“I used Bill Eddy to deal with a very difficult personnel situation. I implemented his advice. Instead of pursuing endless, frustrating conflict and confrontation, I adopted an entirely different approach, with excellent results. Bill gave me a pathway when I thought all roads were blocked.”
— Dan Solin, author of the Smartest series of books
“By their very nature, some people are as difficult to understand as they are to work with or live with. Drawing on years of experience with some of the most challenging personalities, Bill Eddy offers the reader simple, practical, tools to effectively defuse any high-conflict situation. Biff is a must-read.”
— George Simon, Ph.D., bestselling author of In Sheep’s Clothing, Character Disturbance, and The Judas Syndrome
“Bill Eddy is a master creator of simple-to-use tools for managing and de-escalating high conflict behaviors in the workplace. I recommend to each of my professional clients to Bookmark or Favorite the High Conflict Institute website as a useful “go to” resource for everyday insights and to order the books, “It’s All Your Fault” and “BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People”. Bill writes with compassion to bring greater ease to a variety of complex and difficult workplace relationships which often consume time, productivity and resources unless managed effectively. With the many practical examples, case scenarios and practice exercises, Bill’s books are an invaluable resource to highlight, reference regularly and share with colleagues to keep workplace dynamics in check while establishing healthier, engaging and productive systems within the organizational culture.”
— Marcia Haber, President and CEO Discover Conflict Solutions, Inc.
“Sometimes the most powerful interventions are the most simple.
The most difficult skill for post-separated families to master, in my opinion, is effective communication. Typically, emotional baggage and unhelpful patterns that often were a prominent factor in the relationship breakdown, continue to undermine co-parenting long after the divouce dust has settled.
Interestingly, these same people are able to manage effective, polite and succinct communication and negotiations with others; just not their ex! Teaching them the B.I.F.F. principals (Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm) allows them to create distance between the issues at hand and the problems of the past.
B.I.F.F. is an effective communications micro-skill that can be easily taught to all clients ranging from the extreme High Conflict Personalities (HCPs) to highly functioning individuals.”
— Maria Buglar, Psychologist, Brisbane, Australia
Publisher’s Note: This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information about the subject matters covered. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor publisher are rendering legal, mental health, medical or other professional services, either directly or indirectly. If expert assistance, legal services or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Neither the authors nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions in this book.
This second edition published in 2014 was first published in 2011.
Copyright © 2011 by Bill Eddy
Unhooked Books, LLC
7701 E. Indian School Rd., Ste. F
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
www.unhookedbooks.com
Cover design by Gordan Blazevik
Book Interior design by KarrieRoss.com
Edited by Anne Terashima
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement. Names and identifying information of individuals have been changed to preserve anonymity.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eddy, William A.
BIFF : Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns / Bill Eddy. -- [Second edition].
pages cm
HM1126.E33 2014
303.6’9--dc23
2014014444
Printed in the United States of America.
ALSO BY BILL EDDY
It’s All Your Fault at Work! Managing Narcissists and Other High-Conflict People
So, What’s Your Proposal? Shifting High-Conflict People from Blaming to Problem-Solving in 30 Seconds
New Ways for Work: Personal Skills for Productive Relationships
Coaching Manual
Workbook
It’s All Your Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything
High Conflict People in Legal Disputes
Managing High Conflict People in Court
New Ways for Mediation: More Skills, More Structure and Less Stress
Seminar & Demonstration (DVD)
Don’t Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder
The Future of Family Court: Structure, Skills and Less Stress
New Ways for Families in Separation and Divorce
Professional Guidebook
Parent Workbook
Collaborative Parent Workbook
Decision Skills Class Instructor’s Manual
Decision Skills Class Workbook
Pre-Mediation Coaching Manual
Pre-Mediation Coaching Workbook
Splitting America: How Politicians, Super PACs and the News Mirror High Conflict Divorce
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I THANK MY WIFE, ALICE, for her continuing tolerance of my writing obsession and her willingness to give me clinical and editorial feedback. I thank Megan Hunter for all of her work in editing and managing the publication of this book, as well as her work in developing High Conflict Institute. I am appreciative of my ongoing writing collaborations with Randi Kreger, publishing advice from Scott Edelstein, and editing from Anne Terashima, which have helped in the creation of this book. The following gave me very useful and timely feedback on this book from varied perspectives: Dennis Doyle, Mariel Diaz and Austin Manghan. Many other people, including many clients and colleagues, have contributed their ideas, their experience and their encouragement to me and High Conflict Institute, but they are too many to be adequately named here – you know who you are.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
High-Conflict People and Blamespeak
CHAPTER TWO
Writing a BIFF Response
CHAPTER THREE
Avoid Admonishments, Advice and Apologies
CHAPTER FOUR
BIFFs for Friends and Family (and Exes)
CHAPTER FIVE
Neighbors
CHAPTER SIX
In the Workplace
CHAPTER SEVEN
Business and Professions
CHAPTER EIGHT
Organizations and Governments
CHAPTER NINE
Politicians
CHAPTER TEN
Coaching for BIFF Responses…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
You Decide…
References
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
High-Conflict People and Blamespeak
Has anyone ever told you:
“It’s all YOUR fault!”
“You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“You’re a disgrace to your _________________!”
[family][community][country][team][profession][party] [you fill in the blank]
“What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? Stupid? Immoral? Unethical? Evil?”
And then were you told everything that’s “wrong” with you and how you should behave?
It’s Not About You!
Let’s face it. Most of us have said something like this when we “lost it” – hopefully not too often. But some people communicate this way a lot! It’s helpful to know that their personal attacks are not about you. They are about the blamer’s inability to control himself and solve problems.
When people repeatedly use personal attacks, I think of them as “high-conflict people” (HCPs), because they lack skills for dealing well with conflict. Instead of sharing responsibility for solving problems, they repeatedly lose it and increase conflict by making it intensely personal and taking no responsibility. They are the most difficult people, because they are preoccupied with blaming others – what I call their “targets of blame” – which may include you! They speak Blamespeak: Attack, defend – and attack again.
I wrote this book to help you respond to anyone who tries to engage you with hostile emails, texts, Facebook and other social media postings, vicious rumors or just plain difficult behavior. But before I explain how to write a BIFF response, I want to give you a brief understanding of how HCPs think. To deal with them successfully requires a shift in how you think about them - so that you know what not to do, as well as what to do. Your BIFF responses will be better if you know this. (If you want to start writing BIFF Responses right away, go straight to Chapter Two).
High-Conflict Personalities
HCPs have a repeated pattern of aggressive behavior that increases conflict rather than reducing or resolving it. It may be part of their personalities – how they automatically and unconsciously think, feel and behave – and they carry this pattern with them. They tend to have a lot of:
To HCPs, it seems normal and necessary to intensely blame others. They can’t restrain themselves, even though their blaming may harm themselves as well.
When problems and conflicts arise, instead of looking for solutions, HCPs look for someone to blame. They have an all-or-nothing approach. They think that it must be all your fault or else it might appear to be all their fault – and they can’t cope with that possibility for psychological reasons. They become preoccupied with blaming others in order to escape being blamed themselves. But you can’t point this out to them, because they become even more defensive.
To HCPs, conflict often feels like a life or death struggle. This explains why it may feel like they are engaged in campaigns to destroy you or someone else. They feel that their survival is at stake, so they often show unmanaged emotions and extreme behaviors – even in routine conflicts or under normal pressures.
You don’t need to figure out whether someone is a high-conflict person. If you suspect someone is an HCP, just respond more carefully and understand that the person may have less self-control than you do. BIFF responses are a good method for coping with HCPs – and you can use them with anyone!
Lack of Self-Awareness
The hardest thing to “get” about HCPs is that they lack an awareness of how they contribute to their own problems. They honestly view other people as causing the way they feel and the way they act. “She makes me feel this way.” “He made me do it.” They think they have to react the way they do, in order to protect themselves or to connect with people without feeling extremely vulnerable psychologically. They may be aware that other people react negatively to them, but they think that it’s everyone else’s fault.
Sure, they may be aware that they are lying sometimes or manipulating sometimes. But they feel that they have to lie and manipulate, because of unmanaged fears within themselves that they are not aware of. And you can’t tell them that! And you can’t change them! Trying to point out these hidden feelings will most likely trigger an intense rage against you. They’re hidden for a reason.
For many HCPs, this pattern of behavior is the result of childhood abuse. They learned that it didn’t matter whether they were bad or good – they still got physically hit, verbally abused, ignored, neglected or otherwise abused. They grew up learning that aggressive behavior is how you solve problems.
For other HCPs, it is a result of being raised with a strong sense of entitlement and exaggerated self-esteem. They learned that it didn’t matter whether they were good or bad – they still got what they wanted! This seems to have increased in society since the 1970’s with the increased emphasis on self-esteem. While having low self-esteem is a bad thing, too much self-esteem is also a bad thing – if it teaches people that they are superior to others and that they can get whatever they want, without learning skills and without working for it.
In both cases, abuse or entitlement, HCPs have not learned that their own behavior creates or worsens the conflict situations they are in. In many ways, this is a disability, as HCPs can’t see the connection between their own actions and how others respond to them. They don’t know how to solve relationship problems, so they make things worse and don’t understand why they feel so miserable so much of the time. They turn these feelings into blaming others – and staying upset. Because blaming others doesn’t solve problems.
Lack of Self-Change
Since they lack self-awareness, HCPs make no effort to change their own behavior when things go badly. They view complex problems and relationships as all another person’s responsibility and don’t see their own part in causing the problem or finding a solution. They don’t change their own behavior to try to make things better, so things don’t get better. In fact, they are highly defensive about their own behavior, so they put all of their energy into defending their own actions and shifting the blame to others. Finding easy ways to avoid unnecessarily triggering this “HCP defensiveness” will make your life a lot easier.
Ordinary people are constantly changing their own behavior. They want to be more successful in their lives and they learn from their experience and their mistakes. But HCPs don’t seem to learn from their social mistakes – even when you try to make them see it. Forget about it! Don’t say: “Look in the mirror, Buddy!” You’ll just make things worse.
That’s why BIFF responses seem to work so well. They don’t trigger HCP defensiveness when done correctly. The goal is to disengage from the HCP’s blaming behavior. It’s not easy. It takes practice to change your own behavior while dealing with an HCP’s behavior. But by changing your own behavior, you can change the interaction and relationship dynamics. You can do it if you are a reasonable person who is self-aware and continues to learn and change. I wrote this book for you.
Personality Disorders
HCPs appear to have traits associated with personality disorders, which include lack of self-awareness and lack of self-change. Personality disorders are a mental health diagnosis for problems that are part of someone’s personality, including seriously dysfunctional ways of thinking, handling their emotions, and behaving. People with these disorders are stuck in a narrow range of repeated behavior that prevents them from having satisfying relationships and keeps them highly distressed. Yet they are not aware of their own patterns and don’t try to change them. They tend to believe that their problems are caused by someone or something else.
Mental health professionals have been treating personality disorders for many decades and have identified several different types. However, only qualified mental health professionals can diagnose a personality disorder in someone, after careful consideration of many factors. One of the characteristics of a personality disorder is that people with such a disorder don’t recognize that they have it, because they lack self-awareness.
People around such a person often recognize that he or she has some kind of mental health problem, but it seems to come and go. People with personality disorders often do well some of the time, such as in school or in a job, but have a hard time in close relationships or dealing with people in authority positions. It’s often not obvious until you get close to the person and there is a conflict or a crisis.
Personality Disorders Appear to be Increasing
Recent research suggests that more and more people are growing up with personality disorders. This may explain why there appears to be an increase in the number of high-conflict people. A recent study done by the National Institutes of Health between 2001 and 2005 suggests an increasing trend in the percentage of people who meet the criteria for a personality disorder. The researchers interviewed over 35,000 people, who were considered representative of the United States’ population. They analyzed the results by four age groups. The following are the study results for the five personality disorders which I believe are most often associated with high-conflict behavior:
Narcissistic = 6.2% of US population
(62% male; 38% female)
Common conflict traits: arrogance, superiority, lack of empathy, insulting, self-centered
By age group:
65+ = 3.2% 64-45 = 5.6% 44-30 = 7.1% 29-20 yrs. = 9.4%
Borderline = 5.9% of US population
(47% male; 53% female)
Common conflict traits: sudden intense anger, wide mood swings, revenge and vindication
By age group:
65+ = 2.0% 64-45 = 5.5% 44-30 = 7.0% 29-20 yrs. = 9.3%
Paranoid = 4.4% of US population
(43% male; 57% female)
Common traits extreme fearfulness, mistrusts everyone, fears conspiracies and betrayals
By age group:
65+ = 1.8% 64-45 = 3.6% 44-30 = 5.0% 29-18 yrs. = 6.8%
Antisocial = 3.6% of US population
(74% male; 26% female)
Common traits: criminality, lying, fearless, enjoys bullying/ hurting others, likes to dominate
By age group:
65+ = 0.6% 64-45 = 2.8% 44-30 = 4.2% 29-18 yrs. = 6.2%
Histrionic = 1.8% of US population
(51% male; 49% female)
Common traits: excessive drama, highly emotional, exaggerates, demands attention, may lie
By age group:
65+ = 0.6% 64-45 = 1.2% 44-30 = 1.8% 29-18 yrs. = 3.8%
There is a lot of overlap, so that many people who fit in one category may have two or more personality disorders. Also, the researchers found that there was a lot of overlap with other mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, substance abuse and addiction, suicidal thoughts and actual suicides.
Each of these personality disorders has a list of symptoms or “maladaptive personality traits,” which mental health professionals look for in determining whether someone can be diagnosed as having a personality disorder. Many people have some of these traits, but not enough for a personality disorder. Keep in mind that only qualified mental health professionals can diagnose a personality disorder, and just a few traits is not considered a disorder at all. Also, children under eighteen are usually not considered to have personality disorders, because they are changing so rapidly and often show extreme emotions and behaviors while they are learning to become more balanced and mature.
While the data above made the researchers wonder if these personality disorders may fade with time, they admit they have no evidence supporting that theory. In general, personalities don’t change much over a person’s lifetime, unless they work hard at making changes. People with personality disorders usually don’t try to change, because they can’t see that they have a problem. They think that problems are always someone else’s fault.
My theory is that personality disorders are increasing in modern society and that each future generation will have even more personality disorders and, therefore, more high-conflict people, if current trends continue. As our society increasingly teaches violence, extreme emotions and extreme behaviors in movies, on television, over the Internet, and in the news, these tendencies will become absorbed into personality development for some children as they grow up. Fortunately, the percentages are still small, but they seem to be increasing rapidly. This means that the need (and opportunity) for writing BIFF responses will grow more and more important over the years.
HCPs and Personality Disorders
Not all people with personality disorders are HCPs, because many of those with personality disorders are not preoccupied with targets of blame. They are just stuck in a narrow pattern of dysfunctional behavior.
And not all HCPs have a personality disorder. Many HCPs just have some difficult personality traits, but not a disorder at all. I want to emphasize that being a high-conflict person does not mean someone has a mental disorder. HCP is not a diagnosis – it’s a descriptive term for someone who has a lot of high-conflict behavior in relationships.
So don’t tell someone you think that she has a personality disorder! And don’t tell someone you think that he is a high-conflict person. Their HCP defensiveness may make your life miserable for months or years to come. And you may be wrong!
Instead, I recommend that you have a private working theory that someone may be an HCP. You don’t tell the person and you don’t assume you are right. It really doesn’t matter! You simply focus on key methods to help in managing your relationship, whether or not you are dealing with an HCP. Use your private working theory to change your own behavior, not theirs.
While a BIFF response itself isn’t going to change anyone, it should help you end a conversation that has been escalating out of control.
For more information about personality disorders and managing high-conflict people in general, see my book It’s All YOUR Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything (2008, HCI Press).
For dealing with a high-conflict divorce, see Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder by Eddy and Kreger (2011, New Harbinger Press).
Blamespeak
Blamespeak is the term I use for the language of high-conflict blaming. It has increased rapidly over the past ten years, although it’s been around for eternity. While everyone may “lose” it and use Blamespeak on rare occasions, HCPs use it a lot.
Blamespeak often sounds like the intimate, disrespectful way that young children talk to their siblings or their parents in anger in the privacy of their homes before they learn how to be adults with adult self-restraint: “I hate you!” “You’re an idiot!” “I’m never speaking to you again!” Then a minute later, these young children are playing happily together. Unfortunately, such intimate disrespect has broken out into the airwaves and onto the screens, with modern radio, TV, movies and the Internet. And there’s no playing together afterwards.