Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Why Connection Is So Important in High Conflict Interactions
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:04): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you identify and deal with the most challenging human interactions, those with someone who may have a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter, and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Hi everybody. We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California, where we focus on training, consulting, and educational programs and methods, all to do with high conflict. In this episode, we're focusing on something that may seem innocuous, when it's actually one of the most important things you can do with someone who may have a high conflict personality. And that secret ingredient is called connection, which may seem a little counterintuitive, so I think Bill will be able to explain that very well today. But first, a couple of notes. If you have a question about a high conflict situation, send it to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or through our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast, where you'll also find all the show notes and links from today's episode. We're grateful that you're listening and hope you'll really enjoy today. Speaker 1 (01:22): So Bill, one of the cornerstones of your HCP theory, which is high conflict personality theory, is the need for connection. In fact, it stands for the C in the cars method, so connect C for connection. So let's drill down into this and, and I know it's going to involve some talk about the brain, um, as, as always with you, bill, you're a scientist and a social worker. So that brain, all that research you've done and, and reading you've done about the brain and, and tied it into, um, conflict and, and just how we interact. Uh, I'm, I, you know, I, I'm sure that'll be sewn in today. And as, as, uh, you listeners are, are listening to Bill talk about the brain and connection , you can just visualize the plastic brain that he carries with him all over the world. You can't see it, but believe it. Speaker 1 (02:15): He's, it's there. . All right. Oh, he's holding it up right now. I can tell . All right, so let's talk connection. Why is it foundational to successful interactions? So if we think about that interaction with, and sort of that high conflict one, you know, it's, it's filled with perhaps some intensity, uh, maybe some anger, some very upset emotions of some type, maybe something that's extreme and and extreme action. Um, just someone that's upset outside of, of the normal range of upset perhaps. So why would we want to connect with someone that's very upset in the moment? Speaker 2 (03:01): Well, let me just start with that. Connection is one of the fundamental human, uh, traits and needs that we have. So regardless of high conflict people, difficult people, awkward people, et cetera, is we just need human connection. And there's lots of studies done on human isolation, um, and that the worst punishment you can have to somebody is to lock them up alone. And so actually for parents, they used to say, go to your room, you know, to a three or four year old and be alone for a while and think about what you did. And the researchers feel, no, no, no, no, that's not good. What you wanna do is have them maybe take a timeout where they can see you. So they keep their connection to you. And so we just so badly need human connection, and we're really powerful as connected humans. We can build spaceships, we can cross oceans, we can solve almost any problem because we're able to connect with each other. It's just a fundamental human trait and human need. Speaker 1 (04:14): It's really fascinating to think about about isolation. I, I've been reading a bit about it lately, and it, and it really is the true test of humanity, right? Speaker 2 (04:23): Yeah. You know, what is it? No man is an island. We think we can be alone and we think we can tough it out, you know? But when people are alone for too long, their thinking starts to get a little off. That, that being connected to people helps ground us and really helps us be our best selves because by through that connection, we find out what we're good at, what people like. If we're doing something people don't like, we find it out pretty quick. I think the pandemic is a real good example of how the loss of connection, not only did it make adults get a little more wild, but kids were just, you know, just demo. They can't learn as well without connection. And, and that's just such a fundamental human trait and need. Speaker 1 (05:17): And to have successful, you know, relationship management with someone with a high conflict personality. Uh, let, let's tie into that. Let's dig into it and, and talk about connection and those interactions. What, what is the impact? Why? Speaker 2 (05:31): Yeah. So people with high conflict personalities who tend to have personality disorders, although not all people with personality disorders are hard conflict. They don't blame a specific person. And not all high conflict people have personality disorders. They have more flexibility than people with personality disorders, but this is one of their four biggest areas of is relationships and having, uh, happy relationships. One of the things we know with high conflict people is they tend to not have friends, or if they do not very many and not very stable, they burn through friends. That they're too rigid and impulsive and erratic and such that, that friends kind of burn out. And they often just have relatives who maybe long suffering and feel like they have to stick by the person, but they're not happy. And it, a lot of it has to do with how they treat relationships. Speaker 2 (06:35): And in many ways, high conflict. People want to dominate you. They want to be in charge of the relationship to feel secure themselves. And if they can't control you or coerce you, they feel too vulnerable. So, high conflict, people are constantly trying to gain control over other people to feel secure themselves. So it makes it hard, but that's why we teach professionals and everybody actually, that if you need to deal with someone with a high conflict personality, like in your family or as a client, you're gonna have to do more work at managing yourself so that you can connect with them. So it's, it's kind of staying calm, because when you're not calm, they're really upset, , um, they can always be more upset than you can . And so, so by staying calm, it often helps. They come calm. It's kind of like with a, with a five year old, is if, if you calm, if you're calm, they calm down and go, oh, it must be all right. Mom's being calm or dad's being calm. And emotionally, many high conflict people are kind of like five year olds. They have more difficulty managing their emotions, and this is a big part of, of why their relationships don't last or aren't very satisfying. So we, we have to make this important if we're going to be able to, to work with people, uh, with high conflict personalities. Speaker 1 (08:18): And what does the brain have to do with it? Here we go with the brain. Speaker 2 (08:21): I thought you'd ask that question, . Well, where it started for me was, uh, many years ago, you know, I I, I learned about borderline personality disorder in 1980 when I was in training to be a therapist. But after I was a lawyer and seeing people with borderline personality disorder in high conflict, uh, court cases and divorce cases, I came across this book, uh, the borderline mother by Christine Lawson, she mentioned, and actually called her up and talked to her and she said, it seems like part of the problem for people with borderline personality disorder is the connection between the right and left hemisphere of the brain. And I said, well, that sounds weird. Tell me more. And so she said, what seems to happen is the connection, the bridge between the two hemispheres is damaged and smaller. And so they have a harder time managing upsetting emotions, which is more, you know, the intense emotions are more processed in the right brain and problem solving and language, which is more processed in the left brain. Speaker 2 (09:36): And so they have a harder time kind of going back and forth, or maybe managing, being mildly upset while they're problem solving. People with borderline personalities are known for emotion dysregulation. So they may be calm and happy one minute and a minute later they're outraged and screaming at you. And so they may physically have less control of that. Another aspect of the brain is the amygdala. Now, everybody's heard about the amygdala, but most people don't know. You have two of them. You have one in each brain hemisphere, and the amygdala in the right hemisphere is larger for people with borderline personality disorder. Many people, maybe not all of them, but many, which means they're much more sensitive to interpreting situations as threatening and dangerous. So if somebody new comes along, let's say somebody named Joe comes along and you meet Joe and you have say, a borderline personnel or one of the other high conflict personalities, even narcissists, overreact. Speaker 2 (10:49): And so they go, oh, wow, Joe is reminding my amygdala of Uncle Jack who was a jerk. Maybe he was abusive or was difficult. And so just like that, the person hates Joe. Well, well, Joe May be their boss, or Joe May be someone that would make a really good relationship. And so they're, they're already reacting to Joe with this negative memory of a another past experience because they've got more of an emphasis on sensitivity to danger and fear, et cetera. Now, I've been talking about borderline personality in particular, but histrionic personality apparently has some of the same smaller corpus callosum between hemispheres and the, the larger amygdala. I believe that people with narcissistic personality have not learned to make connections with people as well either. It may not be fear-based, but just haven't been trained to care and to connect with people like that. So you have people with these issues and certainly antisocial personality disorder. Let me tell you something. I bet you don't know Megan about that. I read about antisocial personality disorder and connection, that they, some of them have what's called a hostility bias, which means when they see someone's face that's neutral, they tend to think it's a hostile expression towards them. And if they see someone's face that's fearful, they tend to interpret it as neutral. So they misread people all the time. Speaker 1 (12:39): Wow. Speaker 2 (12:41): . And so with all of the people that I just described, borderline histrionic, narcissist, antisocial, and paranoid for sure, the person that wants to do something with them, manage them as a divorce client or as a workplace employee, or even if it's as a friend, like you enjoy doing something together. Maybe you like golfing together or bowling together. So you don't want to throw away the friendship, but you want manage it is going to first and foremost involve you connecting with them and calming them, letting them know you're not a threat, you're not a danger, you're not judging them, you're not accusing them, and that you're a friendly person who likes them and wants to get along with their best parts. And so that's why connection is so important when you're dealing with high conflict personalities. Speaker 1 (13:44): So I'm, I, I have to come back now to this hostility. BI is, what was it? Bias you said? Speaker 2 (13:49): Yes. Hostility bias. Speaker 1 (13:51): Hostility, bias. So really fascinating. Um, because it's, it just shows . This is in the brain, right? This is, um, it, it, it just takes so much of the judgment away from someone who, you know, may have these, these disorders and we can think of them in a, in a different way. Speaker 2 (14:11): Yeah, Speaker 1 (14:13): Because it, as you were talking about that their, their, their brain reads facial expressions differently. Whereas, um, it seems that with borderline personality, it can be the same where there's a mistaken, uh, uh, a fierce face, uh, or even a neutral face can look fierce to the person. Um, or judgmental, Speaker 2 (14:33): Especially with borderline, if they remind them of some negative person in the past that they globalize, they overreact to a lot of people look like that person and have the fear trigger. Yeah. So, so there's, there's those both personalities, right? Get, get triggered with fear cuz of the way their brains work without any intention. And you can't just talk them out of it. You have to be calm and then they can calm down. Speaker 1 (15:00): So you, if you took away the word disorder and you just, uh, you know, I, I mean, I'm thinking of of, I don't wanna get in trouble down this path, but if you think of autism, um, often there's a misreading of facial cues as well. So it's almost like these are facial cue issues, um, in part for people across this whole spectrum, if you will. Speaker 2 (15:26): Yeah. So various situations. So with autism, like with young children, one of the things parents are taught is to really get your child's attention so you have eye contact. Because when you're talking to your child, your child might be looking at the light switch behind you or a chandelier on the ceiling is like, oh, that's interesting. While you're talking to them and they're not connecting with you as a person cuz they're connecting, um, with the environment in a different way. You know? Um, temple Grandon, the, this very successful autistic woman that really helped develop a lot of ranchers work with cattle, and I know you understand some of that Speaker 1 (16:15): Yes, I do. talking my language now. Speaker 2 (16:18): back in Nebraska when you were on the farm. Yeah. But she says she thinks in pictures and that autistic people often think in pictures and they're often thinking about the relationship of shapes rather than faces. And so that parents of autistic kids have to pay, have to do more of the work to connect with their children with eye contact and empathy so the child doesn't feel they're doing something wrong. It's just like, you know, Johnny, I need your attention, Johnny. Johnny, look over at me. I want you to practice with me. Good, Johnny. Good. You know, I'm so happy and now I'm smiling. Um, can you try smiling back, Johnny? And so it's something that, you know, the more we learn about the brain, I think the more understanding and empathetic we are with people that have these difficulties relating to people and that they can, if we structure things maybe a little differently and if we know what we should do instead. And so empathy and attention and respect are things that are not that hard for us to do, but are so important to these people that we're working with. Speaker 1 (17:38): Oh, for sure. And it's just, they don't come with a sign telling us, Hey, hey, you, you're going to need to connect with me first if we're going to have some progress here. All right. So, uh, I mean, there are signs if you're looking often, um, not always, but, um, that's why we need to take it slow. Speaker 2 (17:56): Cultures are different with this too. And one of the things I remember learning about conflict resolution was that southern cultures like southern hemisphere, south America, Africa, et cetera, really, if you're gonna have a conflict resolution meeting and you've got six people coming in, six of your people and six of their people, and you come in and sit down together, you are gonna have to get to know each other and not just get straight to business. Like, okay, what's our agenda? You know, who's got the first report? You're gonna need to get acquainted. Some you're gonna need to talk and get to know. And that, that's, that's expected in many cultures and not expected. Like western cultures are more, let's just get down to business. And if you don't understand that and you're like a westerner talking to an easterner, you may fail the opportunity to work with them on a great business deal because you didn't spend time getting to know them. So this is cultural as well. Speaker 1 (19:07): Yeah, I I had an experience of that in, uh, Singapore visiting a, a printing facility. And, uh, they had a special room for, for guests to come in. It was not a conference room, it was a, a room with a beautiful sofa and a couple of nice chairs and tea and some cookies. And we, you know, broke bread together first. So you're, you're exactly spot on. Connect a little first, get to know each other a little first. Um, we, we, we have some things to learn, , but why is it hard to remember to connect first? It's, I I think we're so attuned to just engaging and, uh, you know, problem solving. So is that, that the key is, is we're so used to problem solving first. Speaker 2 (19:51): Absolutely. And especially I have to say, man, that we like to fix things. And if you tell me, bill Uhoh, we got a problem and I'm really stressed out about it, I'm gonna go, oh, what's the problem? And let's fix it. And maybe you want to have some dealing with the stress first. And, and one of the favorite, uh, video clips for both of us is that one, what about the nail? And we probably shouldn't give it away, but , if our listeners want a good example of don't just try to solve the problem first. Check out that YouTube video. What about the nail? Speaker 1 (20:32): It's, it's not about the nail. I Speaker 2 (20:34): Mean, it's not about the Speaker 1 (20:36): . Very close, very close Speaker 2 (20:38): . Yes. It's not about the nail, but I think, I think we tend to wanna fix things first. And I'll speak, uh, I think for lawyers, for mediators, certainly for judges, for therapists, that we all wanna fix stuff. Even human problems. We wanna fix them. Human resources, you gotta human resource problem, let's fix it. And so it's kind of part of our human nature that we're stressed by problems and or, or not even stressed. We enjoy problem solving. The getting to know and connecting first, it's, it's often just not even cross our mind in many cases. I go, oops, I realize I didn't really connect with this person. I'm, I'm kind of way, way ahead of, uh, where they are and I need to be where they are if we're going to get anything done. Speaker 1 (21:36): And you know, it's, it's almost like our job descriptions. You know, when we, when we apply for a job or we start a business or we open a law firm, we are there to do a job. And it involves problem solving all day long. And I think that's why it can be particularly hard in the workplace to remember to connect first and or even if you're a lawyer dealing with, you know, a, a very challenging client or opposing counsel, we're so used to problem solving and we expect others are ready for problem solving and they're really not. And so I like to say, if you're doing more problem solving than your client, or with that person who's, you know, very upset, if you're the one doing all the problem solving or getting going immediately to problem solving, where do you think that leaves that person? Speaker 1 (22:25): It's going to leave them stuck in, in some negative right brain emotions if, if they're there. Right? And, um, you're not going to be helping them by problem solving. You need to connect first. So we need, in our job descriptions, along with all of those responsibilities of, you know, the, the, all the, the job duties and the tasks that we're going to do in a, in our role, number one should be take time to connect first. And perhaps that would help people remember that this is a part of, of life. It can be very hard to do, you know, when we're emotionally hooked. But, but I do have to say, bill, that as you were talking about, you know, men dropping, jumping straight to problem solving, this is like, I mean, you know, my husband Paul , he's just the, the nicest man in the world and his brain immediately is just problem solving all the time. And I, I remember just yesterday morning hearing him on the phone with one of his customers, he, he seldom gets upset, but I could tell he was a little bit agitated and it was because he had done problem solving in advance too. Sur too soon prematurely and solved this customer's problem before he had the contract. Speaker 2 (23:37): Hmm. Speaker 1 (23:38): , right? Yeah. And he was kind of beating himself up for, uh, why do I do this? I problem solve and I, you know, just ahead and trying to do something nice for somebody . And we, we have the same issue, just like kind of in our, our our marriage and our communication. We've always, I I have, uh, we've kind of gotten into a pattern of, if, if I don't want my problem solved, I will tell him in advance. Ah-huh dear, I, um, I'm gonna tell you something, but I don't want any problem solving. I just really would like to vent or complain . And he, he goes, oh, that sounds interesting, Megan. That sounds frustrating. Tell me more. , he's learned your statements from you, from me. Um, and we, we do pretty well, but women can do the same. We jump into problem solving a little bit too early at times as well. And, and I know for me in my busy workday I'll, it can be, it's just so easy to go straight to problem solving and for forget to connect sometimes. So can you over connect or you've talked some about your statements, but can we get stuck in ear land too much, connect too much? Or when should we stop connecting? Yeah, Speaker 2 (24:47): Well let me, let me say a little bit more about your statements that show empathy, attention and respect that this is a good way to connect cuz it appeals to the right brain, emotional brain. And this seems to be, when you think, I think of the right brain, I think of the protective brain that the right brain's always looking in the environment. How am I doing? Am I safe? Am I in danger? And my left brain may be listening to somebody talking, but my right brain's kind of scanning for danger, including in tone of voice, facial expressions and hand gestures. And so the right brain to trust somebody new or to trust, you know, working out a problem, is that paying attention to, do you respect me? Do you care about me? Are you going to pay attention to my concerns? And so the right brain, the language of the right brain in many ways, I think is your statement. Empathy, attention and respect. Speaker 1 (25:49): It craves it. You're right. I I hadn't thought about that. We're calling it the language of the right brain. Yeah. It's, it's def it it craves empathy, attention and respect. Speaker 2 (25:59): And, and the more stressed we are, the more we want that. So when you're having that discussion, like with Paul and you just wanna vent a little, is you're calming your right brain. And when he says, you know, tell me more, then he's helping you calm your right brain . And so these, these connections are actually influencing the other person, the way you talk when they're upset influences, I think, which part of their brain they're gonna respond to you with. So if you're conscious of this, you can pay attention to giving empathy, attention and respect that calms them and then you can get done. But the question that you started out with here is, can you overdo it? Can you get stuck in airland? And I wanna say absolutely yes. So it isn't just giving people empathy, attention and respect, and especially high conflict people. They need that. Speaker 2 (27:03): But that's not the place to stop because in a way you're having a conversation in my mind with their right brain. And their right brain is where the upset emotions are. You're calming the upset emotions. They're hearing that, they're pleased to hear that. But that's the, that's still the part that's having the conversation with you. What you then want to do is move to problem solving and move them over to their left brain looking at things like choices, decisions, uh, proposals, so that they're not just stuck there with the right brain, even though they're less defensive pretty soon they may become more defensive if you don't focus their attention on something else. Now, I want to add with that, high conflict people, depending on which type it is, can really take advantage of you if you overdo this. So let's take, um, empathy for example. Speaker 2 (28:06): So people with borderline personalities and histrionic personalities seem to particularly like empathy. They care and they want to know that you care. And so by giving them empathy, you calm them. But if you just keep giving them empathy, the next thing you know, well, if you really cared, you'd do this for me. And if you really cared, you wouldn't be divorcing me. Or if you really cared, you know, X, y, z. And so you don't wanna make it that that's all this is about. That's like a moderate amount of caring, but we also have some problems we have to solve here. So that's moving into the problem solving. Now, narcissists and sociopaths are anti-social personalities. Really like to hear the word respect. And if you sprinkle respect in your conversation, you may help keep them calm. But if you overdo it, they're gonna say, well, if you really respected me, you would lie to my boss for me. Okay, prove it. Prove it or prove you have empathy. They'll manipulate empathy. The narcissist, the an antisocial is, yeah, if you really cared, you would do my bidding. And you don't want to get in a situation like that. You wanna give them a, an ear statement and then move on to problem solving. Speaker 1 (29:33): I like to call it ear plus. Speaker 2 (29:35): Yeah, Speaker 1 (29:36): Sometimes ear just using an ear statement to connect with them will call 'em and you know, you can kind of move on. But um, sometimes you need to follow it up with a, a question or some information or asking them for a proposal, and we can talk about that another day. But, um, but thank you Bill. This has been really, really interesting. Um, I learned some new things, advice. Love that. All right, so, um, I hope you listeners have enjoyed this, this today. It's always so fascinating to learn about the brain and, um, just understanding other humans better so that we can all relate together better. The more power, the more you know, the more powerful the interactions and the connections will be. We'll continue our discussions about high conflict interactions next week. And, uh, in the meantime, send your questions to us at podcast high conflict institute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast. If you tell your friends and colleagues about us, we'd be grateful and we'd love it if you'd leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcast. Until next time, keep learning and practicing these skills and be kind to yourself and others while we all try to find the missing piece. Speaker 1 (30:57): It's all your fault's, a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music, by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show, show notes and transcripts@truestory.fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app Laos ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.