Divorce Corp Movie: All-or-None Thinking?
January 11, 2014
by Bill Eddy
Movie review Part 1
[I am writing this movie review “Part 1” before I have seen the movie Divorce Corp which will be released on Jan. 10, 2014. I have just seen some trailers and received some inside tips.]
I was pleased – but also concerned – when I learned that a movie about Family Court reform was coming out. Why pleased? Because I’m a family lawyer and family counselor who practices Divorce Mediation. I want everyone to know that Divorce Mediation is a better way to make divorce decisions – for most people. Not because Family Court is evil, but because it has an adversarial structure which is designed around one party “losing” and the other party “winning.” This may be good for deciding criminal guilt, business disputes and some public policies, but not good for working out parenting relationships and household finances after a breakup. I had hopes that this movie would help point this out.
I represented clients in Family Court for 15 years and I also give seminars to family law judges for the National Judicial College. I know that most judges and family lawyers try to overcome the adversarial structure to truly help families make good decisions out of court, or good decisions in court – especially to help the children of parents in conflict. I also know that about 80% of people getting divorced never go to court and settle their divorces or parenting disputes with out-of-court agreements – such as in Divorce Mediation or Collaborative Divorce – based on family laws and guidelines that have been well-established over the past 40 years.
For this reason – the inability to resolve issues based on established standards – and because of my mental health training, I know that one or both parties in many (most?) Family Court cases today have a mental health issue that is unrecognized – such as a personality disorder, substance abuse, bipolar disorder, depression – disorders which are often characterized by denial and blaming others. This reflects the growth of these problems in the larger society today. These are not problems unique to Family Court, but Family Courts need to recognize them.
Sadly, Family Courts provide a forum for people with such problems today (in contrast to when I began practicing law), especially because family lawyers, judges and other professionals are not trained in identifying mental health issues, get stuck arguing about them out of ignorance and there are few mental health resources for treating them even if they were properly identified. Family courts were never designed to diagnose and treat mental health issues, and the adversarial process is guaranteed to fail at it. Reforms need to involve more mental health training for professionals and more conflict resolution skills for clients to help them make decisions out of court in non-adversarial settings.
Why am I concerned about the movie? Because I have been informed that Divorce Corp does not focus on the structure of court, but focuses on a more shrill “all-or-none” view of family court, family lawyers and other professionals. By seeming to claim that Family Court judges think they are God (a few, but not most), that family lawyers are all greedy (some, but not most) and that most allegations of abuse are false (many are but many aren’t – but the adversarial process makes it harder to figure these out), this movie is likely to create a lot of noise and anger, but very little useful dialog and reform. By making it personal and using “all-or-none” thinking – rather than talking about the mental health issues which dominate today’s family court hearings – it misses a great opportunity to promote useful reforms.
[I’ll talk about the reforms that I believe are needed, after I see the movie – in Movie Review Part 2 next week.]
—————————————————–
Bill Eddy is a lawyer (Certified Family Law Specialist), a child and family therapist (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) and the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center. He is the President of the High Conflict Institute, which provides training worldwide in managing “high-conflict people” in legal disputes, workplace disputes, healthcare disputes and educational disputes. He is the author of several books, including The Future of Family Court: Structure, Skills and Less Stress. www.HighConflictInstitute.com.
About Unhooked Books
Unhooked Books is the one place for people to find the best and most current information and resources available on personality disorders, high-conflict personalities, divorce, parenting, co-parenting, living healthy, eating healthy, and managing your life. Founder & CEO, Megan Hunter, established one place for people in any type of relationship to find tools to enhance relationships, prevent relationship disaster and handle relationship transition. Her firm belief is that with just a little education, most people can resolve most relationship issues.
Guest Blog: Excerpted from The Future of Family Court STRUCTURE, SKILLS AND LESS STRESS
July 28, 2012
by Bill Eddy, LCSW, CFLS; Author of Managing High Conflict People in Court
Bill Eddy’s latest book addresses the difficulties and possible solutions to dealing with high-conflict parents in family court. Although written for judicial officers, anyone dealing with the family court can benefit from reading this book. Available in hard copy from HCI Press.
Parenting Coordinators
One of the ultimate solutions to removing high–conflict families from the Family Court adversarial process is to mostly remove the case from family court after the big decisions are made. Since high-conflict parents often return to court many times after the divorce is over, Parenting Coordinators are a valuable alternative for parents who still cannot make their own decisions. By ordering or encouraging the parents to stipulate to a Parenting Coordinator, they will have someone they can go to with petty complaints without incurring the cost of court and without the court having to deal with such petty matters.
Parenting Coordinators are usually trained mental health professionals or lawyers who have some degree of authority to resolve minor disputes between the parents. They can hear the parents on short notice and make decisions with little expense. Depending on the jurisdiction, Parenting Coordinators’ decisions are enforceable or are considered recommendations which the parents can challenge at court if they feel strongly enough about the decision.
Parenting Coordinators can also recommend or order further counseling, parenting classes and/or skills-building programs, to help them strengthen their own conflict resolution skills and parenting skills. Remember, with high-conflict parents, “the issue’s not the issue.” If they are primarily seeking validation, revenge, dominance, and so forth, they should do it outside of court as much as possible.
To read more of The Future of Family Court purchase your copy today, simply click here!
High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It’s All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don’t Alienate the Kids! He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: www.highconflictinstitute.com
About Unhooked BooksGuest Blog: Bill Eddy: Guardians ad Litem, Parental Defense Lawyers and Mediators in Utah
June 1, 2012
Yesterday, I gave a keynote presentation and several workshops for about 150 lawyers representing parents and children in child abuse cases. The emphasis, of course, was Working with High Conflict Clients. They seemed to really grasp the methods that I call “Talking to the ‘Right’ Brain” in a conflict, which can apply to any professional in any setting. I emphasized that we can’t control other people’s behavior, but we can influence them by our own responses, including:
- Accepting that we are not responsible for the outcome of our clients’ disputes – they are – but that we are responsible for the process of assisting them. We need to avoid “hammering out” agreements with them, because this simply triggers their heightened defensiveness (right brain) and reduces their ability to think logically (left brain), and they may undermine the agreement soon afterwards.
- Working with patience – understanding that it often takes high conflict people 2-3 times as long to settle their disputes, but that they can settle them. When there is limited time for a decision, this means coaching clients sufficiently in advance of settlement meetings.
- Talking to the ‘right brain,” by using E.A.R. Statements: Speaking with Empathy, Attention and Respect for clients, opposing parties and even high conflict lawyers. This tends to calm them down, which is necessary before discussions of logic, facts, laws and future actions can take place productively.
- Providing structure to our conversations, so that clients and others are expected to accomplish small tasks with our guidance, rather than simply telling them to stop misbehaving, criticizing them or expecting them to accomplish big things that they do not have the skills to accomplish – especially as fast as we want.
- Emphasizing learning skills for conflict resolution, including how to make proposals, respond to proposals, communicate in writing with BIFF Responses (Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm), give yourself encouraging statements, and other small skills with lots of repetition.
- Repeating information and requirements frequently, because they often are unable to absorb new ideas or tasks as quickly as we can as professionals.
Often professionals become irritated at having to answer the same questions over and over again, but this is a reality when you are working with high conflict clients who can’t absorb information when they are emotionally distracted. It is best to accept this and patiently repeat information which they may absorb after the third or fourth explanation. They need to be calmed down first, in order to learn new skills and understand new realities, rather than being criticized or told how frustrating they are. This doesn’t have to take much time at all.
The Utah lawyers indicated that this focus on What To Do was very helpful. I also met with child welfare mediators, who assist in settling many of the cases in this area. They don’t mediate child abuse, but they mediate what can be done now, in terms of parent treatment, legal consequences, and sometimes termination of parental rights in extreme cases. They have a high success rate, settling about 80% of their cases in mediation. Yet they were very interested in further understanding the causes and dynamics of personality disorders and how to work with parties who may have these disorders in the short period of time they have for their mediation sessions.
This was a very dedicated group of lawyers and mediators, and we all realized how much impact this work can have on the future of children in abusive families. Personality disorders seem to be increasing in society and I think they agreed with me that helping abusive parents can have a positive effect on helping their children in the long run. Otherwise, children tend to repeat their parents’ behavior and we often see a cycle of abuse, academic and economic failure in their future – and all of our futures – if we don’t intervene effectively to help these families as early as possible.
As a closing note, this conference was held in the beautiful green and snow-capped mountains of Utah, which looked like the Swiss Alps. Inspiring for dealing with such a difficult subject!
High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It’s All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don’t Alienate the Kids! He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: www.highconflictinstitute.com
APFM BOOKCLUB
Participate in the Academy of Professional Family Mediators Bookclub!
Our first tele-meeting will be on May 23, 2011 at 1:00 pm (EST).
To participate, simply call (218) 936-4141, then enter code 8426638 when prompted. Please exercise teleconference curtesy and mute your phone when not speaking.
Please pass this on to friends who may be interested. At this time you do not have to be an APFM member to participate.
Our first book is BIFF by Bill Eddy.
A Kindle Edition is also available, as well as Sony Reader, Nook, etc.
Bill’s book offers important skills for mediators working with high conflict people often made worse by the tensions of divorce and separation.
We live in an age of rapid change and instant communication. We also live in a Culture of Blame and Disrespect in which emails, social media posts, and personal attacks are on the increase. We must learn to respond to people who communicate this way — people with high-conflict personalities.
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.
By Bill Eddy, LCSW, ESQ
Last week I had three training days, two in Iowa and one in Wisconsin. In Iowa, the first day I focused on Legal Disputes and the second day I focused on Managers and Mediators – including several practice exercises. It’s always fun acting the part of a high-conflict person, but it also helps prepare professionals to stay calm when they deal with such a person in real life. One of the key points we discussed is that high-conflict clients are more easily managed if you treat them as equals, rather than looking down on them as inferior people (which is tempting to do because of their self-sabotaging behavior). I emphasized the success of speaking to high-conflict people with statements that show Empathy, Attention and Respect (E.A.R. Statements).
I explained the medical research which showed short video clips of doctors talking with their patients to a panel, who had never seen them except for these short 40-second clips. Half the doctors were sued more than once and the other half had never been sued. The panel was able to tell, with surprising accuracy, which doctors were getting sued. Then they garbled the speech, so you couldn’t tell what the doctors were saying. A different panel was still able to tell, with surprising accuracy, which doctors were getting sued. The ones who spoke with a domineering tone were getting sued and the ones who spoke with a concerned, empathetic tone were not. It seems that people feel more resentful and less connected when you look down on them.
I explained other research that showed that people with lower incomes had higher rates of personality disorders, and that this could fit with the research that shows that people at the bottom of a “dominance hierarchy” tend to have more stress and illness. Child development research indicates that children raised in lower economic and social status families are at higher risk of mental health problems throughout their lives, which can include personality disorders. Stress researcher Robert Sapolsky says that treating people as peers creates the most satisfying and least stressful relationships. I hadn’t presented all of this research basis for E.A.R. Statements before and I think it makes a lot of sense.
In Wisconsin, I spoke to family court judicial officers (judges and commissioners) at the end of their 3-day state conference. I gave them ten tips for managing personality-disordered parties in family court and emphasized the importance of providing structure for them to behave appropriately in their courtrooms, to learn skills and to have successful outcomes. Again, I explained the E.A.R. Statement approach and resisting the urge to verbally criticize high-conflict parties, but instead to focus them on tasks and consequences. I explained that the normal “fight or flight” response with high-conflict people is most likely our amygdala response in our brain to unrestrained aggressive behavior by the person in front of us. High-conflict people don’t restrain themselves sufficiently in today’s society, which is why there has been such a growth in the need for restraining orders – from domestic violence to freezing bank accounts – in today’s society.
I mentioned research from twenty years ago by William Hodges which indicated that court-ordered parenting plans were followed about 40% of the time and that parenting plans made by agreement of the parents were followed about 80% of the time – which I believe is still the case. Therefore, anything we can do to assist parents in making their own decisions (even if they get a lot of guidance and direction from professionals), and to require them to learn and practice basic conflict resolution skills (such as the New Ways for Families method), will benefit the parents and their children with greater stability and cooperation in the long run – even when one or both parents has a personality disorder or traits. This is very hard work and I must say that family court judges and commissioners are some of the most dedicated people I have met.
*****************************************************************************************************************
High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDs regarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It’s All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don’t Alienate the Kids! He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit: www.highconflictinstitute.com
High Conflict Mediation Training in Victoria, BC
March 24, 2012
Last week I had the opportunity to train 35 mediators, lawyers, counselors and workplace professionals in mediating high-conflict disputes in Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada. It was very rewarding to work with such an experienced and interested group. The theme of the two days was finding ways to engage one or two high-conflict people (HCPs) in helping resolve their own disputes. It is clear that HCPs need to learn skills to participate in effective decision-making. Up to now, many professionals (mediators, lawyers, judges and others) have tried hard to get HCPs to reach agreements quickly, so they can be done with them. But then the HCPs simply sabotage their own agreements. So instead, we discussed ways of putting the responsibility back on the clients to take a stronger role, by:
- Managing their own emotions during the mediation – by avoiding taking things personally. (“The other person’s verbal attacks are not about you – they’re about the other person’s inability to manage their own emotions.”)
- Helping clients make proposals – in many cases to make two proposals for solving any problem. Any criticism, blaming, frustration, etc. can simply be turned into a proposal.
- Helping clients respond to proposals, with Yes, No or I’ll Think About It. This avoids getting into arguments about the wisdom (or lack of) of the other person’s particular proposals.
For mediators, this means constantly remaining vigilant to avoid doing too much of the work for the clients. This is a common problem with high-conflict clients (HCPs). They either don’t have the skills or the confidence to focus on solving problems. Instead, they unconsciously try to shift responsibility for their own behavior and decisions onto the mediator. They may get angry or sad, in an effort to get the mediator to do the decision-making for them. But then they blame the mediator for doing it wrong.
One of the most popular points of the workshop was the ways to reduce the mediators’ frustration and anxiety in dealing with high-conflict clients. We made a list of reminders, including:
- Don’t work harder than your clients – or your high-conflict clients won’t work on their part of the problem.
- You’re not responsible for the outcome – just the process.
- The issue’s not the issue – the personalities are the issue, so the relationship with the clients is your focus.
- Telling clients “You have a dilemma” when new problems arise, and educating them about their options rather than trying to direct the clients in how to resolve these new problems.
- Many HCPs CAN reach realistic and lasting agreements – it just takes longer, sometimes three times as long.
- Treat HCPs at all times with Empathy, Attention and Respect – and they will often calm down and become productive problem-solvers.
As I said, it was a very experienced group, which meant that I also learned a lot and enjoyed our collaborations in discussing ways to help our clients. I am more convinced than ever that mediation can be highly effective for high-conflict clients, if we use the right skills – and teach them some simple skills – in the process.
Mediation isn’t just an alternative to court – it should be the main method for resolving disputes – especially with high-conflict people. The techniques we discussed can offer them a chance to be effective problem solvers, rather than getting stuck in endless attack-and-defend battles in court over issues that are more about their personalities than the law.
High Conflict Institute provides training and consultations, as well and books, DVDs and CDsregarding dealing with High Conflict People (HCPs) in legal, workplace, educational, and healthcare disputes. Bill Eddy is the President of the High Conflict Institute and the author of It’s All Your Fault!, Splitting, BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People, Their Hostile Emails, Personal Attacks and Social Media Meltdowns and Don’t Alienate the Kids! He is an author, attorney, mediator, and therapist. Bill has presented seminars to attorneys, judges, mediators, ombudspersons, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, managers, and administrators in 25 states, several provinces in Canada, France, Sweden, and Australia. For more information about High Conflict Institute, our seminars and consultations, Bill Eddy or to purchase a book, CD or DVD, visit:www.highconflictinstitute.com
unhookedbooks
Unhooked Books 