. Um I wanted go back to school or you know I just realized i'm i'm not ready for a committed relationship.

So it's not about you and it's not about them. It's not about blame. You want to try to keep you away from blame.

Now some people say it's dishonest, is to not tell them everything. And let's talk about brutal honesty. High conflict.

People really love brutal honesty and they'll tell you i'm just being honest, your stupid or a jerker or whatever, that's high conflict. People, reasonable people don't tell everybody every negative thing. They think that's just not healthy for relationships.

So it's okay to say, you know, we seem to be going in different directions or have different plans. I've realized I wanted change. So those are basic principles. Um the worst thing in ending a relationship or reducing contact is to go back.

And fourth, the worst thing is to pour out your feelings to the person I had this people getting divorce, and they tell IT i'm so sorry and I love you so much change that pouring out your feelings to someone brings them closer to you. So you want to start holding back some and the other possible. It's work.

Let's go to counseling. Let's to do this. And if you're not sure, go to council, I recommend that. But if you're sure, just say, you know, i'm i'm kind of not there anymore.

I really need to be more on my own so don't go back and forth because that really exit raw and sometimes presages violence in divorces. Is that, uh, a high conflict person, especially with some of the personality disorder traits, can't ham all the opening and closing, opening and closing. So but the other thing, as I say, do IT in steps so the person can adjust.

You might say, you know, i'm i'm thinking about making a career change or i'm thinking that maybe this relationship isn't the right one for me anymore. Um so the person gets used, the idea this maybe coming to an end and then um i'd like to move out and um have more time alone to think and then you're a safe distance and you say I thought about IT and and we really need to get divorce and let's go to a divorce mediator. I want to be amy.

I don't hate you in many ways. I still love you, but we're just not meant to be a couple anymore. If there are kids involved, then, you know, I really want us to have a supportive relationship for them. If there aren't, then maybe this really is the end, but it's it's step by steps so this person can adjust to the fact that you really are leaving, but not too long and not too many steps because then their expectations are raised, maybe you're not really leaving. So these are general principles, depends up on the specifics yeah that was .

very helpful in reference to the high conflict person, especially not placing blame on them. I mean, I suppose in your own mind, you can hold all the lining of reasons why they they are a terrible choice or I guess more typically, if we're realistic, no, it's not going to be all black and White, right? I mean, one would hope that at the first sight of really egregious behavior, people like i'm done.

But typically it's a mix, right? I mean this is you know professionally, personally, it's often a mix. You and um you know i've certainly observed this professionally where people wanted to collect the degree there were three years into a degree.

And like leaving was it's always an option and yet sometimes is not an option. They have you know plans and financial obligations and you some cost as a real thing. People always talk about song cast like, oh, that's just song cast.

Song cast is a real thing so I think okay so with the high conflict person I think you you beautiful ly illustrated how to um not blame them, not blame yourself internally you can hold any reasonable understanding that you come to but you don't have to share all that and that you don't want to actually in any decision but that perhaps things some staging of the exit, not staging a theatrically rather staging, meaning in stages, increments would be a Better word. What about with the high conflict victim playing person? That seems like it's a little tRicky .

and be back up a minute because I want to say there is sometimes where you just need to get out and do IT all that wants right? And don't ease yourself out. My serious.

physically emotional.

yes. So you may need to get away before you hint that I no longer want to be married to you. And i've i've worked with people, consulted with them and established, you know, moving out when the other person isn't there day and the kids go to a safe place, they've got their lawyer and then they tell this person that i'm getting divorce from you because people get killed when they separate with certain high conflict, domestic violence people. So also in the workplace, sometimes they're going to destroy, you're going to send emails and can be really destructive. They may, you might say, i'm gona leave in a month and and they're so angry that they're not gonna really destroy your business.

This is why in the professional setting, uh forgive the word because it's associate this podcast often but there protocols for this in in the workplace where you have to let somebody go, um there's A A sequence of and sometimes that involves telling people you'll go home will ship you your things that's one extreme. Go home now and there's somebody waiting to escort you out time thing.

Other times it's, you know, listen, you're going to finish out the month, but you going to finish that month out at home. Other times, it's hey, you're welcome to stay and continue to to participate. But by accident, that the final day so there's any number of different variations on these themes in the professional setting and something there is any number of .

different variations in the personal site tips. It's nuanced and that's we're getting consultation. Having a therapist, lawyer, a high conflict consult and someone that you kind of walk IT through with maybe even practice what you're going to .

say with a third party observer seems really key, right? Just for for piece of mind.

Yes, right. So yes, so mostly gradual, but sometimes fast really depends. Now you ask about the person who plays the victim, and I would suggest that that's very common with high conflict people, that when aggressive behavior doesn't work, they switch to, oh, how can you do this to me that i'm so sad and what's interesting, the word that I didn't come up with these other people came up with divorce settings where, let's say, you're door forcing someone with high conflict personality and they they are like, I hate you, I hate you.

Don't leave me kind of personality and so, you know i'm divorcing you and they're like you rage at you and then no, i'm i'm really leaving then they switch and big and plea and i've i've got the cases where people say and you know my x to be just reduced me and somehow I went along with a because IT felt real good. And it's back and forth from the high conflict person. And they call IT hovering. You go hovering where that were come from, the hover vacuum.

What happens .

is the vacuum. They suck you back into the relationship. And it's very common with some of the high conflict personalities.

They can't stand to lose you. And when rage doesn't work, then they try to seduce you back in. And some people have allowed themselves to get back in.

And that's not good. You've got to be ready for that. Don't be surprised by that. Don't give into that if you're sure it's over, you're not sure it's over. Get couples counseling and sea where I might go.

I know a number of people who has just say, conceived children, very enclosed proxim ity to the ending of the relationship. And therefore, there was no end to the relationship until several years later. Yeah, I don't know a single case where that LED to a persistence of the relationship for Better or worse.

So this sounds like IT falls under the the rubicon of of hovering, right? People are leaving and then they end up one more time or just to try make the the pain go away, the type thing and and then they're bringing you more of an attachment. I mean, obviously a child is is a forever tie as they say so. Um no, I wouldn't .

say if the majority cases for sure, it's it's a common symptom with high conflict people and you and your hero is like they can handle the pain and so they really bring the bring the person back in. But if this is direction you're going, you need to let them start coping with the pain either step by step, or if it's dangerous all at once. But don't go back if you .

can help IT. These are very helpful. The tips, this is a very useful information for everyone listening. I'm sure they agree.

We had a guest on this podcast, JoNathan hate written the book anxious generation in the coddling of the american mind and he mentioned some statistics that Younger folks so high school and Younger have seemed to um lost or losing the capacity to arbitrate among themselves that um now more typically if there's a conflict and here resuming, not extreme conflict or or anything criminal, but where there's a conflict between two kids at school and they bring IT to the authorities, when I was growing up, I was called tattling. You were called the rat and I got you semi also sized. If you did IT, you learn quickly.

Don't do IT either you learn directly or you learn by observation. You don't be a tattletale. He claims that nowaday, there's more of this lack of ability to arbitrate and and you know, kids, you calling out other kids publicly or publicly, and that parents are doing IT now too.

And this seems worried m in in that IT seems like IT would Foster this the this group, segregation and cultivating through emotional condition, you know, blaming of others and negative, negative advocates. I mean, I don't want to blame social media for everything, because I love social media for certain things. I exist on social media for a number of things that I believe are truly enviable ent.

So i'd creative. I said, I don't like social media. Love social media for certain things. But are you concerned about this? I mean, this seems like a real issue.

I mean, the profession of law exist because of a lack of ability for people to arbitrate among themselves. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about people bring in therapies or lawyers to really help mediators. We're talking about just people going to to the authorities are online and trying to create some drama for what to what end.

Yeah I think in some ways to some extent that type conflict parents who see everything in all or nothing terms see their kids as as offended by other kids um or they're protecting their children and and I am concerned about IT and I also agree as in just social media in many ways i've been watching this since families got smaller. So I remember growing up most families had several kids.

The divorce I do now often have one or two kids, and that's been true in many ways since the ninety seventies. And a lot of IT has to do with birth control. So I don't just blame social media, also blame birth control, that when people could decide how large of family they have, they decide as smaller family.

So birth control pills came out in the sixties. In the seven days, suddenly we started nursing. People are having two kids.

And by the eighties, nineties, two thousands lot of people have one kid. My most high conflict of worst cases have one kid, because it's hard to share one kid. It's a little bit easier to share two kids.

It's a lot easier to are four kids. It's like you can have for the week, and i'm not going to fight with you about that. Please take the and the small family.

And this is, I think, structurally a lot. The fall small family structure is feeding parents becoming a mess with their kids, some parents. And so their kids become their partners, especially in these high conflict divorces. Now, dads, a bad guy. Mms, a bad woman. And the child, especially often the oldest child, now is my best friend, my my kind of junior partner in the world and that's where you see a lot of you starting alienated kids now they hate dad and moms perfect or they hate mom .

and that a parental strAngely is growing yes. Um like crazy as as a phenomenon. We're heading towards the holidays in a few few weeks and months and this is going to come up. I actually did an instagram live with a really skilled therapy, me mattis barker, who specializes in, among other things, um parental estrangement. Yeah, it's so common now people, kids just deciding i'm done with my parents.

right? And it's currently the culture is fulfilling that, that we're now seeing everything in like opposing terms, all or nothing terms exit out. And the big message I wanted get to cross with this with all parents and kids is it's a question of skills that the kids aren't growing up with the skills to manage the new ones.

And so we teach a lot of our skills and we teach parents teach these to your kids in divorce, flexible thinking, teach them flexible thinking, teach them manage emotions, teach them um to make to moderate their behavior, teach them to check themselves. Wait a minute, am I doing something here? Rather than always you, you, you.

And we developed a method we call IT new ways for families, which was designed for high conflict dior's cases, for both parents to kind of learn these skills and practice, either with a therapist or a coach, or just watching online and typing and answers to practice these four. We call these the four big skills for life. And this is, I think, appearances to teach their kids as you can solve their problem.

Tell me what happened? Okay, let's talk about what you could say to Johnny. And we teach skills we call ear statements, empathy, attention and respect statement that shows that.

And so we teach parent, teach your child, you know, your best friend who just broke up with you might be feeling, heard about something, maybe something. They said, what can you do? So we encourage kids to help their kids manage the situation, and we encourage them to manage their relationship with the other parent.

They come back from visitation or access from the weekend, let's say, with dad and and says, you know ad didn't look at my drawing, I drew picture and dad didn't look at my drawing high conflict parents, oh, your dad a jerk you know, I always hated that about him a reasonable parents says, oh, that sad but you know what next time um if he doesn't look at the picture right away, maybe wait an hour and then shown the picture again. Maybe he got got busy, maybe this or that. Teach your child to manage the relationship even with the other parent.

And those parents don't have high conflict divorces. High conflict divorces have the other, your dads are jerk, you know, forget about him. He'll never pay attention to you. And that's when you see parents are strange or alienated of the kids is alienated from the parents.

So you think that with increasing number of siblings, kids learn how to work things out among ourselves.

That's another big part of IT as you have to find out how to share. So I had three siblings and we grew up and and notes you're .

one of three or you had three others, i'm one of four. So that's a good size kit.

a brother, two sisters. So for and what's fascinating for me, and I think that helped shape my personality and approval life as we grew up without television, we didn't have something to to watch, have to school. We had a deal with each other.

So you know, we might play kickball in the backyard. We might something rather, but we had to learn conflict resolution with each other. And our parents were like, you know, you go talk to your brother bill, I don't have time to hear your complaint yeah and so structurally it's stacking going from that to doing people's divorces with one or tude children.

And even two is is Better than just one because they do learn to. sure. But parents, parents feel so guilty today and that our cultures really not fair, apparently. I think to know that you know, teacher child's ways to deal with them themselves.

i'll say, I have one sibling. If we get long, terrifically well, we're succeedin ly close. But I can recall when we were kids, if we were getting into the scrap, my mom, dad would say, just sort IT out among yourselves.

Just don't get a blood on the carpet. IT was like that. I was like that but then get my mom from new jersey and so it's like a different style, right? Anyone from new jury he will understand that was a joke.

But the point being that um we learned pretty quickly how to sort things out. My sister and I have had a few conflicts over the years, but we get along terrifically well. We vacation together for our birthdays every year like where but both of us had a lot of friends in the neighborhood.

I grew up in neighbor od with a lot of boys my age. He grew up in neighboring d with a lot of girls her age. And so I quickly learned in that big pack of boys.

And then I entered sports and god involved in things where I was like, big packs of boys like that just kind of how worked out eventually, Young men and then men that, you know, you you couldn't say certain things, or IT was IT was gna mean trouble. Now is that would be considered obviously not a proponent for violence. But there were you learned, I I learned at fourteen that there were certain things you didn't say to friends.

You get into the scrap with them and then you'd remain friends and so we arbitrary ted among each other but also just had to share how to um you know we um I don't recommend this because well whatever ways to do these like dirt cloud wars where you throw dirt each other, other's heads like and um and occasionally someone withdraw rock and cut some kid and then but that kid through the rock would get in trouble with us. It's like we turn him into his parents. You just kind knew like he plays dirty and then anyone plays dirty again.

If he did, then he kind of knew IT. Like you got, there was just sort of an understanding of of how people sort IT out in groups. This and this stuff harkings back to primitive circuitry that's present in all old world primates, right? Chimpanzees in particular. I always tell people, if you want a really good watch and you want to learn about human behavior, watch chip empire, the netflix series. Because it's basically the it's it's the core circuit tory of the primate brain and action, how people team up, how they CoOperate, how they then all the human behaviors pretty much are they accept the technology development. Those chimps aren't building rockets in electric cars, but there engaging in all the sorts of of behaviors, both hierarchical and non hierarchical, romantic and professional, so to speak, chimp professionals to um to to bring about CoOperative and non CoOperative behavior and sort of how is fascinating then .

the champs are closest relative.

I think. Yes, far as I know, I mean I friends are like really into the genomics of all this stuff. I want to be careful that's getting, but I believe so. They are old world primate. We are old world primate, so there's there's a common linear first .

ah yeah but I wanna really reinforce what you're saying is about the community of learning and kids growing up in the community of learning and IT. I think he plays a role with with bullies because what happens is the the community of kids figures out whose bullies and confront them with their behavior. And people ask me, what are adult bodies? Because my book is about ado police, where they bully his kids.

And i'll say, IT seems to be pretty univerSally they were as kids. But most kids try bullying at least once, and they grow out of IT because they get feedback. They learn that's not going to work.

You're not going to have friends. I'm not gonna around. So bullies learn to either change their behavior or to live on the fringe of the group. If they don't change their behavior.

And so part of why we're seeing more old bullies today, I think, is because they used to be on the france because or they they learned how to get a wrong. But if they're on the friends because nobody like them and they didn't change their behavior, what we're seeing today is bullies are finding each other. And this is one of the negatives of social media, I think.

And I agree, there's a lot of good things. But this one of surprising things, when I researched my book, bullies are finding a group for themselves. And instead of the group teaching them not to be a bully, the group reinforces being a bully, says, you were justified in doing that.

And one of the shocking things is to find that school shooters have a support system online, really, that they seem to some of the research, as they always have social media group, they have peers that they're trying to somewhat impress and that may actually at them on. And if they tracked down, they they find these folks have. And I think they should look for that, find out who they've been talking to, who they communicate with.

And so what I think we're seeing is bullies are reinforcing their own behavior rather than social pressure for them to learn good behavior, which is for me, i've done a lot of group therapy. I've treated people that go to alcoholics anonymous, narcotics anonymous, and the group reinforces and teaches them good behavior. But bullies are finding other bullies and reinforcing their bad behavior.

And that's an issue. We have to address this, especially with Young men. Instead, we have to get on top of that and redirect them into socially um prosocial activities. And most people don't realize that. I didn't realize that.

Now that comes as a real surprise to me as well. Are there female bullies and male bullies online? Or is IT more typical that there may of groups of male bullies on?

I haven't heard about female bullies finding each other. Well, actually, actually, I should take that back. And this is getting into a sensitive area about personality disorders.

Borderline personalities disorder is one of the more treatable personality disorders. And people become aware that they have this disorder a lot from internet information. But what seems to happen there is a couple stages for them.

They become aware before they change their behavior. And like like db t diocles ical behavior therapy is a really good treatment for that. But therapies and and my wife is db t therapies, said that they become aware of IT before they change their behavior, so they do self advertizing things even though they shouldn't.

I know I shouldn't do this, but and then finally, they learn to change their behavior while some people are discovering their border line and finding other people online and reinforcing their border line view of the world, there is evil people and good people. And occasionally they write reviews of my books and say how awful a person I am, because I talk about personality. This words, even though I say, don't identify anybody.

And I believe personality disorders, in most cases, could be helped if they were open to that. So I think there are some degree of of a female people with their personalities finding each other and reinforcing that behavior. But what I what I read was and I I cited in my book in the I remember, I remember which chapter, but that some researchers, university said, look for their social media connections and you'll find that there was a reinforcement of this behavior. Or rather than people saying, hey, you can't do that, you've got ta cut IT out.

One of the best pieces of advice a college ever gave me was when I started teaching in the university to undergraduates. This was prior to my arriving at stanford, where I am now. Um I had this big class.

And this colleague, who is a neuroscientist, very steam neuroscientist, but also a trained as a psychiatrist, is an empty he said, just remember the statistics on, uh, very psychiatric and personality a disorders. You know, you've got one percent of the population because of reni. You've got ten percent at any time that's probably experiencing major depression. You've got border and you and he said, so when you look out on your classroom, just understand that it's a not necessarily representative population, but that those are chAllenges he posed in the right way. He was patient orient to those chAllenges yeah are present in that population um I mention this now because it's something to keep in mind anytime one goes on to social media and reads comments yeah you have to run those comments through the filter of what we know about the frequency of those of those chAllenge for people so um which is not to say that every negative comment is coming from somebody that's border line or right so sympathy, but there's there's a high probability that somebody that if somebody is um is continuously doing that, especially in the blame game type scenario that um that's what's going on.

There is something I want to fit in here and that is that, uh we need to understand that people with personality disorder ers didn't choose to have them. And so I have a lot of compassion for people like that. And I have so I I have a lot of students over the years and they write reflective journals, and occasionally they put in their journal as diagnosed with borland personality disorder.

And remember, this one woman said, so when you talked about order line, personally just thought I was a little uncomfortable for me, but I found IT helpful. And he was actually one of the Better students in the class. And so he had that level of awareness, but he was still working on working on herself to manage, you know, the emotional roller coaster and such.

And so what's important to me as some people with boring person as or maybe angry with me because I talk about IT because they're early stage with this, but other people say, thank you, build that was helpful. And so there's kind of arranged there. But I also want to to say three basic reasons. I think people develop personality disorders.

The first is genetic tendencies in various researchers say, like twenty to eighty percent may be the genetic tendency depending on the person that early childhood first five years of life may be attachment difficulties, maybe a driving factor but also a cultural environment um some people say the a research turns and deegan wrote the nurses ism epidemic and he says from her research um the decay born in influences your personality development as much as your family fast I don't agree with that because she's not a therapies and looked at the he'd looked at big surveys. College students especially but I think that's more significant than we realize that more significant than I used to think. And so part of what you're saying is today's culture is reinforcing, not taking responsibility, whether in the past you had to solve problems yourself.

On the positive side, I was good to IT seems that even though family structures have changed quite a lot yeah um even though culture is changing quite a lot um there's this wonderful feature of social media and the internet now um which is you know what we're doing right now, which is the opportunity for experts like yourself to come on and and educate and I think that as we started off talking about, it's probably about ninety percent of people do not fall into this high conflict personality category.

And what we're talking about, what you're educating us on is how to interact with this ten percent in a way that brings about um more functionality for everybody, more effective, professional, personal, familiar interactions for everyone. It's not about just ostorius zing those with chAllenges. So keeping with that, you know what should most people you know do if they are feeling frustrated with um someone that they feel well, for instance, that you know eighty percent of your problems come from twenty percent of people, this case where I guess we're saying you like ninety percent of problems come from these ten percent of people, but really IT behoves us all to trying figure out how best to interact with others.

And so you've spell out a number of ways that we can do that today. Um if you were to of highlight I never want to pressure but you know highlight you know one or two things to just keep in mind as one moves through the world. Um the web tool seems especially effective.

Yeah um is there anything else that you recommend that we just hold in mind as we navigate forward? Because it's a it's quite a landscape out there. Yeah a terble .

things that I can be brief with each of them. First there is what I call the four forget about IT is forget about trying to give the person insight into how they are behaving that blows up the person, you know, just like I said, don't blame them for you ending the relationship. So just forget about giving them insight and said, talk about what we can do now.

Talk about options. Talk about don't, don't go inward with them. Go outward with them. So when you go inward, you escalate their defensive. So I don't try to give them inside into themselves.

And why do people say, how can I make him see that what he's doing is so wrong? Or how can I make her understand that she's she's creating the problem we're trying to solve? Just forget about that.

Talk about okay, here's what our options are already talk about what to do. Second is don't emphasise the past. And people argue forever with high conflict people about the past, and you never resolve the past with a high conflict person.

And i'll tell you in a minute why that may be. Focus on what to do now in the future. Future focus, not past focus, maybe needs some information to understand the problem, but then emphasize the future.

The third is, don't focus on emotions, and especially don't get 了， don't burst into tears, don't tell them how frustrating they are. All of that, and this is what I will tell you now, is a theory that I hope someone figures out. And that is, people with personality disorders and high conflict t personalities don't seem to go through the five stages of the grieving and healing process, denial, anger begining depression, sadness in acceptance.

They seem to get stuck at denial and anger. So what happens is they don't resolve things. They don't quotes get over things.

They don't get over the reports. They don't get over the job loss. They don't get over having to sell their house because they didn't.

They couldn't pay them work because they don't experiences the Normal human healing and grieving process. So there are stuck. And so a lot of situations with them turn to anger.

They're angry, but they're not result. So high conflict people are constantly talking about the past and how agreed they are. They should have done that to me.

I was right to have done this. And people start now when I say that, like students in my classes, oh yeah, that's what I see that keeps repeating themselves. And they go to as many people they can and tell the story.

I believe they're trying to grip in heal, but they don't have the mechanism, and I don't know exactly why. So I am hoping someday neuroscience will figure out what connection is missing. And can we give people that so that they can grieve and heal? But what that means is if you focus on emotions, you're focusing on an area that's unresolved and has a lot of hurt.

And so if you say, well, how do you feel about that? They almost always say, I feel terrible. I suggest not saying how you doing today because the answer I get terrible.

You know what he did yesterday? You know what he did last week. So instead do small talk, do about anything except about how are you feeling today. So I don't ask how you're feeling. Focus on thinking and doing.

In an example I teach lawyers and mediators is done, say, how do you feel about that proposal? So what do you think about that? Could you picture doing that? How could you do that? How could that work for you? Because if you focus, how do you feel? I feel insulted, I feel abandon.

And then they, they drowned in that. And next thing you know, you lost them. So avoid emotions, don't focus on emotions, but acknowledge emotions.

Say, I can see your frustration. Now, here's how I can help you today. The forth is, don't use names, don't label people, don't say you're a high conflict person and lawyers do that to motivate their clients.

That doesn't work. Don't say you have a personal in this war, you may be wrong and that never motivates anybody. So that's the four forget about IT.

So that's key stuff for people to avoid. So that was a long answer. What when you're ready? I have four simple tips for things to do.

That was a great answer. Would love to hear the four simple tips for people to pay attention to.

Okay, i'm so glad you asked that question. So we have when I call the cars method, and we've actually trademarked this cars method, connecting, analyzing, responding and setting limits first is connect with the person. So someone's angry with you or you're trying to help somebody with their problem, is connect with them by giving them a statement that shows empathy, attention and our respect. You know, I can see how heard this is um I see your disappointment. I hear your frustration.

I can understand by saying I can i'm showing I see them as an equal rather than looking down on them so that the empathy rather than sympathy, pay attention, say i'll pay attention, tell me more, I want to to understand your situation and and listen some and so what I see all the time as people, it's like how good because i'm going to listen to them. They don't have to prove. They don't have to fight to get my attention.

And I conflict. People often are fighting to get attention because they've turned everybody off. And that's why teach players and therapist that so y're going to come to you as much as anything else to get your attention.

So let them tell their story, listen to them, acknowledge the emotion. So empathy, attention and respect, find something you respect about them and respect the kind of work they do. You respect their relationship with their son or daughter, or you respect their commitment to resolving this dispute.

So use those words, and most fascinating, I teach this to people like who I consult with. Then they come back, say, I did that and I really work the person, calm down. I had one woman who said my boss was given me a heart time.

And so i'd run into my office to try not to interact with her and I said, next time, especially like monday morning or something, is go up to and say, like, you know, how was your weekend and say or say, you know, I appreciated the presentation you gave last week. Give her some empathy, attention and or respect. You don't have to do all three of these, just any one of these often com s the relationship.

And remember checking back with this woman a month layer and says, guess what, bill? Now i'm her favorite employee, but she's picking on somebody else. So I gave somebody else your book.

But the idea is connect with people. So empathy, attention in respect and your statements we call IT. And people say they really remember that because you can use that with anybody, anywhere, even with your kids.

Genuine respect, right?

Do you know you're not putting them?

Yeah but you're not puffing them up.

Yes, think about that. Now if you don't respect them and you don't have empathy for them, tell them you'll pay attention and listen and often you'll start developing some empathy or or respect for them, but you can always pay attention and listen. So that's connecting the second area.

And this aren't exactly steps, but these are four areas, high conflict, people have difficulty. The second is emotions kind of cloud. They're thinking. So we want to help them think.

So you want to move to analysing, give them a way to think so you're kind of calming the emotions and now you're saying, let's think about this so present problems as a choice. You know you could do this now or do this tomorrow um or here's the options I see there's three ways you could approach this problem. So you're getting people thinking about the problem rather than reacting.

And when you give a choice, that kind of forces them into logical problem solving. So one way you can do this is especially if you have a professional relationship, like employer employ therapist clients of like that, it's have them write a list. They're talking to saying this is wrong and that's wrong and that's so you say, wow, a wow ite, a list of these problems so I get a clear picture when you write a list, you calm down and i've had this over and over again.

Angry people, when they're writing a list, calmed down, they start thinking about, i've done this with with like like a doctor once and he was having trouble with the nurses and like they're doing everything wrong, right? right? A list of all the things they're doing wrong.

And pretty soon you started thinking, you know, there's this other thing they do, but it's not so bad actually. And I want them to do this on the left side side of the page because on the right and page side, we're onna start looking at where are possible solutions. And he really can't.

People that i've done this is a media. If had both people, okay, want you would write too less like business partners now, say you trying to decide whether to split up or keep the business partnership. So I want you both to write a list what you would do if you split up mine down the partnership, the steps you'd have to take, and another list what the steps would be if you could make IT work between you.

So let's meeting a week. It'll look at your list, come back a week later, they say, you know what? We both throw out a list.

We immediately called each other and realize we should terminate the partnership. But we have one last big project we wanted do together, and we realize now we can go our separate ways in peace. We really have different goals.

It's not her fault. It's not her a fault. This was two women who worked together. And so writing list helps. This is all under analyzing the aid of the cars method, having the person make a proposal.

So make me a proposal, I told managers as soon as you can tell your employees that now that i'm your manager, whenever you bring me a problem and I want you to bring me problems when they're small, cause conflicts that are small, much easier to resolve, always bring a solution to the problem. I want to hear your proposed solution because you know the problem Better than I do. You're getting them to think so.

High conflict people, I believe, have a band with for problem solving. And some are brilliant heads of companies, inventors, all that stuff. They got a big band with for conflict.

But they also have a ban with for problems. So you wanna aim at that and bring that out. So that's analysing or is for responding. I conflict people, because they blame so much, are always saying you should have done this. You didn't do that.

Our tendency is to argue with high conflict people and that's not forget about IT you're trying to give them in inside is not gna work so instead give them what we call a beef response that's brief, informative, just straight information. Don't tell them you're wrong, just tell them what the information is and do in a friendly manner and have to be firm, have IT end the discussion. Most commonly, bef responses are in writing.

And we teach this as an email method. And we estimate there's about a million people doing this now because we talk IT to about half a million people, professionals and individuals. We've got four little bit books.

We've got ef, informative.

friendly and firm, firm. And those four things.

friendly is in material.

well attached. Friendly is so what I say, like, like someone reached to you and see you, you're doing everything wrong. And you're write back and you say, thank you for telling me your concerns.

Here are some information you may not like, say, someone tells me, Billy, your methods and never gonna work and I can instantly defensive and so thank you for telling me your concerns um you may not be aware, but about a million people are using this method now and um I wish you well something like that. So what type of friendly us doesn't have to be a lot and firm doesn't mean horse IT just means try to end the hostile conversation. So don't respond to their distortions.

Maybe even when they say you've done there is a misinformation or hostility, is just give them a bef response. And I tell that sometimes to business owner, sometimes public figures, is they might say, like politicians, sometimes terrible things are set about them and they go, but they're not true. And you're going to, oh, well, i'm going to ignore that because no one will believe that, but then people believe.

IT, a great example. Dominus, Peter, about ten years ago. This is a great story. Allow that. I also eat domino's pizza.

I wanted him to the details, but somebody said something that grows people out and their stock just dropped. Two employees did something to the Peter within. So first they were going to ignore that.

Everyone's gonna realize that was a dumb thing to employees. Well, they're stout, like ten percent or something like that. So two days later, the head of dominos, pia, puts out a ninety second video, and I get spread around.

And what he says is two former employees at this growth thing. And that doesn't represent us. And most important to us is our customers were totally dedicated to this is never gonna happen again.

We done everything to aba ba, so they bounced right back. And in my mind, ninety second video didn't do a twenty minute explanation of how we do this, that just ninety second video, head of the company put IT out there, bound strike back. And to me, that was a big response, even though we never heard of IT brief, informative, friendly .

confirm. So that's a car, C, A, R, that's responding. What's s that?

S is setting limits. And this may be the most important with high conflict people, because they mind their biggest problems. They do not stop themselves.

They keep going in areas where most people stop themselves. They keep talking. They talk a lot. They create a problem and keep creating the problem. They don't stop. And so people around them have to stop them, and we're not used to stopping other people's behavior. Most people manage themselves.

And part of writing my books, as I believe today, that we have more high conflict behavior and everyone need to learn skills to set limits on on bodies, on high conflict people's behavior. It's all about behavior. They're not bad people, but they don't have the software strain.

So setting limits in key things here, don't blame them. Don't blame yourself, say there is a policy, there is a rule, there is a war. How IT looks to people is do this instead of doing that.

So that behavior, and if you keep doing that behavior, here's what the consequences. So I have a method I call slick. So everything i've got condition.

a lot of acrs. That's right. Scientists have acronis military science and apparently .

I conflict methods. So slick is setting limit and imposing consequences. So with high conflict people, you might set the limit, like you say.

You know, a given example as a lawyer, IT represent her woman victim m of domestic violence. Her exhusband to be, didn't have a lawyer. So that means he's allowed to talk to me.

I have to talk to him, negotiate, solve problems. So he calls me up and he says, we've got to solve this problem. You tell that blankety blank black wife of mine, I saw, hold on, you can't talk about my client that way.

You said i'll talk about her anyway. I want to she's a blanket, blank, blank or whatever. So he didn't respect my limit at all.

So then I said, if you keep talking like that, i'm gonna hang up and so it's up to you says, i'll talk about her anyway. I won't keep sucking like this. okay?

You've chosen for me to hang up. I'm hanging up now. Call me when you're ready to be civil so and the call next morning, he calls me back.

He says, mr, ready? We have to solve this problem my blankety blank bank wife and I say, hang on, remember, i'm gonna hanging up if you talk like that. So, no, no, no, don't hang up.

We have to solve this problem. I'll try not to say those words, and he doesn't say those words. We get to address the problem. So the county courts is what started, not the limit.

And I think it's a brain thing that they're so absorbed in the emotions of the moment that they can't picture that their behavior as a consequence. So if the people around them point out there's a consequence, if you do, that is kind of a joke to them, oh, I don't want that consequence. And so with high complete people, you often have to tell them the consequence when you set the limit and be ready to impose the consequent. So that setting limits imposed in consequences, they have to go together with high conflict people.

I love IT, and I know that those listening and watching really appreciate this. I mean, these are incredibly valuable tools. I mean, I can say from my own life, and I know observing the experiences of others and what people are shared with me, that here have .

to be careful because .

I don't want to place blame let me phrase this correctly that um the ability to navigate interactions with high conflict personalities well can lead to a dramatic improvement in people's lives, both for the non high conflict personalities and the high conflict personalities and that a failure to do that does exactly the opposite.

So look, I really want to thank you for doing the work that you do as a lawyer, as a therapy, the research that you've done. You're incredibly well researched and thoro. You send me papers in advance of this in addition to having written all these books that will provide links to in the shown note captions.

I've read several of them, but I planned to read the others as well. You have book um specifically on relationships um you have books on bullies. You have a book about five types people they can ruin your life and several others as well.

So put links to those as well as some other resources related to your work. And also just want to thank you for you know being uh contributor to public education. I mean that's what this podcast is um people listen to this podcast in hopes of cleaning information that they can really apply and that they can pass on to others.

And you're doing incredible work. You're also teaching in the university system later today. So you're not quite busy and we're deeply appreciative that you took the time to come educate us. So behalf of myself and everyone listening and watching, I just want to extend that you deep gratitude like you're trying to make the world a Better place and you are making the world a Better place.

Thank you so much. Appreciate the chance to speak with you and get this out right.

We will come back again and um tell us more about bullies in the rest. There's a lot more to cover. We'd love to have you back. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with bill eddy.

I hope you found IT be as interesting in practically informative as I did to learn more about balladists work and to find links to his various books. Please see the shown out captions. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribed our youtube channel.

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