Dealing with High Conflict People

Bill Eddy, on his informative blog, Mediate.com, which is geared toward professional mediators, says High Conflict People (HCP) often act as a result of a life-long mistaken assessment of danger.  He gives the following sage advice for dealing with HCP:

1) Reduce their Mistaken Assessment of Danger:  Try not to be emotionally threatening.  Make an effort to reduce those fears by the way you interact with the person.

  • With a Borderline HCP, try to maintain a moderate, even-tempered manner that’s not too close and not too rejecting (avoid abandonment).
  • With a Narcissistic HCP, try to avoid insults and instead find things you can respect about the person (avoid treating them as inferior).
  • With an Antisocial HCP, be cautious about believing their many stories of being victimized by others, but avoid trying to dominate them in verbal interactions.
  • With Histrionic HCPs, try to pay brief attention to their dramatic stories, and then gently focus on a task or a topic you can be interested in, and then end the conversation by explaining you have to leave (rather than seeming to belittle them).
  • With Paranoid HCPs, don’t try to convince them of your trustworthiness – just be matter-of-fact and focus on what the rules are and why you have to follow them (avoid seeming suspicious of the person and avoid focusing on their fears).

2) Set Limits on Behavior that’s Aggressively Defensive:

Of course, bad behavior needs to be stopped. But the most effective way to do this is to show empathy and concern for the person … AND explain the rules or reasons the specific behavior needs to be stopped (try not to make it personal) AND what the consequences are if it continues. You can express regret that you have to address this behavior, but at the same time explain how you want to help the person and how other behaviors will be more effective at getting them what they want.

The key here is that you want to help the person accomplish the goal (being respected, not being ignored, etc.) that was underlying the bad behavior. You want to help them address the underlying concern. For example, if an employee sent out a nasty email to others in the department, you discuss the consequence for doing that. But also discuss what the employee was trying to accomplish and a better way to do that. It may be that the employee felt disrespected and therefore reacted with disrespect for others. You can explain that a better way would be to simply point out available ways to be treated with respect that don’t involved treating others with disrespect.

3) Avoid Giving Negative Feedback:

It is automatic for us to respond with negative feedback to bad behavior. With the ordinary co-worker, neighbor, or family member, negative feedback may be helpful or at least neutral. However, with HCPs, negative feedback is taken extremely personally and feeds their Mistaken Assessment of Danger – which triggers their bad behavior in an effort to defend themselves against the “danger” – which is more about personality-based fears than it is about anything in the present. Of course, you can’t point this out to the person or you will get even more bad behavior in their defensive response. Instead, focus on reducing emotional threats and on matter-of-factly setting limits on the behavior. Regardless of how severe the consequences may be for the “bad” behavior, communicate that you want to help the person. If you can demonstrate a desire to help through your own attitude and behavior, it often makes a huge, positive difference to an HCP.

(November 2010)