Why I Wrote High Conflict People in Legal Disputes, 2nd Edition
©2016 Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. Does it seem like high-conflict people are increasing in legal disputes to you? It does to me. Ten years ago the first edition of my first book, High Conflict People in Legal Disputes (2006), was published. Since then I have been giving trainings around the world on this topic, and judges, lawyers, mediators and counselors involved in court cases are telling me that they think high-conflict cases are up. So how do we deal with these high-conflict clients and opposing parties? And if you’re a law student, what do you need to know before you start your first cases? High Conflict People in Legal Disputes (2nd Ed.) goes beyond what I said in the first edition. This new edition has updates related to the DSM-5, the manual of mental disorders that mental health professionals use around the world. (This manual has updated the estimates of personality disorders as approximately 15% of the United States population—more than in previous versions.) In my second edition, I explain that the DSM-5 no longer uses the Axis system that I explained in the first edition (personality disorders were previously known as Axis II disorders). But I still give the diagnostic criteria for personality disorders for background, with the cautionary note that I am not training the reader to diagnose these disorders. I have added a new chapter with information about paranoid personalities, which were not included in the first edition. A new chapter has also been added which is very relevant today: Presenting Your Case. I discourage talking about personality disorders in a court case (unless there has been a formal diagnosis), and instead encourage lawyers and self-represented individuals to present the patterns of concerning behavior that have been occurring. You can use your knowledge to help you prepare and present those concerning patterns, without ever saying “He’s a narcissist, so…” Or: “She’s a borderline, so…” Beyond the addition of these two chapters and information about the DSM-5, I have also added newer cases to demonstrate how the courts of appeal are dealing with the dynamics of personality disorders in their cases. However, I have not removed the prior content, except for minor edits. So you get more than ever before! Here’s how it can benefit professionals and individuals: Lawyers and Staff: This book was written primarily for lawyers, so that it has lots of tips for managing each of the five “high conflict” personalities we see so often in law practice: borderline, narcissist, antisocial, histrionic and paranoid. The charts and outlines can also be used by law office staff, to help them avoid responding negatively when these clients and family members start to blame them for everything. Judges and Staff: I no longer have to convince judges that people with high conflict personalities dominate their caseloads, especially in family law cases. However, this book is for any judge with any type of case, family, civil or criminal. It is designed to help you understand the limitations of these clients for insight, and to focus more directly on what to do now. Judicial staff also bear the brunt of the anger and self-defeating tendencies of high conflict litigants, so that giving them this book may help them set limits while calming the parties who come to court. Mediators: When I initially wrote High Conflict People in Legal Disputes, I had been doing mediation for several years as a social worker prior to becoming a lawyer in 1993. I have always believed that out-of-court methods are better than litigation in most legal cases. However, people used to say: “Well, you can’t mediate high conflict cases.” But I beg to differ. Over the past twenty years, we have seen most court systems encourage or require mediation before family and civil cases can go before a judge. Criminal cases also have significant plea bargaining before trials. Over 95% of civil cases are settled out of court (sometimes just outside of the courtroom), and some civil lawyers are saying over 97% are settled now. Therefore, I included many suggestions for mediators to use all along the way in both editions of this book. Court Involved Counselors: Since I was a therapist before becoming a lawyer (a Licensed Clinical Social Worker) for about twelve years, I really want therapists to see how they can help (and not hurt) in high-conflict cases. Since judges and lawyers like to have psychological input nowadays, counselors often get drawn into legal cases more than they would like. However, from my experience as a therapist, high conflict people in legal disputes are very different and often don’t want to change themselves, but rather manipulate therapists to get an advantage (such as a letter or declaration from the therapist) that they can use in court. So it seems very important for counselors to be more aware of how personality disorders drive legal cases in an often-manipulative fashion. Therefore, I have tried to emphasize information for counselors in this book. Law Students: This book originally grew out of course materials I wrote for a class on “Interviewing and Counseling Difficult Clients” for law students at the University of San Diego School of Law. The students actually suggested that I turn this into a book. Now, I teach two law school courses in this material using High Conflict People in Legal Disputes as a text: “Psychology of Conflict” at Pepperdine University School of Law near Los Angeles, and “Managing High Conflict People in Legal Disputes” once a year at Monash University Law Chambers in Melbourne, Australia. The feedback I get from the students is that they really appreciate learning about these personalities, for their personal lives as much as for their future professional lives. (I tell them to wait at least a year before making a big commitments in dating, such as getting married or having kids. It often takes that long for high conflict personalities to show themselves.) As a new lawyer in 1993, I wish I had known a
De-escalating High Conflict Situations in 4 Steps
© 2015 Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. & L. Georgi DiStefano, LCSW The CARS Method® was developed specifically to address four big areas of difficulty in high conflict situations, which often involve one or more people with high conflict personalities (HCPs). But this method can be used with anyone – anywhere. The CARS Method® is designed to help you organize your responses to calm down upset people, to redirect their energies and to focus them on positive future choices and consequences. This article is a brief excerpt from our book It’s All Your Fault at Work, Chapter 2, which explains the basics of how anyone can use this method. Forget about Insight (Just Fuhgeddaboutit!) One of the hardest things to “get” about dealing with highly-upset people is that normal efforts to talk logically and give them insights about themselves will fail. Repeatedly we are told: “He just doesn’t get it. How can I make him see what he’s doing?” Or: “When I try to help her and point out what she’s doing wrong, she yells at me that I don’t care and don’t understand!” Just Fuhgeddaboutdit! Save your energy and avoid becoming frustrated. You’re not going to make him see or make her understand. But this doesn’t mean you can’t successfully deal with HCPs. Instead, focus on managing your own responses with the four key skills of the CARS Method®. These four skills can be used in a step-by-step progression or you can use any of the skills individually at any time, depending on what fits your situation the best. Sometimes “Connecting with EAR®” takes care of the problem. Other times, “Setting Limits on Behavior” is the only thing that resolves the problem. 1. CONNECT with EAR Statements® The first step or skill is to attempt to calm the HCP’s emotions by forming a brief positive connection with the person. Of course, the first thing that most people feel like doing when they’re blamed or attacked is to attack back—to say, “No, it’s not all my fault. It’s all your fault!” While this might get a reasonable person to stop and assess the situation, with an HCP this response simply escalates the person’s emotions and aggressively defensive behavior. In these cases, it is helpful to respond with a statement that shows empathy, attention, and/or respect—what we call an “EAR Statement®.” This may be very difficult to do at first. However, an EAR Statement® usually calms down high-conflict people right away, at least long enough to use their problem-solving skills for a while. Empathy “I can understand how upsetting this situation is.” “I’m sorry to see that you are having to deal with this problem.” “Wow! I can see how important this project is to you!” “I know you are concerned about how this is going to turn out.” Attention Let the person know that you really want to pay attention to his or her concerns. High-conflict people put a lot of energy into getting attention, but in the process they turn people off. Most people try to avoid dealing with high-conflict people as much as possible. So the simple act of showing interest and paying full attention is often enough to calm them down, because they don’t have to fight for your attention. “I hear how important it is to you to get the report done by the weekend.” “I understand that your budget could be affected by the results of this study.” “Tell me more.” Respect “You’re a really good record keeper. You’re very well organized.” “I really respect how hard you’ve worked to gather information about this issue and notify us of this problem.” “I respect your concern that you won’t get a response from us, so let me reassure you this is important to us too.” 2. ANALYZE Options After you have connected with the HCP and hopefully de-escalated the situation, you need to consider your alternatives or options. Approach this process in three steps Brainstorm several possible options for yourself and write them down. Check yourself for high-conflict thinking—remember, you are human too. (Georgi calls this the “Santa steps”: “Making a list and checking it twice!”) Select an option and analyze it carefully. Key Questions Here are several key questions you can ask yourself when analyzing options: Is this option realistic and practical to execute? Will this option effectively resolve the problem or at least manage it successfully? Does this option require the buy-in of anyone else and can I count on their assistance? Don’t take their cooperation for granted. Check it out. What are the pros and cons of this option? Be specific and ask yourself how important each of these pros and cons are to you. It may be helpful to rate each, with “3 = very important; 2 = somewhat important; or 1 = not important.” What are the most likely “What ifs” and how will I respond? Is there anything else I must do or find out to ensure the success of this option? What is the timetable and steps for each piece of the process? How do my values and personal preferences align with this option? Respond to Proposals Another way of analyzing options is to make or respond to proposals. You can almost always take a past problem and turn it into a proposal for the future. Whatever has happened before is less important than what to do now. Avoid trying to emphasize how bad the problem is. With a high-conflict person, this just triggers more defensiveness. Plus, people never agree on what happened in the past anyway. Picture a solution from your list and do it or propose it. Here are the three key steps for making proposals: Propose: Who will do what, when, and where. Ask questions: The other person then asks questions about the proposal, such as: “What’s your picture of what this would look like, if I agreed to do it?” “What do you see me doing in more detail?” or “When would we start doing
Bullies At Work
Bullies at Work © 2016 Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. Workplace bullying is a growing international problem. It is more than a one-time incident. It is a pattern of behavior between a bully and another worker that can demoralize, isolate and trigger illness in the target of the bully. What is bullying? Who does it? Is it increasing? What can you do to protect yourself? And what can employers do to promote a safe environment for employees? This short article attempts to answer some of these key questions. My perspective is that of a therapist, mediator, and attorney handling “high conflict” disputes in a variety of settings. What is Workplace Bullying? In many ways, it is similar to playground bullying; except that as adults it should no longer be an issue. It is aggressive behavior that should be personally contained, but for some reason is not. Bullying involves more than one incident of aggressive negative behavior. It is a repeated pattern of negative behavior that usually involves a bully with more power or the convincing appearance of more power. Bullying can include acts that are intimidating, humiliating, and isolating and can be verbal or physical, blatant or subtle, active or passive. (Lutgen-Sandvik, 2006.) The underlying message is that the bully can and will keep engaging in unwanted, negative behavior which you are powerless to stop. This sense of powerlessness grows and the target begins to feel bad about himself or herself, as well as frightened of the bully. Bullying appears to go on in an environment that tolerates or rewards hostile behavior without intervening. The effect on the “target” of bullying can be devastating, and there is substantial research that shows that targets can experience a wide range of related illnesses, from depression and loss of sleep to intestinal disorders and increased risk of heart disease. Productivity drops, teamwork suffers, good employees leave, and employers have increased medical and legal claims. (Yamada, 2008.) Research even shows that workplace bullying has a more negative effect on employees than sexual harassment, perhaps because there are more procedures in place for dealing with sexual harassment nowadays. (Bryner, 2008) Who Are the Bullies at Work? From my experience and interdisciplinary training, I strongly believe that bullies at work are High Conflict People (“HCPs”) with high conflict personalities. By this, I mean that they bring this behavior with them, rather than that they are reacting to an external “issue” or that other people “make” them behave this way. I believe that bullying is part of “who they are”—their life-long pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. This began before they took this job. From my observations, there are four personality types most often engaged in workplace bullying. Each of these types is trying to overcome a sense of weakness or fear in themselves, although they are usually not aware of this. (And don’t try to point it out to them!) They are unconsciously driven to find and attack what I call their “Targets of Blame,” because this helps them briefly feel less anxious and helpless themselves by feeling able to hurt others. Their targets can be anyone. It’s not personal. It’s about the bully, not about the target. “I’m Very Superior” type: These bullies are stuck trying to prove to themselves and others that they are superior beings. They are really afraid of being seen as inferior, but this fear is not conscious and they will become very defensive if you suggest that they are worried about being seen as inferior. They show frequent disdain and disrespect towards those closest to them. This is mostly verbal, but they may engage in humiliating jokes, tricks or maneuvers to make you look bad (to make them look good, they hope). This is automatic behavior for them. “Love-You, Hate-You” type: These bullies often seek revenge for perceived rejections from those they thought were very good friends. Once their fantasy of friendship fades, they retaliate. Even if you did nothing, they don’t check out misinformation—instead they act on it. They may spread rumors and make claims that you are an extremely uncaring or unethical person. If there was a conflict, they want others to believe it’s all your fault. They have a lot of all-or-nothing thinking and they jump to conclusions. “You’re with me or you’re against me.” They can easily fly into a rage, and sometimes they become violent or stalk their Targets. “I Need to Dominate” type: These bullies go beyond just wanting to appear superior. They enjoy hurting other people. They fear being dominated, so they try to find someone, somewhere, who they can dominate. As long as they are harming someone else, they feel less vulnerable. They may say hurtful things, but they often do hurtful things, including stealing from those they are closest to, manipulating you into doing favors and then stabbing you in the back, and being willing to destroy your career for some short-term goal. You may feel that you are being manipulated or in danger. Be skeptical of strange schemes. They are con artists. “I Can’t Trust Anyone” type: These bullies are highly suspicious of others and may believe that you are taking advantage of them, when you don’t even know them personally. They bear a grudge and will attack you before (they think) you are going to attack them. They can spread rumors that you want to harm them, and they believe it themselves. They often create high conflict situations because of their excessive fears of everyone else. All of these bullies feel that they are victims. They think that you are a danger to them, and so they believe they are justified in attacking you. While it may seem that they are enjoying bullying others, it is not true enjoyment. They enjoy the momentary feeling of being in power. Most people don’t need to have power over someone else in a negative way. But for these bullies, that is the only satisfaction in a daily struggle