It is essential to understand if the person you are dealing with has the emotional maturity to have a healthy adult relationship. These guidelines can help navigate difficult, high-conflict relationships.
In my clinical experience, many clients seek therapy because of ongoing relationships and high-conflict personalities. This can include parents, adult children/family, or co-parenting with an ex-spouse. Part of counseling is raising awareness of healthy relationships and often, clients are surprised to realize that they have endured chronic emotional violence that may have contributed to their mental health symptoms. For example, being raised by high-conflict parents (narcissistic, borderline, etc) or toxic family members may result in developmental trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder. Many symptoms including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and chronic feelings of guilt are most common among survivors.
Often, clients are completely unaware that those high conflict personalities (HCP) may truly suffer from an undiagnosed personality disorder. As discussed in my previous article, recognizing these individuals with signs of emotional immaturity is key to knowing how to approach the situation or deal with it at all. Unfortunately, due to their inherent personality traits that cause problems in relationships (i.e., emotional drama, gaslighting, volatility or avoidance), many choose to “get off the emotional rollercoaster”. However, life isn’t that easy; many feel they have limited choices because it may be a toxic co-worker and they need their jobs, perhaps because they are a grandparent to their children or family members they truly care for on one hand but are impossible to deal with on the other. Most often, the reason for ongoing unresolved conflict is because HCP’s lack the emotional maturity to engage in consistent relationship rupture and repair.
Relationship Success (or Not?) Rupture and Repair
The degree of success of a relationship within a couple, family, workplace, or group is how effectively both parties can rupture (have disagreements) and successfully repair their conflicts. What does that mean? Every relationship has disagreements, but effective conflict resolution leads both parties to feel closer to each other. For example, increased warmth, solved problems, feeling closer to each other, and increased trust occur over time (Lester & Godwin, 2021).
The repair process includes taking responsibility for your actions, having empathy, apologizing, and being able to take another’s perspective. For example, asking questions like “how did my behaviors affect him”? However, not everyone is bestowed with the skill sets to do this or engage in how their behaviors affect others. HCP’s generally do not or to a limited degree. This leads to a wide range of negative emotions including anger, frustration, and sadness with those they interact with over time.
Unfortunately, with HCP’s there tend to be more arguments and ruptures over time. This is due to their inherent deficits in their personality traits which preclude them from any real chance of effective repair. Researchers argue that they are primarily genetic neurological disorders (Lester & Godwin, 2021) For instance, narcissistic personalities lack empathy to truly understand another’s feelings and position which is the most important step in conflict resolution. They lack humility so they may not apologize or only see the situation from their perspective. They have limited awareness of their behaviors toward others and lack taking responsibility for their actions.
7 Things to Consider When Dealing With High Conflict Personalities
- Rupture and Repair. Does the person possess the characteristics to engage in effective relationship rupture and repair? Do they take responsibility for their actions? Do they have empathy, and do they listen and validate your position? Are they emotionally mature? If not, if you want to maintain a relationship your strategies must change.
- Radical Acceptance: It is important to accept reality exactly the way that it is without expecting change. Radical means all the way. This DBT principle defined by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. means to accept not only things but people who they are and this includes their limitations and changing your expectations. With HCP’s, this means that their behaviors and ways of communicating and interpreting reality will likely not change. What can change are your strategies and understanding of their personality limitations.
- Grieve: Grieving is not always limited to those who have died; grief also exists while people are living. Often, grieving the loss of who you thought the person was part of the healing process and the relationship you wish to have, but cannot. Often clients yearn for a closer relationship with people they “should” have closer relationships with. For example, a client may wish they had a “normal mother” that can go through life processes such as having a baby, etc, and wonder why that is not possible no matter how hard they try. While grieving the closeness you want to have with a sibling, parent, or partner may never happen, this does not mean you cannot have a relationship. However, the relationship may lack what you truly want or need and you may wish things could be different.
- Realize you will never be able to reason with the unreasonable. This can be referred to as the “healing fantasy” (Gibson, 2016) where you hope that someday they will come to their senses if you just make your point, convince them to see how they have harmed you, etc. If they could, they likely would but are unable to because of their emotional immaturity. Letting go of the fantasy and wishful thinking and accepting reality is key.
- Mindfulness Skills: Mindfulness skills include observing what is happening around you and detaching. This can be particularly useful because if you prepare yourself by observing the interaction and observing how others behave helps detach emotionally (Lindsay, 2015). If you find yourself becoming emotional, remind yourself to “detach” and communicate factually.
- Distance and Doses: Distance can refer to physical or emotional distance depending on your boundaries and what will help you stay healthy and emotionally safe. For example. setting time limits on interactions may help manage the relationship. This may include only interacting on the phone for 15 minutes, limiting text messages, or even not responding to emotionally laden texts or e-mails.
- Manage the relationship, do not engage. Managing the relationship means focusing on the outcome of the interaction, not the relationship itself. For example, perhaps it is a holiday, and your goal is “to have a nice time/visit”. The goal should not be to “work out things emotionally” or you have not radically accepted changing your expectations. This is a hard step for most clients initially. Managing the relationship can include re-directing the conversation to lighter topics, distractions, or common goals such as activities, stories, etc.
Copyright 2022: Tracy Hutchinson, Ph.D
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