It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People

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

In this classic episode from the archives, Bill and Megan tackle a version of high conflict that doesn't always get airtime: what happens when the conflict isn't at work, but follows you there from home.
How Home Stress Follows You Into the Office
Bill walks through what actually happens physiologically when someone absorbs criticism, put-downs, or abuse at home before ever clocking in. The amygdala can trigger a fight-flight-freeze response in a matter of thousandths of a second — faster than conscious thought — which shuts down exactly the kind of nuanced, analytical thinking most jobs require. The result: a shorter fuse, lower self-esteem, and a much harder time performing at the level a job demands.
The "It's Not About Me" Trick
One of the most practical tools in the episode: a short, true, repeatable encouraging statement. Bill's own go-to — "it's not about me" — comes up when he's about to walk into a high-conflict mediation and knows he'll likely get blamed for something before it's over. Megan and Bill dig into why this works: role-play exercises from their New Ways for Families® coaching method have shown that silently repeating an encouraging statement while someone is criticizing you can genuinely turn down the volume on the criticism itself, almost like a shield.
The Text That Wrecks Your Whole Day
Nearly everyone has had the experience of a single text landing mid-workday and derailing everything. Bill offers two tools for handling it: the BIFF method (Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm) for when a response is actually needed, and a simple trick borrowed from a colleague — physically cross out every sentence in a message that doesn't require a response, and answer only what's left. Often, out of fifteen loaded sentences, there's exactly one real question underneath.
Talking to Your Employer Without It Backfiring
Disclosing a hard home situation to a supervisor is a real risk — Bill puts the odds of an empathetic response at roughly a coin flip. His advice: start with a therapist or an EAP resource (confidential, usually a few free sessions), and if you do bring it to a supervisor or HR, keep it small and matter-of-fact rather than opening the floodgates. Naming a specific, limited need for support tends to land far better than an unfiltered accounting of what's happening at home.
If You're the Employer
For supervisors and managers, Bill and Megan's advice mirrors their broader coaching philosophy: lead with empathy before policy. An EAR statement (showing Empathy, Attention, and Respect) and a genuine "how can we support you?" can shift how an employee feels in minutes — no formal HR process required. And when limits do need to be set, framing them around helping the employee succeed, rather than simply enforcing a rule, makes all the difference in how they land.
What This Episode Covers:
How high-conflict stress at home affects performance and self-esteem at work
The neuroscience behind the amygdala's fight-flight-freeze response
How an encouraging statement can act as a shield against absorbed criticism
The BIFF method and a simple trick for triaging loaded texts and emails
When and how to loop in an employer — and how employers can respond well
Strategies That Work:
Keep an encouraging statement short, true, and on repeat (a sticky note, a phone reminder — whatever works)
Use the BIFF method (Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm) for anything that truly needs a response
Cross out what doesn't need a reply before responding to what does
Try an EAP resource before bringing a hard situation to a supervisor
Employers: lead with an EAR statement before jumping to solutions or policy
Drawing on years of coaching both employees and employers through exactly this dynamic, Bill and Megan offer a set of tools that take minutes to use but can change the whole tone of a workday — worth revisiting anytime home and work stress start to collide.
Additional Resources
Books:
5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life
BIFF at Work
It's All Your Fault at Work!
Articles:
New Ways for Work®: A New Coaching Method
Courses & Classes:
New Ways for Work®: Training for Leaders — for managers and supervisors learning to handle high conflict at work
New Ways for Work®: Training for Coaches — for workplace coaches using this method with clients
Conflict Influencer™ Class — for learning to navigate high conflict directly
Stay Connected:
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Submit a question for Bill and Megan
All of our books can be found in our online store or anywhere books are sold, including as e-books.
You can also find these show notes at our site as well.
Note: We are not diagnosing anyone in our discussions, merely discussing general patterns of behavior. Nor are we providing legal or therapeutic advice. Please seek the assistance of your local professionals to seek help.

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

(00:37) - Impact Inside the Workplace when High Conflict’s Happening Outside of It

(01:06) - Catching Up

(04:52) - What High Conflict Feels Like When You're Involved In It

(07:17) - Criticism and Beyond

(10:24) - Stress and the Brain

(13:02) - Conflict Tolerance

(16:35) - When You Have to Go to Work

(20:02) - Encouraging Statements

(22:49) - High Conflict Interruptions

(26:57) - Talking to Your Employer

(31:25) - If You’re the Employer

(35:07) - Wrap Up

(36:06) - Reminders & Coming Next Week: TBD