Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / What are the 4 Fuhgedaboudits When Interacting with Someone with a High Conflict Personality?
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:04): Welcome to, It's All Your Fault On True Story fm, The one and only podcast focused on high conflict human interactions, which usually involves someone with a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter here with Bill Eddie. Speaker 2 (00:20): Hi everybody. Speaker 1 (00:22): We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. In this episode, we'll talk about four things you shouldn't do in high conflict situations. We call these the four, Forget about it. So, uh, first we have a couple of notes. If you have any questions for our q and a sessions about your high conflict situation, send them to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or on our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast, where you'll also find the show notes and links. Please give us a rate or review and tell a friend about us, especially if they're dealing with a high conflict situation. We're really very grateful. Speaker 1 (01:11): So, Bill, let's talk about what you call the four. Forget about it. These are the things we need to avoid in high conflict situations and really have become one of the most important things that, that we realize people need to do in these situations. And we've actually had people come to us after trainings and say, Wow, that was, that was so necessary and it's what I, I, I really needed to remember because if I don't remember it to do these things, or if I, if I, um, accidentally step in it right and do one of these, then I end up, um, maybe escalating the conflict or getting into something I don't. So what are the, the four, Forget about it. Speaker 2 (01:52): They're really fairly simple. The first one is forget about trying to give the person insight into themselves and their own behavior if you think they're a high conflict person. So one of the biggest differences between high conflict people and everybody else is a lack of self-awareness. The second one is, forget about focusing on the past. You get stuck in the past. High conflict. People live in the past. They're always trying to rewrite the past and say, No, no, you were bad and I was good. And the third is, uh, opening up emotions. And so don't escalate emotions. Have emotional confrontations or really even ask them how they're feeling. And I'm gonna explain each of these. And the fourth one is, forget about using labels. Don't call people high conflict or say they have personality disorders. So let me go through each one. . Speaker 1 (02:53): Is there one that's more important than the others or do they have equal importance? Speaker 2 (02:57): I would say they have have equal importance. I think the first three are the biggest. Most people know not everybody. Most people know not to use labels when you're talking to a specific person. And sometimes people are concerned that we label people, We don't label individuals what we do, explain, uh, background knowledge about how conflict personalities and personality disorders. But don't tell somebody you're talking to, Hey, you've got a personality disorder so you don't count. That's not gonna help. Speaker 1 (03:31): Or even, Well, how about telling them they're difficult? You're just such a difficult person. Speaker 2 (03:36): Any, any label difficult. And in family law we have, you're the alienator or you're the abuser. Those do not motivate people to act better and it just triggers defensiveness. Speaker 1 (03:49): Mm. And gives them something to fight back against you about. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 (03:55): Why don't I start with that? I'm really an easy one to think about, but hard to do. And that's, forget about trying to give the person insight into themselves. Speaker 1 (04:06): So hard to do. Yes. Even when we think we aren't doing that. Oh, I would never do that. I found myself doing that. Yes, it's easy to step into it. Speaker 2 (04:15): We find different ways of thinking that come back to that. People say, Well, I'm not giving him insight. I'm trying to lead him to have the insight himself, which is exactly the same problem because people feel that. They feel the defensiveness, Hey, you're trying to make me think differently and I ain't gonna do that. So there's two problems with that. And then there's a solution. So first problem is they're not going to get it. They're not gonna have the insight cuz they lack self-awareness. And you can't take a hammer to give them self-awareness. You can't whisper in their ear to give them self-awareness. Speaker 1 (04:54): Can you order it on Amazon? Speaker 2 (04:55): That's one thing you can't order on Amazon . That's right. It's priceless. , Speaker 1 (05:01): Right? Speaker 2 (05:02): And yeah, so sending a letter and some people do, they give a long two, three page, uh, email or something saying, Let me tell you what you're doing wrong. You know, and it's very tempting and often it's obvious to everybody else but the person and they don't connect the dots. So biggest problem is they're not gonna get it. But maybe a bigger problem is it's gonna put a strain on your relationship with them because they're gonna feel you don't like them, You don't respect them, Speaker 1 (05:34): You're judging them. Yeah. Speaker 2 (05:36): You're judging. People hate to be judged, Speaker 1 (05:38): Particularly people with high conflict personalities, Speaker 2 (05:41): Right? There's that on the edge of defensiveness. And so don't try to give them insight. Instead focus on their choices. So this gives their brain something else to do, which is what can we do now? Because when you give people insight, you're really talking about their past behavior and people defend that. When you're talking about choices, you're talking about future behavior. So that's the problem. We're trying to give them insight. The second one is don't emphasize the past. Maybe there's something you have to talk about or clarify, but have the focus of your discussion be the future. What to do now, what to plan for the future. Once again, they get stuck in the past. They live in the past. That's so how, you know, a high conflict person is they always wanna tell you what somebody did to them in the past and how they were right and the other person was wrong. Speaker 2 (06:41): And like every time you see them, sometimes they say, And did I tell you what so and so did? And it's like, yeah, 10 times. But, uh, don't say that. Don't say that . Right? So the thing is to really focus on the present and the future in a sense what your choices are now, what we can do Now, the third one is maybe the most surprising one. And that's don't open up emotions. Don't have emotional confrontations. Certainly don't yell at them. And some people do and don't burst into tears in front of them. Say you're so difficult. You know, all of that because high conflict people tend to be more emotional and have less emotion self-regulation. So what happens is you open up emotions, you trigger their emotions cuz emotions are contagious and they can't bring their emotions back down, at least sometimes for an hour or a day. Speaker 2 (07:45): So let me explain a little bit about this one. And this is something that surprises people, but it really helps to know. And that is high conflict. People don't seem to go through the five stages of the grieving process. And for the people out there that know what they are, you can think about what they are. For the people that don't know, I'll just tell you it's denial is this can't be happening. It isn't true. And this is about any major loss, grieving and healing. Somebody's passed away. You've lost a job, you have to move the end of a relationship Cetera. So I can't believe it, it isn't happening to me. Second is anger. Well, if it is happening, I'm mad as heck and I'm not gonna stand for this. I'm gonna fight it every inch away. The third is bargaining. And it's like, bargaining is like, well what if I, what if I stop smoking now after 60 years? Speaker 2 (08:44): Or what if I start eating my vegetables or honey? I'll go to counseling now. And honey says, I asked you a year ago and you just weren't paying attention. It's too late. It's bargaining against the inevitable loss. The fourth is depression or sadness. Person turns inward, feels the pain of the loss. And the fifth is acceptance. So that's what we mostly go through. 80% or so of people go through this grieving and healing process and then they can move forward in their life. They're not stuck talking about the past. They remember, they may feel sad thinking of someone who's gone, who's been lost to us. But it doesn't stop them in their tracks. They can move on. Well guess what, my conflict, people don't go through this. Guess where they get stuck anger. And we see that so many legal cases happen because a high conflict person is stuck in the past and they're angry and they're gonna sue somebody and they're gonna go to court to prove that they were right and the other person was wrong. Speaker 2 (09:56): So there's a fair number of of legal filings that really shouldn't happen, their personality base. But it could be just in daily life that people are angry and they stay angry and they can't let themselves be vulnerable because it's part of the characteristics of high conflict personalities. So they keep fighting and if it doesn't go their way, they go somewhere else or they appeal. Like in legal cases, people appeal cause they lost and they lose at the appeal and they go higher. And it's like appeals courts and a lot of high conflict cases by saying, Okay, that's enough. You know, the answer at the lower level was right. And we're gonna let this stand now so they don't go grieve through grieving and healing. And so they carry around a lot of these up upset emotions and a lot of thinking and feeling about the past. Speaker 2 (10:55): So what we suggest is to get them focused on thinking rather than feeling and doing. And when you do a task, you know, like here's a task to do. Like in mediation we teach our new ways for mediation method. We always have tasks for the client. So now it's time to make proposals. So when people are thinking of proposals, they're not focusing on how they feel. But if you say, let's talk about how you feel now until you feel better, that's a forget about it. Just not gonna happen. But I wanna give an example of just not even asking people how they're feeling if they seem to be high conflict. I did a high conflict mediation had two very difficult husband and wife had lawyers in the room, um, who were very helpful. And we made a little progress in two hours. We scheduled another session for a couple weeks later, took a while to get five people's schedules coordinated. Speaker 2 (11:58): Then as they're packing up to leave, the husband's lawyer says to the husband, Don't you feel better now? Well, the husband is like, talk about feelings. Absolutely not. In fact, this was a total waste of fun. In fact, I'm never coming back. And all my work to keep him focused away from feelings just collapsed and took over. And he never came back. What did the lawyer do wrong? He focused him on how he felt he should have said. So what are the things you're going to do after today? Focus on thinking and doing. And like with proposals, don't say, how do you feel about that proposal? Say, what do you think about that proposal? So people might say, I feel lousy about it, but I think I could do it. That's what you wanna focus them on. So that's, that's a biggie. And the last one, of course, not labeling people, um, just stay away from triggering their defenses unnecessarily. Instead, focus it, focus really on how to manage your relationship with the person, what you can do different, as we've said in other podcasts. Speaker 1 (13:14): Yeah. And that, that last one, you know, that can be kind of tough because particularly in a family situation or a close friendship, uh, or, you know, any kind of relationship as opposed to maybe in the workplace or in a legal dispute where, um, you know, it's, it's just you might be so much more emotionally hooked, right? And kind of get into it and, and it can be then more tempting to let that big burst of, well, you're high conflict out. Um, but it really, it, it just, it doesn't serve, uh, a very good purpose. I'd like to ask you a little bit more about, uh, you know, opening up emotions because I think many believe that that is the path to, you know, resolution and to really getting, um, someone to calm down or come to some kind of understanding. And I, I, I, I think that's what it's just so brilliant that you've put it in the four. Speaker 1 (14:14): Forget about. It's because you really have to for forget about that, you know, sitting down to hash it out with we're, we're just going to sit around the dinner table and we'll hash it out. We'll go for a beer and we'll hash it out. Well, that typically is going to end with someone in tears, someone yelling, um, someone feeling shattered, you know, and, and sort of having their soul crushed, someone slamming the door on the way out, hanging up the phone. All of those kind of things. And that's why it's, you know, so important to avoid those emotional confrontations. Speaker 2 (14:49): Exactly. And I think what you're talking about is most people, 80%, 85% can talk about how they feel. They can talk about yesterday when you said such and such. I really felt insulted by that. And then the other person says, Oh my goodness, I didn't realize that's not what I meant. High conflict. People just go in deep with that and they go, you know, you start talking about that, that insult you said yesterday I felt insulted. They say, How dare you feel insulted? I was right to say that you should not, you know, you have no right to feel insulted and next thing you're like on the ceiling with their emotions. And so it's understand this isn't a general principle for people. This is a general principle for high conflict people and it's very sad. But I've dealt with families where, you know, like young adults wanna kind of connect with their parents by talking about how they feel about when they were younger and the parent was screaming at them and stuff. If they have a high conflict parent, they're probably never going to reconcile those emotional issues. And they're generally better off to have a light relationship that doesn't go for the depth of sharing heartfelt feelings that will just blow up and make everyone feel worse. Speaker 1 (16:14): Yeah. And it is sad. It's a hard thing for, for most people, I think, to get their minds wrapped around that this def you know, is, is is a someone who is not operating like everyone else. And it's where we really mess up a lot of times. And that's why it takes a lot of practice. I know you and I were talking earlier about the amygdala and you mentioned that some recent research shows that the amygdala, which is sort of that fight or flight threat detector center part in the brain, that that helps us detect danger and things. Um, we can train it. I, if, correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understood you to say that we can, the more practice we get, we can train our amygdala to respond differently, uh, or override it. Would that be an accurate statement? Speaker 2 (17:00): Essentially? Cuz what happens is the amygdala sends out chemicals to the body and says fight or flight or height and the, you know, the, the, the cortex of the brain can send a message back, No, no, this isn't, this isn't the time. You know, calm down and stop those that emo that uh, chemical, uh, transfer or hormonal, uh, message going to your body is like, nope. And they say that's a lot of what adolescence is, is learning to what's a crisis? What isn't a crisis and training your amygdala that you're not gonna die when somebody frowns at you or you don't get the grade that you wanted. And so you can really train your amygdala is this is a situation that's calm. And a a real quick fun example is apparently when movies first came out like a hundred years ago or so, um, they had a movie of a train coming right at the, the camera. And people in the audience, when they first saw that movie all jumped and run, I guess to escape being run over by a train cuz their amygdala said, You're about to be run over by a train. Well, nowadays you watch that on TV and a movie you don't even blink. Yeah. Speaker 1 (18:25): Desensitized or you're just so familiar, you know, it's not going to, I guess you're amygdala is trained to not respond. Speaker 2 (18:32): You learn from your culture, but you learn from your experience and how other people react. And you can, you can retrain your amygdala in high conflict situations. That's what we teach professionals, is don't react, is stay calm and tell yourself encouraging statements. And the more you do it, the more your amygdala goes, Oh, just another high conflict person. I know what to do. We can handle this. Speaker 1 (18:58): Good, good. So I, the we'll wrap it up with this and it's that, it, this can be hard to remember to do in the moment because we're hooked or we're just, we have our defaults and we're so used to doing things the way we do them with the other 80% of human population. So I like to suggest to people that you write, you know, a list, Keep it under your, your keyboard, Keep it in your, you know, your wallet, your briefcase, whatever, um, in your phone, . Um, I guess we're, uh, betraying our age here, Bill. Um, but I think writing things down, having it in a calendar, just something that reminds you even every morning, particularly if you, you know, live with someone who, um, has a high conflict personality or if your job, you know, you're maybe a divorce lawyer with a high, uh, heavy caseload of, of high conflict divorce. Uh, remind yourself every morning, these are the four things you have to forget about. Speaker 3 (20:00): Well, Speaker 1 (20:01): We hope this has been helpful. You know, commit these to memory, write them down, put them in your calendar as as a reminder something. And, uh, I, I think it'll help you out a lot. At least we hope it does. Uh, next week we'll talk about, uh, the topic of alienation versus estrangement. And you may be wondering what in the world that is, but you'll have to listen and in to find out what it is. In the meantime, send your questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast and please tell all your friends about us and we'd be grateful if you'd leave us a review wherever you listen to our podcast. Until next episode, keeps striving toward the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is 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 allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.