HCI Pattern Analysis - for Parenting Disputes in Divorce

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

Why Analyze Patterns?

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

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

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

What is HCI Pattern Analysis™?

HCI Pattern Analysis is a software service that organizes and presents numerous documents, statements, emails, text messages, police reports, hospital records, bank records, and other materials in an easy to grasp fashion for any viewer, but especially for legal professionals and the courts. With this program, you can present a “digital timeline” showing patterns of positive and negative behavior. Many incidents can be seen all at once on the timeline, or one incident can be opened up, with one or more related documents readily available for viewing.

For example, a pattern of several incidents of abusive behavior can be shown, including dates, preceding events, severity of abuse, who was present and other information in a simple and clear manner. This avoids having one incident discounted or exaggerated, by seeing the larger pattern of repeated behavior. This also saves time struggling to find documents while a judge impatiently waits for them to be found in a stack of papers.

With HCI Pattern Analysis, you can also present patterns of false allegations, easily showing when they occurred and why they probably occurred then, such as pending court dates, nearing completion of a parenting evaluation, power struggles over holidays, and other precipitating events that often go with abusive behavior and/or false statements.

You can present patterns of parenting strengths, as well as deficits. You can present patterns of who takes the children to the doctors, attends school parenting meetings, etc. You can present patterns of missed time with the children, or preventing contact by the other parent with the children. All of these patterns are very easy to see with the graphic timeline of the HCI Pattern Analysis, rather than shuffling through piles of papers trying to find the important documents to answer the questions that professionals and judges often ask off the cuff.

Who Developed this Program?

Bill Eddy, President of High Conflict Institute is a family lawyer, mediator and therapist who wrote the book SPLITTING: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (New Harbinger Press, 2011, co-authored with Randi Kreger). In this book, he explains the predictable problem behaviors of HCPs, many of whom have borderline and/or narcissistic personality disorders. These two personalities seem to drive many of today’s high-conflict divorces, although many HCPs have other patterns of behavior and not all borderlines and narcissists are HCPs.

Bill explained that HCPs often engage in patterns of behavior that are abusive, alienating, or otherwise highly negative toward those closest to them, yet often unseen by those who only have brief contact – such as family law professionals. These personalities can be highly manipulative and charming, yet they can cover up their harmful patterns very well, if you don’t know what to look for and are not aware of the full pattern.

EVDense created the EVDense Digital Diary and worked closely with Bill to develop HCI Pattern Analysis. EVDense has provided document organization and presentation for lawyers in many areas of law for the past ten years. Inspired by Bill’s book, EVDense is committed to help parents and children who are being abused, falsely accused or experience other harmful behaviors in divorce. In 2010, Bill and EVDense formed a collaboration, one result of which is now being presented to the public, professionals and parents as HCI Pattern Analysis.  

Who Organizes and Analyzes Documents Showing the Patterns?

The EVDense team works with the customer to input the documents and group them by categories to draft the digital timeline. Then Bill reviews the case documents and timeline and suggests how it can be organized to present personality patterns of behavior to professionals and to the courts.

Of course, the HCI Pattern Analysis digital timeline can be easily revised by a lawyer and/or parent to add, take out, or change its organization for presentation to others, including the court. The goal, of course, is for the digital timeline to be so accurate and easy to comprehend, that parents will agree to settle out of court from seeing the patterns of their own behavior. The ultimate responsibility lies with the lawyer and the parent in presenting their case in the most accurate and organized manner.

For more information about HCI Pattern Analysis: