In this episode, my guest is Bill Eddy, a lawyer, licensed therapist, professional mediator, and faculty member at the Pepperdine University School of Law. He specializes in identifying, reducing friction with, and disentangling from high-conflict individuals. We explain how high-conflict personalities differ from personality disorders and examine the cycles of blame and drama that cause persistent conflict in their relationships. We discuss how to quickly recognize high-conflict individuals based on specific criteria and behaviors, helping listeners learn to spot their less obvious tactics. You’ll also learn how to disengage from them with minimal friction and understand the methods they use to draw people back in or keep conflict alive. Additionally, we cover effective communication strategies for mediating situations involving high-conflict individuals, emphasizing empathy and problem-solving approaches. This episode equips listeners with tools to navigate conflict in various contexts, promoting resolutions that benefit all parties involved. Access the full show notes for this episode at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Maui Nui Venison: https://mauinuivenison.com/huberman ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman David Protein: https://davidprotein.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Bill Eddy 00:02:58 Sponsors: Maui Nui & ExpressVPN 00:06:41 High-Conflict Families, High-Conflict Individuals & Patterns 00:10:48 Personality Disorders, Prevalence & Overlap 00:18:28 High-Conflict Personality vs. Personality Disorders, Blame 00:24:33 High-Conflict Individuals, Tool: First-Year Rule & Commitment 00:30:53 Sponsor: AG1 00:32:05 Relationship Stability, Tool: Vetting Potential Partners 00:38:54 Heightened Emotions, Negative Advocates, Divorce 00:47:50 Brain, Plasticity & Fear; Bullies, Polarization 00:54:51 Sponsors: Function & David 00:58:00 Emotions, Media, Politics 01:04:57 Tool: WEB Method, Identify High-Conflict Individuals 01:12:20 Body Cues, Identify High-Conflict Individuals 01:18:40 Tool: Don’t Label & Empathy; Adapting Your Behavior 01:23:12 High Conflict Personalities & Occupations 01:28:18 Big Personalities: Evidence vs Assumptions 01:37:27 Tool: Leaving a Combative High-Conflict Individual, Blame, Gradual Exit 01:45:41 Exiting a High Conflict Relationship & Timing 01:49:27 Tool: Disentangling from a Victim High-Conflict Individual, “Hoovering” 01:52:32 High Conflict Divorce, Small Families & Parental Estrangement 01:57:01 Tool: Managing Emotions & Relationships, EAR Statements 01:59:52 Large Families & Conflict Resolution 02:04:11 Bullies & Online Social Groups 02:09:18 Personality Disorders, Causes, Culture 02:13:09 Tool: 4 “Fuhgeddaboudits”, Topics to Avoid in High Conflict Resolution 02:19:50 Tool: CARS Method, Connecting & EAR Statements, Analyzing 02:27:03 Tool: CARS Method, Responding & BIFF Response, Setting Limits & SLIC 02:36:40 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures
Full Episode
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Bill Eddy. Bill Eddy is a practicing lawyer, a professional mediator, a licensed therapist, and on the faculty of the School of Law at Pepperdine University.
He is a world expert in conflict resolution. In particular, how to resolve conflicts with what are called high conflict personalities. I should be very clear that these high conflict personalities, as you'll learn today, are not in a category of so-called personality disorders.
Now, it is the case that people with high conflict personalities often also have borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, or suffer from bipolar depression. However, as you'll soon learn, people who have this high conflict personality type could fall into any one of those three different categories, any combination of them, or none of them at all.
These high conflict personalities essentially come in two flavors. Some are very outwardly combative, they like to argue, they like to generate conflict in a way that's very overt, very obvious. The others, which comprise about 50% of high conflict personality types, are very passive.
They play the victim or they leverage other people, so-called negative advocates, in order to achieve their goal of creating a lot of conflict where they always appear as the victim. During today's discussion, you'll learn how to identify these high conflict personality types based on some very simple questions that you can ask yourself about them.
He also explains how to deal with these people in the workplace setting and relationships. And importantly, of course, how to disengage from these people, not just in the short term, but permanently.
Now, across today's discussion, you'll realize that Bill Eddy is very sensitive both to the suffering that high conflict personalities cause for other people and therefore how to identify them, avoid them and disengage from them. But he also makes it a point not to demonize these high conflict personality types.
Instead, as a mediator, as a lawyer, and as a therapist, he is really most interested in helping people resolve their conflicts with these people and find the best, most peaceful path forward for conflict resolution. Dr. Bill Eddy is the author of several important books related to this topic and related topics, such as Five Types of People That Can Ruin Your Life. It's an excellent book.
I've read it and I highly recommend it for everyone. He's also written books about adult bullies, which are becoming increasingly common online and in real life, and about mediating conflict resolution and separations and things like divorce and in family court situations where he spent a lot of his professional career as a lawyer.
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