Have you ever been around a person who truly confused you? Perhaps they are someone you love- a family member, business partner or romantic interest. But the self-awareness that you have is not something they seem to possess. And they act against their own self interest- without realizing it. When you try to help them, they become defensive, blame you and turn you into public enemy number one.
I’m not talking about someone who makes a mistake and is able to learn from it. I’m talking about someone who makes a mistake and cannot see that they have done so - or seems absolutely incapable of admitting they have done so.
Who are these people? High conflict personalities. What does that mean? Bill Eddy, a lawyer and social worker, co-founded the High Conflict Institute in San Diego alongside Maddy Hunter, MBA in order to explain. The institute exists because “some people incite conflict, raise tensions, blame others and create unnecessary risk and damage.” The High Conflict Institute helps laypeople and professionals understand these individuals and specifically “what works when ordinary skills and strategies break down.”
Intrigued, I listened to “It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People,” Bill Eddy & Maddy Hunter’s podcast. Finding it useful (I suggest starting from the oldest episode and working your way from there), I decided to purchase their book, 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life: Identifying and Dealing with Narcissists, Sociopaths and Other High-Conflict Personalities.
The book is easy to understand, clear and practical. I’m going to excerpt some of the most valuable portions below, as I think that this advice is necessary - and in some cases, relationship and sanity-saving.
People with high-conflict personalities are surprisingly predictable, once you know the warning signs. Since they can become so dangerous, this basic knowledge is becoming more and more essential for everyone, and it’s not complicated. It’s all about recognizing patterns.
HCPs have a narrower pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving than most people. This means that HCPs act the same way, over and over again, in many different situations with many different people. This high-conflict pattern makes their behavior more predictable than that of the average person, and makes it easier to identify someone as a possible HCP.
One of the most important and easiest things to recognize about high-conflict personalities is that they do not work to reduce or resolve conflicts, although they will often tell others that they do. High-conflict people have a pattern of behavior that increases conflict rather than manages or resolves it, revealing warning signs that you can look out for. Sometimes this involves a sudden escalation of the conflict (screaming, running away, violence, etc); sometimes, it involves dragging out a conflict over months and years, while pulling many other people into it.
It’s essential to understand that, with high-conflict people, the issue that seems to be the cause of a conflict is not the actual cause. The issue is not the issue. With HCPs, their high-conflict pattern of behavior is the real issue.
Let’s look more closely at the four primary characteristics of high-conflict behavior patterns.
—Lots of all-or-nothing thinking
—Intense or unmanaged emotions
—Extreme behavior or threats
—A preoccupation with blaming others- their Targets of Blame
Lots of all-or-nothing thinking: HCPs tend to see conflicts in terms of one simple solution (i.e., everyone doing exactly what the HCP wants). They don’t- and perhaps can’t- analyze the situation, hear different points of view, and consider several possible solutions. Compromise and flexibility seem impossible for them. HCPs often feel that they could not survive if things did not go exactly their way, and they predict extreme outcomes- death, disaster, destruction, etc-if others do not handle things or respond in the ways that they want. If a friend disagrees with an HCP on a minor issue, the HCP may end the friendship on the spot, in a classic all-or-nothing response.
Intense or unmanaged emotions: HCPs tend to become very emotional about their points of view. They often catch everyone else by surprise with their sudden and intense fear, sadness, yelling or disrespect. Their responses can be way out of proportion to whatever is happening or being discussed, and they often seem unable to control their own emotions. Later, they may regret their outburst- or, sometimes, defend it as totally appropriate, and demand that you feel the same way.
Some HCPs are distracted over and over again by their emotional reactions to others but don’t necessarily show it. Instead, they become preoccupied with defending their past actions and criticizing those of others. They may look very rational when they do so, but the subject matter will be all about the past and focus on how unfairly others have treated them and how they are a victim in life. They may do this endlessly with anyone who will listen, rather than focusing on the present and the future.
Extreme behavior or threats: HCPs frequently engage in extreme negative behavior. This might include shoving or hitting someone; spreading rumors and outright lies about them; trying to have obsessive contact with them and tracking their every move; or refusing to have any contact with them at all, even though the person may be depending on the HCP for a response. Many of these extreme behaviors are caused by their losing control over their emotions, such as suddenly throwing things, or saying abusive words to the people they care about the most. Other behaviors are driven by an intense desire to control or dominate people close to them, such as hiding personal items, keeping others from leaving a conversation, threatening extreme action if they don’t agree, or physically abusing them.
There are also some HCPs who use emotional manipulation to hurt others but can appear very emotionally in control when they do it. Their behavior can trigger anger, fear, distress, and confusion, in ways that are not obvious. They may seem very calm and collected. But their emotional manipulations push people away and don’t get the HCPs what they really want in the long run. They often seem clueless about how their behavior has a devastating and exhausting emotional impact on others.
A preoccupation with blaming others: The single most common- and most obvious- HCP trait is how frequently and intensely they blame other people, especially people close to them and people who seem to be in positions of authority over them. The HCP attacks, blames, and finds fault with everything their Target of Blame does. At the same time, HCPs see themselves as blameless and free of all responsibility for the problem. If you have been an HCP’s Target of Blame, you already know what I’m talking about.
HCPs tend to angrily blame people- both strangers and folks they know- on the Internet, because when they’re online, they feel a sense of distance, safety, and power. HCPs routinely blame strangers, because it’s easy.
If someone you know frequently demonstrates one or more of the aforementioned danger signs, be careful. And if all four factors appear regularly in the person’s life, they are very likely an HCP. (For a list of 40 Predictable Behaviors of HCPs, see Appendix p. 187.)
Perhaps you already know someone with HCP traits. If so, here is the most important thing you need to know: Never tell someone they are a high-conflict person, or that they have a personality disorder, no matter how obvious this may seem. They will see this as a life-threatening attack- and a valid reason to make you their central Target of Blame, perhaps for years to come. From their viewpoint, it will be as if you’d said, “Please do everything you can to ruin my life.”
For the same reason, never use your belief that someone is an HCP as a weapon against them.
-pages 12-16
So how can you identify these individuals? Eddy recommends the WEB Method, which stands for Words, Emotions and Behaviors. He explains exactly what that looks like in practice at this link. He also has a shortcut called The 90% Rule (read more about it here). If 90% of people would not behave in a particular way in a given situation, and yet this person is choosing to respond in this manner, chances are they are a high-conflict person.
How do you deal with high-conflict people? If possible, you don’t tangle with them in the first place. But sometimes that is not possible because they are someone you love, care about or work with. In this case, Eddy provides many methods (with nice acronyms) including CARS, EAR statements and BIFF.
The CARS method is a four step strategy that is effective at calming high conflict people. It stands for
CONNECTING with empathy, attention and respect
ANALYZING alternatives or choices
RESPONDING to misinformation
SETTING LIMITS on inappropriate behavior
To learn more about exactly how you do this, click here.
EAR statements focus on providing the high-conflict individual with empathy, attention and respect. To learn more about when they are appropriate, and how to craft them well, click here.
And finally there is BIFF, which stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. To learn more about why and when you would craft a BIFF statement, click here.
Those of us who know high-conflict individuals have had to live our way- with much trial and error- into learning how to respond to them. It’s empowering to see that there is now an entire institute, and a clear methodology, that will enable others to attain this information without the grief and heartache the rest of us have had to endure.
Eddy also has an important section on the role of negative advocates.
Some people become emotionally invested in the intense fear, anger, and childlike charm of an HCP, but they usually do not do much individual research into the HCP’s situation and adopt the person’s opinions and emotions without question- what I call a negative advocate. Negative advocates get emotionally hooked into advocating for an HCP’s negative comments, emotions, and behavior and try to “protect” the HCP from their “evil” Target(s) of Blame- thereby helping the wrong person in the wrong way. Instead of making things better, this usually makes the situation worse- certainly for the Target of Blame and often for the HCP as well. Negative advocates are often family members, close friends, or professionals (such as counselors, clergy, lawyers etc) who think they’re just being supportive of the HCP.
In many ways, negative advocates are like enablers or codependents of an alcoholic or drug addict. By siding with the HCP and attempting to help with their perceived struggles, they enable the HCP to remain stuck in his or her dysfunctional behavior, emotions, and thoughts by reinforcing them. This reinforcement of their extreme feelings often encourages the HCP to become more aggressive in their negative behavior, which often ends up hurting the HCP in the long run, as more people become involved and eventually turn against the HCP.
-pages 135-136
One of the things that I think is most important is that Eddy does not immediately assume high-conflict people are “bad” or “evil” or otherwise make value judgements about them. Instead, he says
It’s also important to approach your personality awareness with empathy. High-conflict people may have been born that way or learned their patterns of behavior from abusive or indulgent childhoods, and from our current “high-conflict” media culture. They didn’t choose to have personality problems and these problems tend to ruin their own lives as much as anyone else’s. Yet these personality patterns are very deep and resistant to change. I believe that the more people are educated about high-conflict personalities, the more peaceful our personal and social lives will be.
-pages 176-177
The attitude Eddy and Hunter take is practical. These individuals exist and because they “think and act differently from what an ordinary person would do or expect in a conflict, your methods for managing them must be different from how you would normally resolve conflicts” (26). They are not inherently evil people, and with the right interventions, some of then “can be redirected into getting help and leading productive, more satisfying lives.” But for those who cannot be helped, “we need to work together to limit their damage” (26).
The tools provided in this book and the trainings the institute offers are invaluable. I hope that many people, including lawyers, advocates, social workers, psychologists and organizations that work to promote shalom bayit [peace in the home] take advantage of them.