It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People

High conflict behavior can follow you to school and into your own family. Two listeners ask how to quiet rumors from a parent who glares and whispers, and how to stay connected to nieces and nephews after a brother cuts them off.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, explain why a brief response beats silence and what to put in a card for children you can’t see.
It’s All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
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(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:42) - Listener Questions!

(01:10) - Question #1

(15:16) - Question #2

(29:13) - Wrap Up

High conflict relationships can make you sick. Dr. Sharon Stills, a naturopathic medical doctor, explains what chronic stress does to your body.
Megan Hunter, MBA, co-founder of the High Conflict Institute, hosts this conversation about sleep, hormones, and simple daily practices that calm the nervous system.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Content notice: this episode mentions suicidal thoughts and discusses cancer.
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:35) - How Our Bodies React

(01:22) - Meet Dr. Sharon Stills

(02:37) - Physical Impact of Stress

(08:34) - Sympathetic vs. Parasympathetic

(12:44) - Leading to Self-Awareness

(15:08) - The Mind/Body Complex

(18:52) - Can the Body Recover?

(23:01) - Reversing Medical Problems

(24:14) - Fear and the Kidneys

(26:28) - Menopause

(30:38) - Taking the Time

(34:56) - Dr. Stills’ Facility

(37:32) - Wrap Up

Should a mental health diagnosis mean a lighter sentence for a serious crime? In high conflict cases, the answer depends on whether someone is out of touch with reality or has a personality disorder. The Lindsay Clancy trial brings the question into focus.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, compare psychosis with personality disorders, from Ted Kaczynski to Betty Broderick, and explain why Bill argues for protection over punishment.
Content note: This conversation discusses the deaths of children and suicide.
It’s All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
Watch this episode on YouTube
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(02:18) - Break Update

(03:32) - Should Having Mental Health Diagnosis Affect Time in Prison

(06:11) - Constant vs. Sporadic

(09:41) - How Can a Jury Decide?

(12:59) - Borderline Personalities

(17:37) - Emotional Responsibility

(19:49) - The Appropriate Consequence

(24:10) - Think in Terms of Protection, Not Punishment

(30:00) - Wrap Up

High conflict arguments follow a script: relitigate the past, assign blame, get nowhere.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, introduce SWYP, a three-step method for turning that pattern into a workable proposal, alongside the CARS Method and tips for negotiating with bullies.
It's All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
SWYP: So, What’s Your Proposal? (pre-orders available now - will ship November 3)
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:41) - Reaching Agreements

(01:33) - So What’s Your Proposal?

(04:16) - Situations to Use This

(06:29) - Arguments vs. Proposals

(10:19) - SLIC, BIFF, EAR, and SWYP

(13:22) - Bill’s Book

(13:53) - SWYP and CARS

(16:56) - Avoiding the Argument

(20:54) - Pre-Empting Argumentative Personalities

(27:49) - Bullies

(34:57) - Last Thoughts on SWYP

(40:00) - Wrap Up

When someone in a high conflict relationship insists their partner is entirely uncaring, is that the whole truth — or a sign of something else going on underneath? This episode puts one hypothetical high conflict case through two very different lenses to find out.
Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, and Megan Hunter, MBA, sit down with psychoanalyst Dr. Anthony Mazzella to compare the CARS Method with a psychoanalytic approach to containment, splitting, and setting limits that actually hold. They work the same scenario side by side — a spouse convinced her husband is entirely rejecting her — to show where connecting and EAR statements line up with clinical containment, and where the two approaches genuinely split. Whether you’re in HR, mediation, or your own living room, you’ll walk away with two working models for the same hard moment.
It’s All Your Fault is produced by TruStory FM.
Full Show Notes & Resources
Submit Questions | Bookstore | Website
Important Notice: Our discussions focus on behavioral patterns rather than diagnoses. For specific legal or therapeutic guidance, please consult qualified professionals in your area.

(00:00) - Welcome to It's All Your Fault

(00:37) - On Today’s Episode

(01:14) - Meet Dr. Anthony Mazzella

(05:28) - Where He’s Landed

(06:31) - His Approach to HCPs

(09:54) - Different Views

(11:58) - Disregulated to Regulated State of Mind

(14:35) - Example

(17:00) - Initial Steps

(19:45) - Comparison

(22:58) - Coming Up with Solutions

(25:26) - HR Setting

(30:20) - Differences

(33:05) - Reality Testing

(34:30) - Being More Mindful

(37:29) - Responding and Confronting

(40:20) - Setting Limits

(44:33) - Talking Through the Process

(51:46) - Recap

(54:19) - Treatment of Narcissism

(56:30) - Types of Narcissists and Hope for Treatment

(57:25) - Finding Dr. Mazzella

(59:02) - Wrap Up