The authors’ journey

After an introduction to the book’s frame of reference — that of the pragmatics of communication — and the explanation of some basic notions, the authors turn to the definition of certain axioms of this communication. Chapter 3 studies the pathological disturbances potentially contained in these axioms. The authors then extend this theory of communication to the structural level, taking systems theory as the base model in conceptualising the pragmatics of human communication. Chapter 5 illustrates the notions covered upstream through an example drawn from literature. Next come the effects of pragmatic paradox on individuals’ behaviour: the authors discuss the notion of the double bind, which notably helped to better understand communication in schizophrenics. Chapter 7 is mainly dedicated to the clinical and therapeutic application of paradoxical communication models, with a digression on the role of paradox in play, humour and creativity. Finally, the authors conclude with their personal position on the subject of communication between man and reality, with the postulate that an order, analogous to the levelled structure of logical types, permeates man’s awareness of his existence and ultimately determines the “knowability” of his universe.

The frame of reference

The book opens with three concrete examples, apparently unrelated, but which share a common denominator.

This is very well illustrated in another book by Paul Watzlawick entitled The Language of Change (which is, incidentally, highly complementary to the one under study here), with the famous riddle of the nine dots to be joined by four straight lines without lifting the pen: the solution only appears once you step outside the apparent frame of the figure.

All the logic developed thereafter flows from this idea, which partly founds the authors’ philosophical line: “The inability to grasp the complexity of the relations between a fact and the frame in which it occurs, between an organism and its environment, means that the observer runs up against something ‘mysterious’ and finds himself led to attribute to the object of his study properties that it may not possess.” This is particularly important when the object of study is an individual presenting a “behavioural disorder”, or in the psychotherapeutic setting, facing a person voicing psychological suffering. If we include in our interpretation several elements such as the effects of the behaviour on others, others’ reactions to that behaviour and the context in which all this takes place, the focus shifts from an isolated view towards a broader system: psychic phenomena are no longer understood as the sole manifestations of an intrapsychic structure. For the authors, this way of approaching the phenomena of human behaviour, normal or pathological, is quite close to mathematics at the conceptual level, for it is a discipline whose primary object is not the nature of entities, but the examination of the relations between them.

The notion of function and relation

One event proved decisive in the field of mathematics: in 1591, Viète introduced symbolic notation in place of numerical notation. Thus was born the concept of the variable, a concept which — for a Greek mathematician — would have had as little reality as a hallucination! A variable has no meaning in itself: it only takes on meaning by being in relation with others, in interaction, which founds the concept of function. Psychology’s opening up to this concept makes it possible to view each phenomenon as embedded in a broader set of variables that give it meaning, but which would remain incomprehensible if we left out even a single one of them. This notion is essential, for it allows us to position ourselves differently in our relationship to others and to the world in general. As Mony Elkaïm says in his lectures: “Every time we judge, we spare ourselves the analysis. If people behave the way they behave, it is because they always have a good reason to do so.”

Information and feedback

The Freudian discipline postulates that behaviour is essentially the result of the supposed interaction of intrapsychic forces that follow the laws of conservation and transformation, yielding the concept of energy. In this model, interactions with outside forces are considered secondary (hence the term “secondary gains”), whereas the authors consider them essential. The advent of cybernetics upended the classic controversy between determinism and finality, by showing how these two concepts could coexist within a broader frame through the discovery of feedback. If, in a linear chain of events, A leads to B, B leads to C, C leads to D, feedback comes into play when D loops back to A, thereby conditioning the conceptualisation of a circular system. From then on, we can regard every individual interacting with another as part of a circular system. Feedback can be negative as well as positive: what we commonly call a “vicious circle” or a “virtuous circle”.

Redundancy and metacommunication

The authors address here one of the book’s main themes: we are continually communicating, yet it is very difficult to communicate about communication (to metacommunicate), given that the tool used to conceptualise this study is an integral part of the object of study. The study of communication proceeds by spotting redundancies. For example, if we watch chess players without knowing the rules, it may be fairly quick to define certain rules by observing redundancies in behaviour (playing one after the other, taking pieces, the winning condition); on the other hand, it will be much more complex to define certain rules involving patterns that are less often observable although pre-existing (for example, castling).

The axioms of communication and their pathologies

Chapters 2 and 3 mirror each other: the first proposes axiomatic definitions, the second takes up each axiom to show how pathological communication can stem from it. Each axiom is therefore presented here with its pathological counterpart.

1. The impossibility of not communicating

It is impossible not to communicate: silence has communication value (this is an integral part of the “schizophrenic’s dilemma”). So what tactics are used to avoid engaging in communication?

• Rejecting communication by refusing it: a difficult, tense situation, sometimes hard to sustain because of social conventions.
• Invalidating communication: confused, incomprehensible, off-topic replies, with inconsistencies, unfinished sentences, a kind of verbal delirium that will lead the other person to give up.
• Cheating and feigning the impossibility of communicating — the symptom as communication: “for a reason beyond my control, I am not in a position to answer” (migraine, incapacity, sleep, ignorance, foreign language, etc.).

2. Levels of communication: content and relationship

When individuals are in a relationship, their exchanges take place on two levels: content and relationship. Messages like “Be sure to release the clutch gradually and smoothly” and “Just let the clutch slip and the transmission will be wrecked in no time” have roughly the same informational content (report), but they visibly define very different relationships (command). It seems that the more spontaneous and “healthy” a relationship is, the more the relational aspect of communication recedes into the background. Conversely, “sick” relationships are characterised by a ceaseless debate about the nature of the relationship, and the content ends up losing all importance.

An example reported on page 79: during couple psychotherapy, a couple recounts that the husband, knowing it would please his wife, invited a friend who was passing through the region — thinking she would have done the same. Yet, when the wife returned, a violent scene broke out over the invitation. Two questions were in fact involved: one required solving a practical problem (the invitation) and could be the object of digital communication; the other concerned the relationship between the two partners — who had the right to take the initiative without consulting the other. This same couple can quarrel fiercely over insignificant matters in a symmetrical escalation. One day, the wife produces proof of her argument and the husband replies: “All right, all right, you may be right about that, but you are wrong to always want to have the last word.”

3. The punctuation of the sequence of events

In a communication sequence, depending on where one places the beginning, the meaning varies (example p. 54). This is the source of classic conflicts, when one partner puts the blame on the other while the second replies that it is precisely because of the first one’s behaviour that they act this way: “You started it.” The principle of the circularity of communication breaks with this linear pattern in which each person looks for effect and cause. The authors conclude that the nature of a relationship depends on the punctuation of the communication sequences between the partners.

In cases of discordant communication, it is characteristic to notice a disagreement over what is cause and what is effect, whereas these concepts are inapplicable owing to the circularity of the ongoing interaction; but this escalation can, in some cases, take on very significant proportions and end in a deep rift between individuals.

The authors here develop an important concept: that of the self-fulfilling prophecy. A person who thinks “nobody loves me” will behave in a distrustful, defensive or aggressive way, to which others are most likely to respond unkindly, thereby justifying the initial belief.

4. Digital communication and analogic communication

We constantly receive two types of signals, the verbal and the non-verbal, and we must decode them simultaneously in order to synthesise them. These two signals have different purposes: the analogic creates the frame of the relationship, while the digital carries the content of the message. If the two signals are concordant, the congruence reinforces the message; if they are incongruent, a choice of interpretation will be made. Now, analogic communication draws on behaviours our species adopted well before the development of language and its complexification: it is more archaic and will therefore tend to prevail. Paul Watzlawick would later, in another book, complete this assertion by comparing individuals according to whether their brain functioning favours the left or the right hemisphere.

Note that analogic communication is broader than the mere non-verbal aspect, since it also encompasses context, social aspects, etc. (for example, a hierarchical relationship). The book also gives an example of a translation error between digital and analogic (p. 98).

Another example: a husband spontaneously gives his wife flowers. What interpretation will she make of it? Will she think “What a lovely gesture”, or rather “What has he got to be forgiven for?”?

When the ongoing relationship itself becomes the subject of communication, the difficulty grows further. Indeed, any attempt at verbally formulating a non-verbal communication introduces an error into it, tied not only to the poverty of the syntax, but also to the risk of misinterpretation. It is hard to express clearly what the body meant to say.

5. Symmetrical and complementary interaction

Interactions between two individuals can be defined according to two modalities: symmetrical or complementary. In a symmetrical relationship, the partners act as if in a mirror, on an equal footing; in the complementary relationship, one occupies a one-up position and the other a one-down position. These two qualifications are not value judgements: each completes the other to form a whole, as in the parent-child or teacher-pupil relationship. A symmetrical interaction is therefore characterised by equality and the minimisation of difference, while a complementary interaction is founded on the maximisation of that difference.

Symmetrical escalation. The main trap of the symmetrical relationship is its runaway spiral, as in the example of the couple quoted above. The partners compete over the content of the communication, about more or less objective facts, each claiming to be right, whereas the real disagreement is to be sought on the side of the relationship. A symmetrical escalation can end in several ways: stabilisation (laughter, stepping back, a pause), exhaustion, blow-up, or a switch to complementarity when one of the partners agrees to take the one-down position.

Rigid complementarity. The complementary relationship has every chance of establishing itself properly as long as the partners’ identities can be fully expressed. If, on the other hand, the one occupying the one-up position denies the identity of the partner in the one-down position, this imbalance risks tending towards a feeling of frustration, in the best of cases.

Moving from one mode of relationship to the other is an important factor of stability, the main problem being the rigidity of certain interactions.

The structure of human interaction: the family as a system

In chapter 4, the authors set out general systems theory, linking it to the particular case of the family as a system. They discuss the concepts developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, starting with a definition, that of Hall and Fagen: a system is “a set of objects and the relationships between those objects and between their attributes”. They then address the properties of open systems.

Wholeness. “The bonds uniting the elements of a system are so tight that a change in one of the elements will bring about a change in all the others, and in the entire system” (p. 123). In other words, a system does not behave like a mere aggregate of independent elements: it constitutes a coherent and indivisible whole.

Non-summativity. A system is not the sum of its elements. “The elements must be set aside in favour of the Gestalt, to go to the heart of its complexity, that is, of its structure” (p. 124). The analysis of a family is not the sum of the analyses of each of its members: there are characteristics specific to the system and interaction patterns that transcend the particularities of each one.

Feedback. As detailed in chapter 1, feedback and circularity constitute the model of causality best suited to a theory of interacting systems: A influences B, and B in turn influences A.

Equifinality. The same consequences can have different origins, because it is the structure that is decisive.

Family homeostasis. Homeostasis mechanisms have the function of bringing the system back to its state of equilibrium. In a family, the behaviour of each member is tied to the behaviour of all the others and depends on it: it influences the others and is influenced by them. When therapists bring relief to the ills explicitly voiced by one family member, they sometimes find themselves facing a new crisis, triggered by the reaction of those around to the evolution of one of their own (example p. 140).

Psychosis represents a violent change that recalibrates the system and can even facilitate an individual’s adaptation to their family environment. In chapter 6, the authors turn to one type of pathological communication in particular, a potential inducer of psychiatric disorders such as psychosis: paradoxical communication.

With the elements addressed above, we can see in systems in continuous interaction — such as the family — the very centre of a study of the long-term pragmatic repercussions of communication phenomena.

Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Chapter 5 puts into practice all the principles and concepts covered so far through an example drawn from literature: Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Since this chapter is a continuous demonstration of the preceding concepts, it is difficult to summarise, and a complete reading of it is recommended (from p. 149).

Paradoxical communication

Paradoxical forms of communication are characterised by a message of which no correct interpretation is possible, which causes a destabilisation linked to the jamming of our reasoning faculties. The authors identify three types of paradoxes, corresponding to the three great domains of communication theory: logical syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

• Logico-mathematical paradoxes (antinomies), such as Russell’s paradox: the “class of all classes that are not members of themselves”.
• Paradoxical definitions (semantic antinomies): a definition itself containing its own contrary, such as “I am a liar”.
• Pragmatic paradoxes (paradoxical injunctions and predictions): an order that cannot be carried out without being precisely betrayed — “Be spontaneous”, “You ought to love me”, “Don’t be so docile, so obedient!” —, not forgetting the barber example.

Vincent de Gaulejac, a clinical sociologist, describes well in his books — notably in Le capitalisme paradoxant (on the paradoxical injunctions of contemporary capitalism) — the way our society subjects us to paradoxical injunctions, and how these phenomena are largely inducers of suffering at work and burnout.

We have all been caught, are caught or will be caught in paradoxical situations, either as creators (unwittingly) or as victims. All the examples taken by the authors in therapeutic situations indicate that pointing out these paradoxes seems to have a liberating effect on the patients who fall victim to them: it allows them to get out of an inextricable situation that is crushing them (example p. 210). Managing to identify them better can also make it possible to “prescribe” them in useful situations, with a person unable to change: a person who refuses to cooperate with the therapeutic process despite several requests can be ordered not to cooperate — they will carry out the order received and will no longer be rebellious. This form of communication must be used with great caution, for it produces what the authors call the double bind. The Palo Alto researchers showed that a repetitive double bind was involved in the family system of schizophrenics.

The elements that make up a double bind are as follows:

• an intense relationship, one of vital value for the people concerned;
• in this context, a message structured in such a way that it asserts something, asserts something about its own assertion, and these two assertions are mutually exclusive — if it is an injunction, one must disobey in order to obey;
• the receiver of the message is made unable to step outside the frame set by the message, even a meaningless one: one cannot not react to it, and one always reacts to it inadequately since the message is a paradox;
• when a lasting, even chronic, double bind sets in, the individual comes to expect it as a matter of course, inherent to the nature of human relationships and to the world in general — which explains the pathological nature of certain relational patterns in people who come to therapy;
• this model of communication is a vicious circle, for the behaviour induced by the double bind is necessarily paradoxical itself.

A paradoxical injunction is a manifestation of the double bind. We can get a sense, in terms of representation, of the distress felt in the face of a choice offering only harmful outcomes through the tragic example of a man caught on the tenth floor of a burning building, who has no choice but between death by fire or by jumping from the window (p. 127).

Paradox in psychotherapy

Through various examples, the authors put forward in chapter 7 a fundamental notion: no change can happen from the inside. If change is possible, it is only by stepping outside the model — hence the objective of therapy, to bring about change in a system. The psychotherapeutic intervention constitutes a new system which, through numerous procedures, will be able to bring change into the system in place and thus lead it to change its structure or functioning.

The therapist can use the technique of symptom prescription — prompting the person to behave as they already do — with the aim of triggering an awareness in the patient, hence a change of representation and, consequently, of behaviour.

Communication and existence

The final chapter opens the reflection onto considerations of a higher order, philosophical and, in this case, existentialist. For the existentialist philosophers, man is thrown into an opaque, shapeless and absurd world. It is from there that he creates his situation, that he represents it to himself: it is he who gives meaning to this world, which lies beyond man’s objective understanding. Some writers have looked into this question, such as Dostoevsky, Camus or Kierkegaard: “I want to go into a madhouse to see whether the depth of madness might not bring me the solution to the riddle of life.”

Overall synthesis

The central theme of the book is of course the development of the Palo Alto model of communication, drawing on general systems theory and on cybernetics, both applied within the framework of one type of open system: the family.

This theoretical and conceptual book is an indisputable reference for anyone who wants to understand the foundations of the Palo Alto school’s contributions: it lays the groundwork for a current of thought that would then travel the world under the name of the systemic approach. Each concept is illustrated with examples, fictional as well as lived, or drawn from literature. These many illustrations allow everyone to properly integrate notions that are not always easy to approach at first, and the chapter devoted to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a brilliant demonstration of this. It is a book that is assimilated little by little, and it seems to me preferable to keep it within reach rather than reading it in one go, at the risk of glossing over some of the more elaborate concepts that are nonetheless indispensable for understanding the authors’ complex thinking. The authors are, moreover, always aware of the difficulty of their undertaking: conceptualising aspects of communication and human interactions while using, to do so, human communication as the medium, and while being part of this vast system of interactions inherent to our place in the world.

The final chapter offers a very interesting philosophical reflection, particularly on existentialism. I found the influence of these authors in a writer who has also been a psychotherapist for more than fifty years and a best-selling author: Irvin Yalom. He quickly came to think that it was more impactful to illustrate the complexity of human relationships through the novel. In his book Existential Psychotherapy, he offers a reflection on the quest for meaning, the subject that concludes Pragmatics of Human Communication. Literary references populate the book; here is one, by way of conclusion, that could have been among them.

For those who prefer to discover these concepts on screen, the video episode devoted to the book — in French — can be watched below.