The Double Bind Theory: Still Crazy-Making After All These Years PAUL GIBNEY

With fifty years having passed since Gregory Bateson and his colleagues published their famous paper, ‘Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia’, it is an opportune time to review the theory and its clinical relevance today. Bateson’s team began with an interest in how the identity and functioning of self regulating systems was maintained through mechanisms of information, control and feedback. This work foreshadowed and gave momentum to the development of family therapy, with several members of the original research group later forming the initial schools of family therapy. Bateson, accompanied by Haley, Weakland and Jackson, formed a complex picture of the reciprocal complementariness and escalations that form family life. The ‘double bind hypothesis’ and ‘the schizophrenic dilemma’ were seen as part of a continuum of human experience of communication, that involved intense relationships and the necessity to discriminate between orders of message. Fifty years on, the double bind hypothesis of Gregory Bateson and his research group still offers ongoing insights, cause for reflection, an area and methodology of research, and proposes interventions that dismantle pathology and offer hope of new, more functional pathways.

requirement of the third year of were our trusty supplies with which we with a schizophrenic member. The my social work course was an faced the multiple choice examination entry rounded out with the observation inter-disciplinaryA subject offered by at the end of the semester. that theories of this type supported a the Department of Psychiatry. Every It was in that quirky handbook that psychosocial model of the etiology of Wednesday afternoon hundreds of I first saw mention of ‘The Double Bind schizophrenia, and thus a psychosocial aspiring social workers, occupational Theory of Schizophrenia’. Essentially, model of its treatment, and then therapists, physiotherapists and the the entry said that in the mid-1950’s, duly noted that such understandings like would squeeze into one of the Bateson and his colleagues put aided and abetted the anti-psychiatry University of Queensland’s lecture forward a theory that schizophrenia movement of the 1960’s. (R.D. Laing, theatres to be given a basic overview was caused and/or promoted by David Cooper etc.) The handbook of the history of psychiatry, and irresolvable communicational then turned its attention to the anti- the constructs that organised the conundrums in families. It went on psychotic medication revolution and taxonomy of mental illness. These to say that other later studies were the promising field of dopamine lectures, plus the handy roneoed more specific in identifying ‘high e.e.’, research. double stapled handbook with a that is ‘expressed emotion’, as a key Occasionally, years later in ward summary of each lecture and topic, communicational element in families rounds, the somewhat philosophically

48 PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA • VOL 12 NO 3 • MAY 2006 minded consultant psychiatrist with Some History and Context tribes of New Guinea and in Balinese whom I worked would be waxing Gregory Bateson’s original villages. Bateson sought to describe lyrical to the medical students training was as an anthropologist. social and communicational patterns about the theories of causation of Bateson’s grandfather, William, had within specific groupings, and was schizophrenia. He would add, studied classics and mathematics at fascinated by mother/child interactions “. . . there was interesting work done in Cambridge. Bateson’s father, William and the construct of messages that the 1950’s by a scholar called Bateson Bateson (known as W.B.) studied defined certain activities as play. In the 1940’s, Bateson and his first wife, Margaret Mead, became involved in the growing intellectual The essential hypothesis of the double bind movement of cybernetics. Cybernetics was a discipline largely co-ordinated theory is that the ‘victim’—the person as a multi-disciplinary endeavour who becomes psychotically unwell—finds by theorists such as Norbert Weiner and Warren McCullough. The field him or herself in a communicational concerned itself with self regulating systems and how their identity and matrix, in which messages contradict each functioning was maintained through mechanisms of information, control With fifty years having passed since Gregory Bateson and his colleagues published their famous other, the contradiction is not able to be and feedback. Bateson could see the paper, ‘Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia’, it is an opportune time to review the theory and its clinical discipline’s immediate applicability to communicated on and the unwell person is social interactions and the exploration relevance today. Bateson’s team began with an interest in how the identity and functioning of self and explanation of social systems. regulating systems was maintained through mechanisms of information, control and feedback. not able to leave the field of interaction. Whilst in a two year appointment at the University of California Medical This work foreshadowed and gave momentum to the development of family therapy, with several School in the late 1940’s, Bateson members of the original research group later forming the initial schools of family therapy. Bateson, began thinking and theorizing about accompanied by Haley, Weakland and Jackson, formed a complex picture of the reciprocal that suggested schizophrenia was zoology at Cambridge and notably the processes of psychiatry and its caused by double binds in the family’s became Britain’s first geneticist. subject matter. He worked with the complementariness and escalations that form family life. The ‘double bind hypothesis’ and ‘the communication patterns. Paul, our William Bateson named that discipline Swiss psychiatrist Jurgen Ruesch schizophrenic dilemma’ were seen as part of a continuum of human experience of communication, social worker, is a family therapist; he’ll ‘genetics’ and was responsible for to study human communication in explain more of that to you if you want to introducing Mendel’s laws of genetic psychotherapy. Bateson was a visiting that involved intense relationships and the necessity to discriminate between orders of message. ask him”. Mercifully, they were more inheritance into Western science. professor of anthropology at Stanford Fifty years on, the double bind hypothesis of Gregory Bateson and his research group still offers interested in dopamine and dosage. Gregory Bateson also studied and University and his central institutional However, at that time, in the early graduated from Cambridge. He connection was to the local Veteran’s ongoing insights, cause for reflection, an area and methodology of research, and proposes 1980’s, I was consuming the family undertook field work amongst the Hospital at Menlo Park. The hospital’s interventions that dismantle pathology and offer hope of new, more functional pathways. therapy literature vigorously and there, in its archives, was this compelling and productive theory. It has been fifty years since Gregory Bateson published ‘Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia’, forever emblazoned in bibliographies and reference lists as—Bateson, G., D. Jackson, J. Haley, and J. Weakland, ‘Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia’, Behavioural Science 1 (1956), 251-254. It would seem to be an opportune time and totally appropriate to review the theory and its possible clinical relevance today. This paper covers a few brief historical notes, an outline of that famous theory, some illustrations of ‘double binds’, some recent case histories that demonstrate its relevance today and some discussion of its limitations and its inestimable, and still unexplored, value.

Illustration: Savina Hopkins

PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA • VOL 12 NO 3 • MAY 2006 49 director, Dr. John J. Prusmack gave other, the contradiction is not able to children who often need the parents Bateson a research freedom to pursue be communicated on and the unwell for survival, this prohibition can areas of interest and he chose to person is not able to leave the field of often be seen in suicide threats, study the processes of psychotherapy interaction. dramatic reversals and promises to and alcoholism. In 1952, Bateson The critical components of the be better, and promises of hitherto successfully gained a research grant double bind situation, according to unavailable resources. Often seen from the Rockefeller Foundation to Bateson and his colleagues, were as in interactions described in marital study Paradoxes of Abstraction in follows: therapy, for example: Communication. • Two or more persons, one of whom Primary Negative Injunction: He assembled a research team can be designated as the ‘victim’. ‘I’ll kill you if you stay.’ i.e. ‘Do not around him that included John • Repeated experience. The situation stay.’ Weakland, an engineer, Jay Haley, a is not a single trauma, rather a Secondary Negative Injunction: ‘I am used to people leaving me.’ i.e. ‘Do not abandon me.’ Tertiary Negative Injunction: Later attempts to locate ‘blame’ in the ‘That’s right. It is so typical of you to piss off and leave me. No guts to face family or to suggest the hypothesis was your problems. I’m prepared to stick with this.’ i.e. ‘Do not leave the field.’ aimed at ‘blaming families’ was the work • A partial arc—a snippet of that interaction—will induce the entire of less skilled theorists, given to dull and confused response in the ‘victim’. “Finally, the complete set of ingredients is reductive readings of complex work. no longer necessary when the victim has learned to perceive his universe in double bind patterns.” (Bateson, 1972, p.207). communication analyst, William Fry, repetitive activity that creates The research group felt that a psychiatrist, and later Don Jackson, an habitual expectation. this situation repeatedly led to an the consultant psychiatrist. When the • A primary negative injunction. individual unable to discriminate Rockefeller grant was discontinued, A prohibition that takes one of between the logical types that organise Bateson’s research group continued two forms, either (a) ‘Do not do how messages are meant to be taken. without pay. After some time elapsed, so and so, or I will punish you’, or The characteristics of that situation he gained a grant from the Josiah (b) ‘If you do not do so and so, I are: Macy Jnr. Foundation and the project will punish you’. The context is a) the individual is involved in an began to address itself discreetly to the organised by the avoidance of intense relationship in which problem of schizophrenia. punishment which usually takes he or she feels they must get By the time the group disbanded the form of the withdrawal of love, the communication right; in 1962, they had published the expression of hate or anger b) the other party is expressing collectively sixty-three papers. They and other manifestations of the two orders of messages, and had studied schizophrenia, play, principal theme of abandonment. one denies the other; paradox, psychotherapy, humour and • A secondary injunction that c) the ‘victim is unable to comment on the choreography of social familial conflicts with the first at a more the contradiction, i.e. he or she is interactions. Bateson went on to work abstract level, and like the first, is unable to make ‘metacommunicative as an ethnologist and several of the enforced by punishment or signals statements’ that might help to other members formed the initial that threaten survival. This is often resolve the mess. These situations, schools of family therapy theory and communicated by posture and endlessly replayed, result in an practice. Their contribution to the tone and may include such ‘meta- individual unable to read accurately therapeutic field was enormous, but messages’ as: ‘Do not notice the the context of messages, and no one singular contribution captures contradiction between my claim to be unable to communicate effectively the essence of their project as well as a loving parent and my willingness to or coherently. In short, he or she ‘Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia’. withdraw my love from you.’ will live in a world of disordered ‘Do not notice nor comment on the messages, where active and The Double Bind Theory unfairness of this situation.’ appropriate deciphering will be The essential hypothesis of the ‘Do not question my love of experienced as dangerous, and double bind theory is that the which the primary prohibition possibly only known, as a nameless, ‘victim’—the person who becomes is (or is not) an example.’ felt, perpetual angst. psychotically unwell—finds him or • A tertiary negative injunction that (Bateson, 1972, pp. 206–212.) herself in a communicational matrix, prohibits the victim from escaping in which messages contradict each the field. Unnecessary in cases of

50 PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA • VOL 12 NO 3 • MAY 2006 The Double Bind Theory: to locate ‘blame’ in the family or to Bateson and his team’s observational Some Qualifying Points suggest the hypothesis was aimed at wisdom can be witnessed in any public A number of points need to be ‘blaming families’ was the work of or private health setting any day of made about the original 1956 paper. less skilled theorists, given to dull and the week, whether the ‘patient’ be It was called ‘Toward a Theory of reductive readings of complex work. schizophrenic or otherwise. Schizophrenia’ indicating that it was on For example, a social worker the way to becoming a theory or that The Double Bind interviews a young man with it might be a contribution to a broader Hypothesis Observed schizophrenia and his mother, about and more comprehensive theory. At no Later family therapists, such as his leaving home to go to a hostel. In point is it claimed to be the sole truth Lynn Hoffman (1982) encouraged us the course of a conversation, it is not of how a person comes to suffer from to see that perhaps it is not that the uncommon to hear: schizophrenia. system causes the symptom, but rather a) ‘You are driving me mad, Nathan. I Second, Bateson and his colleagues that the symptom causes the system. can’t have you in the house anymore.’ acknowledge that this is but one Applied to our current area of concern, Primary negative injunction: interaction, albeit a pivotal one, Hoffman’s point would suggest that ‘Do not live with me. Grow up.’ in the complex family interactions perhaps it is not that the family ‘double b) ‘I don’t see how you are going to live in organised around a psychotic family binds’ the patient in such a way that it a hostel. You don’t look after yourself member. They write “This hypothesis causes the schizophrenia, (the system now and I’m there to help. Did has not been statistically tested; it selects causing the symptom), but rather the you brush your teeth this morning? and emphasises a rather simple set of patient develops schizophrenia and Have you phoned your caseworker at interactional phenomena and does not in attempts to communicate concern, Centrelink?’ attempt to describe comprehensively the control, respect and some limits Secondary injunction: extraordinary complexity of a family (to someone who seemingly cannot ‘Do not grow up. You need me.’ relationship” (Bateson, 1972, p. 212). contain themselves), the family ends c) ‘I know I have taken him home from Third, while the paper emphasises up contradicting itself inadvertently in three placements before. They just the mother/child interaction in a way a series of competing communications weren’t looking after him properly. that might offend today’s sensibilities, (the symptom causes the system). And they were taking two thirds of it included observations such as: This ‘chicken and egg’ argument his pension, weren’t they, Nathan? If “However, from our preliminary is important philosophically as it can you are going to give away money, you observations we think it is likely that organise the attitude of the therapist might as well give it to me. Not that the fathers of schizophrenics are not and, depending on what position is I’d ask for it. He has his own room at substantial enough to lean on.” (Bateson, taken, that prevailing attitude can home, and no one to worry him since his 1972, p. 215). either alienate the family or promote Dad died, and his brother and sister left This statement and others like it in therapeutic co-operation. Still, home. We are all each other has got.’ the article suggest that the researchers were already beginning to form a complex picture of the reciprocal complementariness and escalations that form family life. Fourth, they saw the double bind hypothesis and the schizophrenic dilemma as part of a continuum of human experience of communication, that involve intense relationships and necessity of discriminating between orders of message. “Such situations include play, humour, ritual, poetry, and fiction” (Bateson, 1972, p. 222). Thus located it is ‘depathologised’ by its inclusion in a communicational arena, as opposed to ‘pathologised’ by its uniqueness. Fifth, the hypothesis does not ‘blame’ the family nor the parents, nor does it imply malicious, deliberate intent to those involved in the communicational maze. Rather, it describes a partial aspect of an overall observable pattern. Later attempts Milton Erickson and Gregory Bateson: Photo courtesy of the Milton Erickson Foundation

PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA • VOL 12 NO 3 • MAY 2006 51 Tertiary injunction: cycle of sadness and fury. He started Linda’s two children, Rachel, 8 years ‘Do not leave this relationship crying and his wife Linda reached old and Liam, 4 years old. After a and do not expect to get away, across to hold his hand. His ten year few months, Gareth had contacted because I’ll come and get you.’ old step-daughter Stacey arose from his father and asked if he could come This pattern often repeated several her chair and walked across the room and live with him and his new family. times in the course of an interview can to hug John. Gareth said that he had grown tired of then be stimulated, as the researchers John’s perplexed and painful states his mother’s abuse and her see-sawing, point out, by what we might call a can be attributed to his inadvertent erratic moods. Joan regularly told all holographic snippet of the process. participation in a process, that can her children to leave and would add For example, later on in the interview: only be adequately construed, in my when they showed some enthusiasm a) ‘Of course I respect that Nathan opinion, by the Double Bind Hypothesis. for her suggestion, that it would leave is an adult and needs his privacy. His first marriage to Joan ended her free to kill herself. Gareth said, at I’d like some time to myself too. I’d like to join the bowls club.’ b) ‘Mind you, if I went bowling I wouldn’t be able to relax. I’d be And in clinical observations, in those worried sick. He’d burn the house down with the way he smokes.’ blinding moments of recognition in which The endless invocation of the pattern is matched by the client’s fifty years collapse and physical distance inability to comment on the tangles given that most of them occur ‘with disappears, it can be witnessed that in some protective intent’ in the context of an intense relationship. families, double binds in communication are Similarly, any clinician who has ever debated with a genuinely caring still crazy-making, after all these years. family as to why their anorexic daughter’s goal weight has to be 45 kgs, as opposed to the 38 kgs that she and they would be more comfortable with, will recognise the double five years ago. John and Joan had a an earlier point, it had been easier to binding effect of the conundrum: ‘We long and unhappy marriage and not discontinue contact with his father, want you better. Grow up. But not too surprisingly it culminated in a long rather than cop the abuse that Joan big. Being skinny is good.’ and unhappy separation and divorce. delivered to them, upon their return The three children, Jessica 12, Gareth from contact visits. Case Example One 10 and Kelvin 8, were in a very Within a few months, Kelvin began Bateson assured us that the double disrupted state. Joan often withheld intermittently phoning and asking to bind problem—the difficulty in them from their week-ends with their come and live with them, and then discriminating between levels of father, claimed that he had abused within a day, phoning to say that he messages and the inability to comment her in phone calls and would take did not want to come. One January on that process—was not the exclusive out domestic violence orders against night, his mother pulled up outside of territory of those involved in psychotic him. These orders were all promptly John and Linda’s house, pushed Kelvin phenomena. dismissed by magistrates. The family out of the car and threw his bags on Twice in the one week I had seen law court proceedings were protracted the front lawn. She remarked that John Gibson in a state where he was as Joan and her solicitors insisted on now she was free to do what she had unable to talk due to the emotion he numerous independent family court to do. Fearful that she meant that she was experiencing. The first time he reports. Finally, the children agreed intended to kill herself, Kelvin tried was in a family group meeting run to stay with their mother and said to get back into the car. She refused to by the local Department that deals that they no longer wished to see their let him. She opened the door hard and with Child Protection matters. John father. knocked him onto the driveway. She appeared stuck between incredulity John reported that he was drove off and Kelvin ran after her into and rage and his lips quivered with devastated and became seriously the night. She phoned John and said distress, as he struggled to say depressed. His work as an engineer that she never wanted to see Kelvin or something. The second time he was suffered and he had to take time Gareth and she hoped they all died. at his family’s regular family therapy off. A year later he met Linda, who Linda and John located Kelvin three session on a Thursday night. As he had also left an unhappy marriage. hours later at a train station. Fearful tried to explain what had happened Another year on, John, then aged of the legal antics of the past, they in the previous meeting, he became 41, and Linda, aged 32, married and phoned the Department and told them inarticulate, and seemed caught in a formed their own small family with of the situation. The Department took

52 PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA • VOL 12 NO 3 • MAY 2006 Kelvin into temporary care overnight Linda to sign forms to say that they badly in the past six weeks, as did his and returned him to John and Linda voluntarily requested the Department individual therapist and his youth the next day. John said that he wanted to take Kelvin into extended care. worker. All agreed that he was more the Department’s involvement and The couple refused, saying that they productive and more settled when he monitoring of his involvement with had no desire for Kelvin to be in care was with John and Linda. John asked Kelvin, as he and Linda did not wish and that he was welcome to return repeatedly in the meeting for the to be accused of kidnapping Kelvin home. The workers said that if the details of the Department’s concerns. and the like, by Joan, at a later date. couple did not voluntarily sign him No such question was met with a clear The Department took a temporary in, the Department would go to court answer. John and Linda asked about supervision order over Kelvin for six to prove that they had grounds for the various changes in staff dealing months and they referred the family their action. Linda and John invited with them, and why Bob was not at to family therapy, so that they could them to proceed thus, and began to the meeting. The facilitator warned discuss how they could accommodate campaign for their own rights in the that if he was going to be hostile Kelvin into the family, given that matter. When seen in therapy that the meeting would be discontinued. he had a history of poor school week, they, plus the children, were sad Linda’s request met with a similar attendance, and regular suspension. and incensed by Kelvin’s removal. John response. John sat in tearful silent The family attended therapy and Linda had phoned the team leader frustration. He did so again at the without any missed appointments and Bob numerous times without response. family therapy session the next week. worked hard in each session. Kelvin’s They left frustrated messages. When The dynamic in play seemed to be: performance and attendance at school they went down to the Department Primary Negative Injunction: steadily improved. While he was at office and asked for a meeting with the ‘Do not question our practices. We care times unimpressed with the fact that manager, they were told that they were about your child’s welfare, you do not.’ John and Linda insisted that he study inappropriately aggressive, and that Secondary Negative Injunction: and do chores, and talk about his they were ‘hostile clients’. ‘Do not passionately advocate for your frustrations, rather than hit people, Two of the family therapy team rights to parent your child. This will be Kelvin agreed that they were fair in attended a family group meeting taken as evidence of your insightlessness, their treatment of him. organised by the Department a and of your failure to understand how About four months into the therapy month later. Kelvin had now been damaging you are to your child.’ the family came, without Kelvin, to in a foster placement for six weeks. Tertiary Negative Injunction: ‘ share this unusual tale. Linda and The school’s headmaster confirmed Do not not relate to us, no matter how John had taken Kelvin to a final that his behaviour had deteriorated rude or obfuscating we are. If you interview with the Department. The aim was to review his progress and to discharge him from his temporary protection order. Apparently, when asked by the interviewer if he liked living with Dad and Linda, Kelvin said he felt that they had unrealistic expectations of him and that some months ago, John had held him down twice for somewhere between two and five minutes (this was in response to Kelvin breaking up furniture when he was angry). Without consulting John or Linda, the interviewer Graham and his team leader Bob offered Kelvin respite for the night. Kelvin was taken to another placement overnight and the parental couple were told after the event, over the phone, that Departmental workers would come to interview them tomorrow about Kelvin’s treatment. Five days went by (which included a weekend) and two totally different workers—different from Graham and Bob, and from any staff the couple had ever dealt with—arrived at the couple’s house, and asked John and

PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA • VOL 12 NO 3 • MAY 2006 53 withdraw from this confused and poorly senior. Though the relationship was elderly man (Charles, Steve), and the organised process, it will be seen as proof never consummated, it was both alternating counterscript message b) that you did not care about your child.’ emotional and sexual in nature. It have unsuccessful forays into the world John wept with good reason. The was an exceptionally maddening, soul of similar aged relationships (Bill). fact that the ‘damned if you do, destroying experience for Andrea. Her One could argue that her relationship damned if you don’t’ format reinforced estimation was that it had almost with Steve might also follow the script his previous experiences of Joan’s ‘sent her crazy’. message at some level: always play negotiations around the children, only Some understanding of Andrea’s alternative but non-victorious partner increased his emotional pain. Linda, relationship with Charles is gained by to the suffering wife. Gareth, and we’d like to think the understanding her family-of-origin However, while all of the above family therapy team, provided other history. Her mother was often bed may in some way be ‘true’, the ‘crazy reference points in this painful process. ridden with depression and migraine. making’ quality of the interactions Uneventfully, one month When well, she demonstrated very with Charles might best be understood later Kelvin returned home. The little interest in Andrea. Andrea, an by Bateson’s double bind hypothesis. Department withdrew their only child, was her Dad’s constant Charles is a barrister, Andrea was a application rather than go to court, companion and something of a son legal secretary. The relationship was with what they were advised was to him. She joined him in outdoor very intense and included patterns flippant and inconsequential ‘evidence’. pursuits, enjoyed his interest in her of passionate involvement and cruel Graham left his job, with the competitive swimming and school withdrawal, that not only infuriated suggestion being that he had been work, and she especially enjoyed the Andrea but saw her more entangled overwhelmed by all his cases and somewhat philosophical discussions with every cycle of the pattern. Some had been incompetent in a variety of that they shared about current affairs of the pattern’s form was: ways. Bob still never returned calls. and life issues. At adolescence, Andrea a) Charles would see Andrea chatting No apologies were forthcoming. The found her father distancing himself warmly to other barristers. He family, including Kelvin, went back from her, and she felt bewildered would then ignore her and not talk to working with the family therapy and saddened by his absence. She to her for up to a week (despite the team on their ongoing issues. The four remembers him actively discouraging fact that she was his secretary). month disruption had been provided any of her attempts to engage in the Primary Injunction: by a ‘parental’ dynamic, characterised grooming activities typical of teenage ‘Do not relate warmly to other by powerfully contradicting messages, girls; her father scoffed at her attempts men. Relate only to me.’ that had increased the family’s sense of in these areas. b) When that would resolve each time, powerlessness. Her later relationship with Charles a period of shared lunches, cuddling can be seen as a recapitulation of and some sexual expression Case Example Two her relationship with her father. would ensure. This would stop Andrea is a forty-year old woman The Oedipal problem (Electra when Charles would announce who presented to therapy in a crisis. problem if you prefer to be gender that it had to stop, he wanted to She had left her husband Steve, aged specific) was that she had a symbolic be faithful to his wife and that fifty-five, to pursue a relationship victory over her mother—she was he could offer Andrea nothing. with, Bill aged thirty-nine. She had her father’s companion. Due to her Secondary Negative Injunction: been involved in an affair with Bill for father’s decency and their mutual ‘Do not expect anything of me.’ six months before leaving Steve. It was appropriateness, she did not have a c) Andrea would be very hurt and becoming apparent that Bill would literal victory (and, paradoxically, nor would make up her mind not to not leave his wife and two children a literal developmental defeat)—she be involved anymore in the illicit to move in with Andrea and she was was not her father’s sexual partner. relationship and to re-establish the wondering whether she should go back Many years later, she replayed this relationship within professional to Steve. Steve, who had now been with Charles, who was her father’s age. protocols. Charles would respond by informed of the Bill situation, had She gained his fascinated attention pursuing her, buying flowers for her said that “infidelity has always been a and took his attention away from and seeking her company. part of their relationship” and he would his wife (Charles and his wife had Tertiary Negative Injunction: welcome Andrea back. no children)—a symbolic victory, ‘Do not leave me.’ Andrea had experienced some and again did not become his sexual This pattern caused Andrea seven other problematic relationships partner (the literal defined, and this years of unresolved misery that was during the course of their fifteen time a sort of developmental impasse only discontinued when she left that year marriage, with her relationship reconfirmed). workplace. The double bind of the with Charles, aged sixty, being of Yet another explanation might Charles-Andrea scenario can also interest to our current hypothesis. come from the realms of transactional be seen as a transformation of the In her early thirties, Andrea had a analysis. Andrea’s behaviour could be binds that Andrea-Mum-Dad found seven year relationship with Charles explained by a basic script message: themselves in. Andrea finds the double who was some thirty years her a) be the non-sexual partner of an bind theory of the crazy-making

54 PSYCHOTHERAPY IN AUSTRALIA • VOL 12 NO 3 • MAY 2006 experience of her relationship with understanding of the emotional and his research group still offers Charles a compelling one. She reflects process. us ongoing insights and causes for upon it to find a new pathway to Fifth, the double bind theory reflection. It offers us an area and satisfaction in her resumed life with introduces the concept of methodology of research. Clinically, it Steve. ‘power’, albeit covertly, into the proposes interventions that dismantle psychotherapeutic realm. The double pathology and offer the hope of new, The Value of the Theory binds ‘work’ because someone has more functional pathways. And in From the hindsight of fifty years on, power over someone else, or at very clinical observations, in those blinding the double bind hypothesis can be seen least (and hardly ‘least’), someone has moments of recognition in which fifty to be valuable both historically and the right to define the operant context years collapse and physical distance theoretically. for another person. The concept disappears, it can be startlingly First, it observed and named of power became a pivotal debate witnessed that in some families, double a difficult interaction, and in so for the research group, particularly binds in communication are still crazy- doing, it introduced an interactional between Bateson and Haley. The making, after all these years. perspective to psychotherapy. What issue of power in psychotherapy was was happening intra-psychically could embraced actively by the strategic Principal Reference be seen to be mirrored, confirmed and therapists, conveniently ignored and Bateson, G., D. Jackson, J. Haley, held in place by external interactions. under-theorised by the psychoanalysts, and J. Weakland, ‘Toward a Theory of Second, in naming a pathological alarmingly protested by the anti- Schizophrenia’, Behavioural Science interaction that had the capacity to psychiatrists, and intellectual critiqued 1 (1956), pp251-254. In Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind: invoke illness in one of the involved by the feminists and post-modernists. a Revolutionary Approach to Man’s parties, it foreshadowed and gave But it is not going away. Bateson’s Understanding of Himself. New York: momentum to the development of pithy and gritty descriptions and Ballantine Books. family therapy. If interactions could be concepts make it the very seeable problematic and pathology producing, shadow in most distressing human then they also might have the capacity interactions. Further Recommended to be organised interventively and to Reading on the Subject become health producing. Conclusion Third, the clarity of Bateson’s The world of psychotherapy, like Haley, J. (1963). Strategies description offered an example of most worlds, is driven by that strange of Psychotherapy, New York: what the anti-psychiatrists called ‘de- triumphiate of commercialism, Grune and Stratton. mystification’. They hypothesised that research and prestige. Somehow that Hoffman, L. (1981). Foundations of Family patients and their families suffered combination organises what’s in and Therapy. A Conceptual Framework for from unsolvable communicational and what’s out, what is researchable and Systems Change. New York: Basic Books. existential knots (some of which were what isn’t, what can and cannot be Lipset, D. (1980). Gregory Bateson. The iatrogenic) and that they had become noticed, and what does and does not Legacy of a Scientist. Boston: Beacon mystified as to the nature of the binds, sell. Sadly often the old is eschewed Press. and were unable and prohibited from in favour of the new. Often the more Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J.H. and Jackson, seeing the machinations of those complex and profound is discarded for D.D. (1967). Pragmatics of Human processes. De-mystification, a clear the easily grasped and the glib. Communication. A Study of Interactional spelling out of the pathologising Fifty years on, the double bind Patterns, Patholosgies and Paradoxes. process, was required as a first step. hypothesis of Gregory Bateson New York. W.W. Norton & Co. The double bind hypothesis is such a de-mystification, par excellence. Fourth, the double bind hypothesis offered substance and further perspective to such psychoanalytic concepts as denial, splitting, projection (some of the primitive or primary defences) and the complex process of projective identification. How one AUTHOR NOTES party gets another party to carry PAUL GIBNEY, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist and family therapist in private their own damaged and damaging practice in Brisbane. He is a well known author and presenter in the areas feelings can seem like a mystery, and of psychotherapy theory and practice. He is the author of The Pragmatics of its description, at times, can seem like Therapeutic Practice (2003), and his second text Exploring the Therapeutic Domain psychic hocus pocus. The double bind will be published in late 2006. theory adds the communicational and interactional evidence and perspective that allows a more clear and valid

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