BILL EDDY, LCSW, ESQ.
Bill Eddy is a family therapist, educational consultant, and family mediator. As an attorney and a therapist, he is internationally known and in high demand for his expertise in dealing with high conflict personalities, giving seminars to organizations about personality disorders all over the world.
Bill is the lead author of Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone With Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder with Randi Kreger, and also the author of Don’t Alienate the Kids: Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce.
Eddy is the Training Director for High Conflict Institute and speaks around the world to lawyers, judges, therapists and others on dealing with high conflict personalities in legal disputes. He developed the New Ways for Families® method for managing high conflict separations and divorces in family courts with parent training in basic conflict resolution skills that reduce alienation and other extreme behavior. He has handled approximately 50 family court cases involving alienation as a lawyer or high conflict consultant. www.HighConflictInstitute.com.
What Is New Ways for Families®?
(And How Does it Help in Cases of Alienation?)
Watch this short YouTube clip for a brief overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW-hfQW-740
● New Ways for Families® (NWFF) is a structured parenting skills method intended to reduce the impact of conflict on the children in potentially high-conflict divorce and separation cases, including reducing cases of mild or moderate parental alienation.
● NWFF teaches both parents 4 Big Skills: flexible thinking, managed emotions, moderate behavior, and checking yourself (instead of blaming others). These skills can reduce mild and moderate alienation. NWFF is offered in 3 different methods:
New Ways for Families Counseling sessions, using a Parent Workbook with 6 sessions for each parent with a NWFF-trained Individual Counselor and then 3 sessions for each parent and child with a NWFF-trained Parent-Child counselor. Parents are not in the same sessions with each other.
New Ways for Families Online Course with 12 self-directed Modules of approximately one hour each completed on each parent’s own schedule.
New Ways for Families Online Course PLUS Coaching sessions (3, 6 or 12 one-hour sessions by agreement of parent and coach)
Approximately 4000 parents have been court-ordered to participate in New Ways for Families in one method or another, in a dozen family court systems in the United States and Canada.
● Court-ordered or by Agreement
Both parents should take it at the same time, then teach their children the same 4 Big Skills. By the court ordering both parents, or both agreeing to take it, there is no argument about who is the parent who “needs” it, so that there is less defensiveness and more openness to learning. This avoids the classic problem of ordering a rejected parent and child into “reconciliation” counseling without the
other parent involved (which fails 99% of the time). Both parents need to learn the skills if anything is going to change. This is one way that a reasonable parent can get a parent with alienating behaviors to work on changing their behavior. The reasonable parent can use the same skills in dealing with the parent who has alienating behaviors.
Both parents should complete NWFF Counseling, Online Course, or Coaching with Online Course as early in the case as possible to prevent it from becoming high conflict, to avoid unnecessary court hearings, and to avoid or reduce alienation.
Why New Ways for Families®?
New Ways for Families is intended to teach parents the skills necessary to put their children first by improving their co-parenting skills and their ability to jointly make their parenting decisions out-of-court if possible, with or without the help of attorneys and/or mediators; or in-court to accept court decisions if necessary. It is designed for any case, including high conflict cases with alienation, domestic violence, or other high conflict behaviors.
When parents make their own parenting decisions, they are more likely to follow the agreements. By giving parents the skills to manage conflicts and protect the children from high conflict behaviors, they are less likely to engage in alienating behaviors.
“The courtroom is not the place to effectuate long-term resolution of child custody issues. It is imperative that parents learn skills, such as those being taught by New Ways for Families, so that our collective children can not only survive divorce, but can enjoy their childhood and mature into psychologically healthy adults”
~ Hon Alan B. Clements (Ret.)
Family law Commissioner, Superior Court of California, San Diego 1998-2008; Judicial Officer of the Year – 2009, Family Law Section of the State Bar of California
Skills Before Decisions!
Both parents will learn 4 basic conflict resolution skills before making big decisions, if possible.. Flexible Thinking:
· Acknowledging that there is more than one solution to every problem
· Turning complaints into proposals for future behavior and future agreements
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Managed Emotions:
· Giving themselves encouraging statements so as to not over-react · Protecting the children from a parent’s extreme emotions
Moderate Behaviors:
· Avoiding extreme actions, language, and parenting requests
· Using BIFF Responses to hostile emails and texts, so as to avoid escalating the conflict
Checking Yourself:
· Reminding themselves to use these skills during times of stress and not blaming the other parent
The key to success with New Ways for Families is repetition of use of these skills and reinforcement by all professionals involved in their cases.
Case Example
Mary and Fred had a 15-year-old daughter, Mia. Since the parents separated three years earlier, they had been in and out of family court and Mia had become increasingly under the influence of Mary and her anger toward her father for the divorce. Mia became more and more resistant to spending time with Fred and his family members, until she stopped seeing them at all. When the family court ordered both parents to take New Ways for Families Counseling method, Mia had not seen or spoken to her father for a year. Each parent went through their six sessions with their own NWFF-trained Individual Parent Counselor, guided by the New Ways for Families Parent Workbook. When both were done those six sessions, they scheduled their three sessions each with the NWFF-trained Parent-Child Counselor.
Mary met first with Mia and the Parent-Child Counselor. During their session, the Counselor guided Mary to explain to Mia that she would have three Parent-Child Sessions with her father. Even though Mia was resistant to the idea, Mary insisted that Mia needed to attend and Mary would bring her to the same Parent-Child Counselor the following week to meet with her dad.
When Mia met with Fred, she spent the beginning of the session telling him how he had ruined her life, how the divorce was all his fault, and that she hated him and never wanted to see him again. Fred listened patiently without interrupting or reacting, since he had just had six Individual Counseling sessions which had helped prepare him for this moment. When she was done, he said: “Thank you!” She said: “What! I just blamed you for everything.” He said: “I thanked you for talking to me, which I really appreciate. Is there anything else you want to say to me?” And they went on to have a surprisingly good conversation with the help of the Counselor.
After that, Fred and Mia had dinner together once a week. It wasn’t the larger schedule Fred would have preferred, but he had regained a lasting relationship with his daughter and Mary significantly reduced her alienating behaviors by using the 4 New Ways skills.
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New Ways for Families Methods used in other states/provinces
Family Courts System-wide:
Prince Edward Island Family Services PEI: New Ways for Families Counseling and Coaching
Portland, Oregon: Multnomah County: New Ways for Families Online 12 Modules plus 6 Coaching sessions. Low income families are subsidized by Family Court Services.
Alaska Court System: New Ways for Families Online12 Modules plus 6 Coaching sessions.
Orange County, California: New Ways for Families Online 12 Modules (no coaching)
Individual Courts and Agencies:
Counselors and Coaches have been trained in over 30 cities and have been getting referrals to use New Ways for Families from individual judges in several states and provinces in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Some cities have family counseling agencies and counselors that have been trained in New Ways for Families who are taking voluntary cases without needing court orders. See Provider List below.
- For a list of New Ways Providers (Counselors and Coaches): https://www.conflictplaybook.com/new-ways-for-families-providers
- For the voluntary online class: https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/parent- education-classes (choose ‘any parent’ link)
- For the court-ordered online class: https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/parent- education-classes (choose ‘mandatory’ link for US court-ordered parents)
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Other Resources of High Conflict Institute:
o Podcast – ‘It’s All Your Fault’ with Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. and Megan Hunter, MBA o Bookstore – for some great reading
o Articles – Read more about High Conflict Behavior in our free articles section on our
website
o Conflict Playbook | High Conflict Institute | High Conflict Training On-Demand
| dental_alienation_2019__1_.pdf |
| what_to_tell_kids_about_high-conflict_co-parent_2019.pdf |
| what_is_new_ways_for_families_2019.pdf |
| is_your_child_alienated_2019.pdf |
| how_to_write_a_biff_response_2019.pdf |
| domestic_stress_during_covid_shows_need_for_change_in_family_courts_-_sfchronicle.com.pdf |
Books By Bill Eddy:
Don’t Alienate the Kids: Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce:
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/dont-alienate-the-kids
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Co-author: Randi Kreger):
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/splitting-protecting-yourself-while-divorcing
BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People:
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/biff-quick-responses-to-high-conflict-people
5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life: Identifying and Dealing with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other High-Conflict Personalities:
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/5-types-of-people-who-can-ruin-your-life
Don’t Alienate the Kids: Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce:
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/dont-alienate-the-kids
Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Co-author: Randi Kreger):
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/splitting-protecting-yourself-while-divorcing
BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People:
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/biff-quick-responses-to-high-conflict-people
5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life: Identifying and Dealing with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other High-Conflict Personalities:
https://www.highconflictinstitute.com/bookstores/5-types-of-people-who-can-ruin-your-life