High Conflict

"In the tradition of bestselling explainers like The Tipping Point, [this] book [is] based on cutting edge science that breaks down the idea of extreme conflict--the kind that paralyzes people and places--and then shows how to escape it"--

You hear and read a lot about ways to improve your relationship. But if you've tried these without much success, you're not alone. Many highly reactive couples—pairs that are quick to argue, anger, and blame—need more than just the run-of-the-mill relationship advice to solve their problems in love. When destructive emotions are at the heart of problems in your relationship, no amount of effective communication or intimacy building will fix what ails it. If you're part of a "high-conflict" couple, you need to get control of your emotions first, to stop making things worse, and only then work on building a better relationship. The High-Conflict Couple adapts the powerful techniques of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) into skills you can use to tame out-of-control emotions that flare up in your relationship. Using mindfulness and distress tolerance techniques, you'll learn how to deescalate angry situations before they have a chance to explode into destructive fights. Other approaches will help you disclose your fears, longings, and other vulnerabilities to your partner and validate his or her experiences in return. You'll discover ways to manage problems with negotiation, not conflict, and to find true acceptance and closeness with the person you love the most.

This little book gives more than 20 examples of BIFF responses--brief, informative, friendly, and firm--for all areas of life, plus additional tips to help readers deal with high-conflict people anywhere. 158 pp.

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.

High-Conflict Parenting Post-Separation: The Making and Breaking of Family Ties describes an innovative approach for families where children are caught up in their parents’ acrimonious relationship - before, during and after formal legal proceedings have been initiated and concluded. This first book in a brand-new series by researchers and clinicians at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families (AFNCCF) outlines a model of therapeutic work which involves children, their parents and the wider family and social network. The aim is to protect children from conflict between their parents and thus enable them to have healthy relationships across both ‘sides’ of their family network. High-Conflict Parenting Post-Separation is written for professionals who work with high-conflict families – be that psychologists, psychiatrists, child and adult psychotherapists, family therapists, social workers, children’s guardians and legal professionals including solicitors and mediators, as well as students and trainees in all these different disciplines. The book should also be of considerable interest for parents who struggle with post-separation issues that involve their children.

Is your ex-spouse trying to gain custody of your kids? Has he or she launched a campaign to make you look like a bad parent, both in the eyes of your children and the law? You aren’t alone. Unfortunately, high-conflict custody battles are all-too-common in today’s world. So how can you arm yourself with the mental and legal resources needed to survive this difficult time and keep your kids safe? In The High-Conflict Custody Battle, a team of legal and psychology experts present a practical guidebook for people like you who are engaged in a high-conflict custody battle. If you are dealing with an overtly hostile, inflammatory, deceitful, or manipulative ex-spouse, you will learn how to find and work with an attorney and prepare for a custody evaluation. The book also provides helpful tips you can use to defend yourself against false accusations, and gives a realistic portrayal of what to expect during a legal fight. Going through a divorce is hard, but going through a custody battle can feel like war. Don’t go in unprepared. With this book as your guide, you will be able to navigate this difficult process and learn powerful skills that will help you maintain a healthy relationship with your kids, fight unfair accusations, and uphold your rights as a parent.

It has been estimated that nearly twenty percent of the one million divorces each year in the U.S. involve high-conflict relationships. Angry, emotional disputes related to custody, parenting time, child support payments, visitation and more may go on for years. Who suffers? The children, mostly. Post-divorce conflict may be the most significant factor in adjustment (or maladjustment) for children of divorce.Defusing the High-Conflict Divorce offers a unique set of proven programs for quelling the hostility in high-conflict co-parenting couples, and "defusing" their prolonged, bitter and emotional struggles.

Group Therapy for High-Conflict Divorce: A Workbook for the 'No Kids in the Middle' Intervention Programme is an essential resource for reframing the divorce process to centre the child. This workbook supports parents and practitioners using the No Kids in the Middle intervention programme, a multi-family approach for high-conflict divorce that aims to reduce psychosocial adjustment problems among children. Bridging the gap between therapy sessions and daily life, it offers exercises, testimonials and tips to stimulate parents to reflect on their own behaviour from a child’s perspective. Alongside the core text Group Therapy for High-Conflict Divorce (2021), this will be a vital tool in a mediation process that aims to identify and end destructive patterns, to increase acceptance and to establish parenting plans to ensure the wellbeing of children. This book will be of interest to parents going through divorce as well as to social workers and family therapists who are looking for practical guidance to support their clients. The variety of tools contained in this workbook supplement Group Therapy for High-Conflict Divorce and will aid those working through the No Kids in the Middle programme.