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Double Bind: Much More Than Just a Step ‘Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia’
Abstract
In 1956, Bateson, Jackson, Haley, and Weakland published ‘Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia’. This paper was an early milestone in family therapy's development, signifying the importance that communications theory and cybernetics would hold for the evolution of the field over the ensuing three decades. Many are familiar with the notion of the double bind; however, the idea's theoretical underpinnings, and the broader contributions of the paper that launched it, are often misunderstood or overlooked. The 50th anniversary of the publication of ‘Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia’ offers an opportunity to revisit the importance of the contribution made by Bateson and his then colleagues, and to return to the fore the notions of logical typing, context, relationship and circularity that are at its heart.
... Much of the discord in today's political, economic, organizational, and environmental world exhibits the characteristics of a schizophrenic double bind [11,[22][23][24]. Practical difficulties in formulating clear theoretical and methodological applications of the double bind concept in psychological counseling [25][26][27][28][29][30] do not remove the systemic need for resolution of the cross-level fallacies embedded within knowledge infrastructures. Star [31] frames the problem, asking, ...
As part of his explication of the epistemological error made in separating thinking from its
ecological context, Bateson distinguished counts from measurements. With no reference to Bateson, the measurement theory and practice of BenjaminWright also recognizes that number and quantity are different logical types. Describing the confusion of counts and measures as schizophrenic, like Bateson,Wright, a physicist and certified psychoanalyst, showed mathematically that convergent stochastic processes informing counts are predictable in ways that facilitate methodical measurements. Wright’s methods experimentally evaluate the complex symmetries of nonlinear and stochastic numeric patterns as a basis for estimating interval quantities. These methods also retain connections with locally situated concrete expressions, mediating the data display by contextualizing it in relation to the abstractly communicable and navigable quantitative unit and its uncertainty. Decades of successful use ofWright’s methods in research and practice are augmented in recent collaborations of metrology engineers and psychometricians who are systematically distinguishing numeric counts from measured quantities in new classes of knowledge infrastructure. Situating Wright’s work in the context of Bateson’s ideas may be useful for infrastructuring new political, economic, and scientific outcomes.
Psychosis is a symptom of functional decline due to hallucinations, delusions, and the resulting behavior, and it appears in several psychiatric conditions including schizophrenia and severe mood episodes of bipolar affective disorder. Psychosis is influenced by environmental factors, including childhood stress, as well as genetic predisposition. People with psychosis are known to have more insecure attachments than the general population, and are particularly more likely to display dismissive attachment styles. Attachment behavior is related to stress-induced CRH secretion, CRH suppression by oxytocin, and dopamine release in the brain. Imbalances of CRH, oxytocin, and dopamine are expected in psychotic patients with unstable attachments, requiring tailored treatment for this condition. Therefore, this review intends to investigate the effects of insecure attachment in individuals with psychosis.
“A Cartographic Mapping Practice” serves as a theoretical literature review, a tracing of the stories that make up and shape environmental education (EE), their modes of storytelling, as well as an inquiry into narrative practices of normalization. The chapter illustrates a mapping praxis, a cartography, attempting to move away from EE as a practice of teaching “about” nature, by understanding how the current capitalistic, hyper-modern society has created complex modes of control, requiring new analytical tools to deconstruct, critique, and outmaneuver their coercive powers. Gathering up the discursive practices of the post-structuralists, the chapter explores New Materialist theories hoping to find alternative figurations and schemes of representation to account for the multiple complex locations and overlapping territories of teaching, learning, and research.
This paper explores some ideas about the process of learning to be a family therapist. It considers the questions: how does one learn to think like a family therapist? How is family therapy best taught? How is it learned? The author's experiences in learning and teaching are described. It is argued that family therapy differs from other approaches to therapy in some fundamental respects, and that learning to ‘be’ a family therapist is a different kind of task than learning to be a practitioner of other therapeutic approaches. The paper examines some key theoretical constructs, especially the idea of ‘levels’ of thinking, which are seen as central to both the learning and practice of family therapy.
The psychoanalytic idea of ‘resistance’ is reframed in terms of a system's inherent tendency to seek stability in the face of change. Resistance is considered on two levels: the intrapsychic level at which an individual seeks to avoid the experience of psychic pain or discomfort, and the interpersonal level at which the therapist and client together constitute a therapeutic system that can manifest an isomorphic tendency to avoid discomfort and to thereby maintain a problem or symptom. The implications for psychotherapy and for psychotherapists of this understanding of resistance are examined. The argument is supported by a juxtaposition and comparison of the therapeutic approaches of two therapists who made their respective marks in psychodynamic and family therapy practice, respectively, during the 1970s – Habib Davanloo, who focused on overcoming intrapsychic resistance, and Salvador Minuchin, whose focus was, in those days, on overcoming resistance at the level of the family system. Both of these therapists created and managed instability within the therapeutic system in order to bring about change in otherwise unchanging problematic circumstances.
Purpose
To assess the recent influence of Gregory Bateson on publication within the field of psychotherapy.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature survey of all accessible literature from 1996 to 2006, utilizing citation search engines for identification purposes followed by reading and evaluating the most relevant publications.
Findings
Research that investigates Bateson's ideas is promising but scarce, and theoretical development that builds on his constructs is rare. Apart from frequency in citation, his contributions seem to be more durable than generative.
Research limitations/implications
Owing to the volume of data, a complete survey of literature was impossible, focusing our work on psychotherapy for this paper. Other projects surveying fields such as management and sociology should be undertaken to assess Bateson's influence.
Practical implications
Practice should be tied to theory‐building and ongoing research rather than nostalgia, myopic commitment to ideals, or myth. Purposeful commitment to cybernetic theory and practice development is needed.
Originality/value
Few literature reviews have attempted to conduct a survey this broad. It is believed this has been successful in addressing actual publication practices.
The double bind is a recurrent characteristic of life, not limited to the context of psychopathology, where the concept was first developed within the narrowed focus of Batesons work during his period in Palo Alto. Bateson pointed out that it is not appropriate or possible to count double binds: it is also not appropriate or possible to prevent their occurrence. Instead, we should ask why some individuals are particularly vulnerable and how education can strengthen individuals to deal with multiple logical levels.
This classic volume deals with the strategies of both psychotherapists and clients as they maneuver each other in the process of treatment. How a therapist induces a client to change is described within a framework of interpersonal theory and directive family therapy. This work represents a step from the study of therapy in terms of the individual to therapy as communication between at least two people. In this volume, Jay Haley acknowledges his debt to the Gregory Bateson research project exploring the nature of communication as well as to Dr. Milton H. Erickson, M.D. for the many hours of conversations and a new perspective on the nature of therapy. The reactions to this different view continue to be controversial today in the therapy field.
Addendum Two: Post-Conference Dialogue Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family
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Bateson, G., 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago. Bateson, G., 1978a. The Birth of a Matrix, or, Double Bind and Epistemology. In M. Berger (Ed.), Beyond the Double Bind: Communication and Family Systems, Theories, and Techniques with Schizophrenia, NY, Brunner/Mazel. Bateson, G. 1978b. Addendum Two: Post-Conference Dialogue. In M. Berger (Ed.), Beyond the Double Bind: Communication and Family Systems, Theories, and Techniques with Schizophrenia, NY, Brunner/Mazel. Bateson, G., 1979. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, NY, Dutton. Reprinted NY, Bantam, 1988. Bateson, G., Jackson, D., Haley, J. & Weakland, J., 1976. Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia. Republished in C. Sluzki & D. Ransom (Eds), Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family, NY, Grune and Stratton. Originally published in Behavioral Science, 1956, 1: 251–264.
Development of a Theory: A History of a Research Project Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family
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Haley, J. 1976. Development of a Theory: A History of a Research Project. In C. Sluzki & D. Ransom (Eds), Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family, NY, Grune and Stratton.
Ideas which Handicap Therapists
- J Haley
Haley, J., 1978. Ideas which Handicap Therapists. In M. Berger (Ed.), Beyond the Double Bind: Communication and Family Systems, Theories, and Techniques with Schizophrenia, NY, Brunner/Mazel.
The Double Bind Theory by Self-Reflexive Hindsight Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family
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Weakland, J., 1976. The Double Bind Theory by Self-Reflexive Hindsight. In C. Sluzki & D. Ransom (Eds), Double Bind: The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family, NY, Grune and Stratton.
Causality: Linear or Systemic Psychology and Biology of Language and Thought: Essays in Honor of Eric Lenneberg
- P Weiss
Weiss, P., 1978. Causality: Linear or Systemic. In George A. Miller & Elizabeth Lenneberg (Eds), Psychology and Biology of Language and Thought: Essays in Honor of Eric Lenneberg, NY, Academic.