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Dealing with High-Conflict People: Recognize the Patterns of High-Conflict Personalities, with Bill Eddy, Lawyer, Therapist and Author, 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life
The topic of high conflict personalities really is so important now because they seem to be increasing and they really seem to be part of many of today’s most difficult problems. So we see them a lot in relationships. We see them a lot in the workplace. We see them in neighbor disputes. We see them in politics. We see them in every aspect of society. It’s people that don’t manage themselves well that bump into everybody else, escalate conflicts, makes things worse. But what’s interesting is every area where I talk to people about this they think it’s just happening to them. So what I’m trying to do is really teach there’s patterns to this and we can deal with those patterns.
We’ve really boiled it down to four key characteristics. The first and maybe the most stunning is a preoccupation with blaming other people. It’s really, it’s all your fault – and you may have experienced this – and it’s not at all my fault. That’s zero. My part of the problem is zero. And that’s how high conflict people talk. And they’ll say don’t you get it? It’s all your fault. The second is a lot of all or nothing thinking. Of course it’s all your fault, but my way or the highway. Solutions to problems there’s all good people and there’s all bad people. So they have this kind of all or nothing perspective. A third is often but not always unmanaged emotions. And you may see that. People that just start yelling or just start crying or just storm out of a room. That kind of behavior we’re seeing. But it’s emotions that they’re not managing. And the fourth is extremes of behavior. And one thing I talk about in the book Five Types of People is this 90 percent rule. That 90 percent of people don’t do some of the things that high conflict people do. So if you see some shocking behavior and then the person makes an excuse for it, that’s often the tip of the iceberg. So it’s preoccupation with blaming others, all or nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions and extreme behaviors. That seems to be the pattern for high conflict personalities. People that have those we call high conflict people. But, by the way, don’t tell them that you think that. That’ll blow up in your face.
So there’s many examples I can think of but for example you’re talking with somebody and they get so upset and they’re at your house and they punch a hole in your wall. And you go whoa, what’s that about. Well that’s often what’s on the surface of a pattern of behavior of unrestrained impulsive behavior. So that’s a simple example. But the person will make an excuse. Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been so stressed today or I’m so tired or whatever. We had a politician – I’ll give you an example – in San Diego. A man who had been in Congress for 20 years and one day he flew back to San Diego and he was waiting in line to get his luggage. And I guess he pushed a person, a clerk, and knocked her over and said don’t you know who I am? I want my bag now. And she had said you’re going to have to wait with everybody else. And then he pushed her and knocked her over. Big news the next day in the paper. Congressman assaults a woman at the airport. A year later he ran for mayor and within eight months he was pushed out of office because he was involved with high conflict behavior. He alienated a lot of the other decision makers. He wouldn’t let committees make decisions, he wanted to do it. And he was really found to be someone who was involved with sexual harassment and women came forward and he got pushed out. And this is before more recent concerns about sexual harassment. So he was someone if you were to say I only know this about him, I would suspect probable high conflict personality. Not someone to put in office.