Bill Eddy

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About Bill Eddy

Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California. He pioneered the High Conflict Personality Theory (HCP) and has become an expert on managing disputes involving people with high conflict personalities. He was the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center for 15 years, a Certified Family Law Specialist lawyer representing clients in family court for 15 years, and a licensed clinical social worker therapist with twelve years’ experience.

He serves on the faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law inCalifornia and is a Conjoint Associate Professor with the University of Newcastle Law School in Australia. He has been a speaker and trainer in over 30 U.S. states and 10 countries.

He is the author or co-author of twenty books and has a popular blog on the Psychology Today website with over 4.0 million views.

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Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder Jul 1, 2021

by Bill Eddy, Randi Kreger

( 854 )

$9.99

This highly anticipated second edition of Splitting includes new chapters on abuse, alienation, and false allegations; as well as information about the four types of domestic violence, protective orders, and child custody disputes.

Are you divorcing someone who’s making the process as difficult as possible? Are they sending you nasty emails, falsifying the truth, putting your children in the middle, abusing you, or abusing the system? Are they “persuasive blamers,” manipulating and fooling court personnel to get them on their side? If so, you need this book.

For more than ten years, Splitting has served as the ultimate guide for people divorcing a high conflict person, one who often has borderline or narcissistic (or even antisocial) personality disorder. Among other things, it has saved readers thousands of dollars, helped them keep custody of their children, and effectively guided them through a difficult legal and emotional process.

Written by a family law attorney and therapist, and the author of Stop Walking on Eggshells, Splitting is an essential legal and psychological guide for anyone divorcing a persuasive blamer: someone who suffers from borderline personality disorder (BPD), narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), and/or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). This second edition includes new information about antisocial personalities; expanded information about domestic violence, child abuse, alienation, and false allegations; how to approach protective orders and deal with child custody disputes; and a new chapter on how to successfully present your case to decision makers.

Turn to this guide to help you:

Predict what your spouse may do or say in court
Take control of your case with assertiveness and strategic thinking
Choose a lawyer who understands your case
Learn how e-mails and social networking can be used against you

If you need help navigating a high-conflict divorce from a manipulative spouse, this book includes all of the critical information you need to work through the process of divorce in an emotionally balanced, productive way.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , Audio CD

5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life: Identifying and Dealing with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other High-Conflict Personalities Feb 6, 2018

by Bill Eddy

( 592 )

$9.99

Some difficult people aren’t just hard to deal with—they’re dangerous.

Do you know someone whose moods swing wildly? Do they act unreasonably suspicious or antagonistic? Do they blame others for their own problems?

When a high-conflict person has one of five common personality disorders—borderline, narcissistic, paranoid, antisocial, or histrionic—they can lash out in risky extremes of emotion and aggression. And once an HCP decides to target you, they’re hard to shake.

But there are ways to protect yourself. Using empathy-driven conflict management techniques, Bill Eddy, a lawyer and therapist with extensive mediation experience, will teach you to:

- Spot warning signs of the five high-conflict personalities in others and in yourself.
- Manage relationships with HCPs at work and in your private life.
- Safely avoid or end dangerous and stressful interactions with HCPs.

Filled with expert advice and real-life anecdotes, 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life is an essential guide to helping you escape negative relationships, build healthy connections, and safeguard your reputation and personal life in the process. And if you have a high-conflict personality, this book will help you help yourself.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , MP3 CD

BIFF for CoParent Communication: Your Guide to Difficult Texts, Emails, and Social Media Posts Oct 30, 2020

by Annette Burns, Bill Eddy

( 302 )

$8.49

In divorce and co-parenting, not only do parents need to deal with their own emotions, they may be faced with a daily barrage of hostile calls, texts, social media blasts, and/or emails. How can you regain a sense of control and peace for your own sake and for the kids? For more than a decade, the BIFF method of responding to hostile and misinforming conversation has been used by thousands of people. This book can help you reduce conflict and regain your sanity by teaching what to write, and what to ignore.

This third book in the BIFF Communication series is especially devoted to parents dealing with issues during, and after, separation and divorce. Complete with instructions in the four-step BIFF method, and numerous practical examples, readers will learn the intricacies of their new parenting environment.

Other Formats: Paperback

Biff: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Em Sep 15, 2014

by Bill Eddy

( 517 )

$8.99

We live in an age of rapid change and instant communication. We also live in a Culture of Blame and Disrespect…

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 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.

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:

- All-or-nothing thinking (one person is all good, another is all bad)
- Unmanaged emotions (exaggerated anger, fear, sadness – out of proportion to events)
- Extreme behavior (yelling, hitting, lying, spreading rumors, impulsive actions, etc.)
- Preoccupation with blaming others (people close to them or people in authority)

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 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. They feel that their survival is at stake, so that 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.

Other Formats: Paperback

It's All Your Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything Feb 21, 2012

by Bill Eddy LCSW Esq.

( 157 )

$8.49

This is Bill Eddy's book filled with lots of practical methods for handling High Conflict People (HCPs) in any setting, including neighbor disputes, workplace conflicts, family battles, with strangers, etc. HCPs target those close to them and people in positions of authority, so in this book Bill focuses on what to do when YOU are the Target of Blame—and how to avoid (or prevent) being one for long.

It is organized around 12 key Tips (5 Do’s and 7 Don’ts), that simplify large concepts into small, easy-to-remember phrases when you’re under the stress of a high conflict dispute. This book is for the general public, so you can give it to anyone.

The book includes a lot of his latest thinking and reading about the brain, personality development, interesting cases, and the importance of Negative Advocates on a community’s culture of conflict. It also has (of course) a cartoon for each chapter, from Peanuts, Dilbert, and The New Yorker.

Bill goes beyond the information in his previous books, which focused primarily on HCPs in legal settings. He explains the four most common High Conflict Personalities (Borderline, Narcissistic, Histrionic, Antisocial), with an emphasis on understanding their High Conflict Thinking—and why it is so contagious. Once again, he gives numerous examples—some real, some fictional—to demonstrate the very predictable dynamics of high conflict disputes. High Conflict People seem to be increasing in today’s conflicts worldwide.

As Bill says: “The issue’s not the issue; the High Conflict Personality is the issue.” So prepare yourself by reading IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!

Other Formats: Paperback

Mediating High Conflict Disputes: A Breakthrough Approach with Tips and Tools and the New Ways for Mediation Jun 15, 2021

by Bill Eddy, Michael Lomax

( 13 )

$25.97

High conflict mediation requires a paradigm shift from traditional mediation—high conflict experts Bill Eddy and Michael Lomax show you how.

Over the past twelve years, the authors have been developing and practicing tips for managing high conflict clients in mediation, which is now a fully developed new method called New Ways for Mediation®. Mediating High Conflict Disputes gives all of the little tips which any mediator can use, as well as the step-by-step structure of the New Ways for Mediation method for those who want to have better control of the process in high conflict cases—or any cases. This book is divided into three parts:

Part 1 provides a thorough explanation of the thinking and behavior of parties with high conflict personalities, with an emphasis on what does not work and should be avoided.

Part 2 provides a detailed description of the New Ways for Mediation method, including several paradigm shifts in each step of the process for greater success. Its similarities and differences with interest-based negotiations and transformative mediation methods are explained.

Part 3 includes numerous examples describing cases with special issues in several settings, including family, workplace, and disputes involving government agencies.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback , Audio CD

Biff: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns Jun 1, 2011

by Bill Eddy LCSW Esq.

( 121 )

$8.49

We live in an age of rapid change and instant communication. We also live in a Culture of Blame and Disrespect. Managing your responses to high-conflict emails, texts, letters, and social media meltdowns is imperative.

A BIFF response can be applied in any communication anywhere - on the Internet, in a letter or in person. It can be used at work, earning you respect and success. It can help you get along with difficult family members, friends, neighbors and others anywhere in your life. BIFF was designed to protect you and your reputation by responding quickly and civilly to people who treat you rudely - while being reasonable in return.

BIFF stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm. A BIFF response is easy to remember, but hard to do. It takes practice! This little book gives over 20 examples of BIFF responses for all areas of life - plus additional tips to help you deal with high-conflict people anywhere. See if you can do a BIFF! Not everyone can.

Other Formats: Paperback

High Conflict People in Legal Disputes Sep 1, 2016

by Bill Eddy

( 92 )

$6.49

People with high conflict personalities (HCPs) clog our courts as plaintiffs with inappropriate claims against their personal "targets of blame," and as defendants who have harmed others and need to be stopped. Everybody knows someone with a High Conflict Personality. "How can he be so unreasonable?" "Why does she keep fighting? Can't she see how destructive she is?" "Can you believe they're going to court over ______?"

Some HCPs are more difficult than others, but they tend to share a similar preoccupation with blame that drives them into one dispute after another—and keeps everyone perplexed about how to deal with them.

Using case examples and an analysis of the general litigation and negotiation behaviors of HCPs, this book helps make sense of the fears that drive people to file lawsuits and complaints. It provides insight for containing their behavior while managing and/or resolving their disputes. Characteristics of the five "high-conflict" personality disorders are explored:

Borderline
Narcissistic
Histrionic
Paranoid
Antisocial

Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, mediator, and President of the High Conflict Institute. He developed the "High Conflict Personality" theory and is an international expert on the subject. He is a Certified Family Law Specialist and Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center. He has taught at the University of San Diego School of Law, is on the part-time faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law and the National Judicial College, and lectures at Monash University in Australia.

Other Formats: Paperback

Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths—And How We Can Stop! May 21, 2019

by Bill Eddy

( 33 )

$11.99

Bestselling author, therapist, lawyer, and mediator Bill Eddy describes how dangerous, high-conflict personalities have gained power in governments worldwide—and what citizens can do to keep these people out of office.

Democracy is under siege. The reason isn't politics but personalities: too many countries have come under the sway of high-conflict people (HCPs) who have become politicians. Most of these high-conflict politicians have traits of narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial (i.e., sociopathic) personality disorder, or both. This is the first and only guide for identifying and thwarting them.

HCPs don't avoid conflict, they thrive on it, widening social divisions and exacerbating international tensions. Eddy, the world's leading authority on high-conflict personalities, explains why they're so seductive and describes the telltale traits that define HCPs—he even includes a helpful list of forty typical HCP behaviors.

Drawing on historical examples from Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Nixon to Trump, Maduro, and Putin, Eddy shows how HCPs invent enemies and manufacture phony crises so they can portray themselves as the sole heroic figure who can deal with them, despite their inability to actually solve problems. He describes the best ways to expose HCPs as the charlatans they are, reply to their empty and misleading promises, and find genuine leaders to support. Eddy brings his deep psychotherapeutic experience to bear on a previously unidentified phenomena that presents a real threat to the world.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Audio CD

It's All Your Fault at Work!: Managing Narcissists and Other High-Conflict People Jan 21, 2015

by Bill Eddy LCSW Esq.

( 62 )

$9.99

No, it’s not just your imagination—more and more people in the workplace today have high-conflict personalities. Co-workers, clients, even bosses are behaving in narcissistic or bullying ways, choosing targets and then placing blame on them, treating them with disdain, or otherwise acting in aggressive, inappropriate ways. Some go so far as to spread damaging rumors, harass, or directly sabotage their targets, among other extreme behaviors. These are not people who are just having an occasional bad day; these are people who display a repeated pattern of high-conflict behavior. And they aren’t just difficult; they are the most difficult of people. They can make your life at work stressful, frustrating, and extremely challenging. The good news is that their behavior is not about you—it’s about them. What’s more, you can learn strategies and techniques to deal with them more effectively at work.

Based on Bill Eddy’s high-conflict personality theory, he and co-author, L. Georgi DiStefano, expertly define the problem so you can recognize potential high-conflict people (HCPs) in your own work life. They describe the key characteristics of HCPs and the typical behavior patterns of five main types of high-conflict personalities. Then they walk you through their proactive approach for minimizing conflict and keeping interactions with HCPs as peaceful as possible. You’ll learn about—and see examples of—how to use a simple, proven four-step method to help calm HCPs, analyze your options, respond to hostility, and set limits on extreme behavior. While you cannot ultimately change someone else’s personality, you can adapt your own behavior and respond to the person in different ways that make things better at work for yourself, the high-conflict person, and your organization.

Other Formats: Paperback

Don't Alienate the Kids: Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce May 7, 2020

by Bill Eddy

( 23 )

$9.99

In this tenth anniversary edition of Don't Alienate the Kids! attorney, mediator, and therapist Bill Eddy shows readers how to protect children from the harm of alienation and high-conflict divorce, boosting their resilience by teaching them to think flexibly, manage their emotions, and moderate their behaviors.We all know breakups can get ugly. But sometimes they can get downright vicious, with badmouthing, brainwashing, and allegations of alienation, child abuse and domestic violence, all leading to nasty custody battles.

No one can solve this problem alone. That's because the wall of alienation between parent and child is built by: the family's own patterns of conflict; family court professionals who get emotionally "hooked"; society's rapidly escalating culture of blame.

But there's hope! Readers can help kids learn flexible thinking, emotion regulation, effective behaviors, and healthy relationships. Everyone involved must work together. This book shows how parents, family members, friends, counselors, lawyers, parenting coordinators, divorce coaches, and family court judges can become part of the solution, giving children a foundation of resilience that will last a lifetime.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Paperback

So, What's Your Proposal?: Shifting High-Conflict People from Blaming to Problem-Solving in 30 Seconds Sep 2, 2014

by Bill Eddy LCSW Esq.

( 74 )

$8.99

Blame abounds! People confront us at work, the store, and online. Nerves get on edge. We get stuck blaming others for anything that goes wrong. With high-conflict people increasing in society, the twenty-four-hour news cycle, and social media, we hear constantly about the worst behavior. The temptation is to react and blame.

Instead, consider using the simple methods taught in this book for getting them out of the past and away from blaming everyone else. Get them to quickly focus on the future, take responsibility, and contribute to finding solutions to problems—including those they created themselves.

When people complain and blame you, you don‘t need to defend yourself or respond with anger. Just calmly say: ―So, what‘s your proposal?‖ and focus on teaching the simple three-step method explained in this book. This method will help you stay calm and confident, while earning the respect of those around you—even those who want to blame you!

And blame is abundant these days! Every day dozens—if not hundreds—of people confront us at work, at the store, in our communities, and online. Nerves get on edge. Look around; more and more people seem to blame others for anything that goes wrong in their lives. With high-conflict people increasing in society, with the 24-hour news cycle, and with Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet, we are constantly barraged with stories about the worst behavior of people and a plethora of terrible incidents every day. The strong temptation is to react and deflect blame back on them. However, this just feeds the problem.

This book lays out a simple, proven method to shift the conversation from the past and blame, to the future and problem solving. The method is extremely effective; we have seen it work over and over again—many times in just 30 seconds. What‘s more, almost anyone can use it—it just takes practice, and this book offer lots of examples to help you get started.

Other Formats: Paperback

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