Double Bind and Paradoxical Communication

This next area of visualisations is inspired by Double Bind theory.

Formulated in the 1950s by, amongst others, Gregory Bateson to create a theory about schizophrenia, double bind theory is about relationships and what happens when important basic relationships are chronically subjected to invalidation through paradoxical communication.

Such invalidation will cause damaged boundaries, it's rejection, often disguised as acceptance.

The verbal message may contradict the implied message therefore invalidate both.

These images are my interpretations of Bateson's textually described illustrations.

'a sign which reads 'do not read this sign'.' Paradox - you cannot do what it asks and implies simultaneously.	With paradox there is essentially no choice but there is the illusion of choice.
	Be independent Do something spontaneous 'Be independent'. 'Do something spontaneous.' You can neither ober nor disobey because whatever you do will be wrong.

These little cartoons illustrate this point. In a relationship where an individual is dependent on another or other for physical and emotional survival, the effect of paradoxical communication is devastating. In response to Bateson's work, Gina Abeles stated that 'some double binds are therapeutic and some are malevolent. ...Paradox and double binds abound in life; what is pathological is staying trapped and entangled in futile attempts to unravel them from within.' Individual emergence could mean unravelling entrapment through the identification of double binds and 'mixed messages', in short the re-learning of levelling patterns of communication and there is an irony that this can be done through therapy using double-binds. Abeles stated that: 'One way to conceptualise the difference between what have been called therapeutic binds and pathogenic binds is that in the former, at least one participant recognises what is happening..'(12) Could the applied use of images by one who recognises what is happening, in effect a therapeutic double bind, promote understanding in the non-emerged, and how could this be guaranteed against being abusive? In a sense the level of communication between what I hope will be produced through this research and its users should remain non-confrontational through the use of images as a further dimension to text and ideally in the form of games or interactive pieces which the user has chosen to partake in. It is hoped that images will remain a neutral ground whereby the user discovers for themselves, through self recognition, what their innermost thoughts and feelings are.