Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

8 responses to “Understanding Coercive Control of Children in Divorce and Separation: Working with Splitting in Childhood Relational Trauma”

1. Bob Rijs

   May 31, 2023 at 3:00 pm

   Dear Karen, I am so glad that you dig deeper into this subject!

   I think that those Double Binds have a really big/major part in this situation because people with a disorganized attachment use them as an instrument to control, the thing I have read about this is that those double binds had a really destructive influence on everybody (children & partners) who is put in those situations and are in an ongoing pattern that never stops.

   People are forced to take a distance from their own feeling and experiences:

   because when they show their unbearable feeling & emotions they get punished, but when they cut off all feelings and emotions their development will stagnate, and even an adult will decrease in their own (mental and emotional) development and develop alexithymic characteristics.

   Talk about communication (metacommunication) is also not allowed in the eyes of the person with a disorganized attachment, because it is offending. And talk about the situation with other people is seen as a criminal offense, so all options to resolve the situation are forbidden. So there is no room for mental and emotional development to develop an authentic self and personality.

   These patterns are aimed to break and tear down somebody’s personal development and identity and break the spirit to destroy the sense of self-being.

   Then comes the endless use of primitive and psychotic defense mechanisms in every conversation that heavily distort reality whats creates a paradox behind closed doors where every resistance is put out of context to make/create a scene where the roles are shifted and the one with a disorganized attachment is the real victim where the story is fully blown up to a Catastrophic disaster with the use of cognitive distortions.

   The functionality of those extreme (very powerful) mechanisms is to ventilate their own angst and stress, but those mechanisms transference their allostatic load to the other in a conversation. So the other has to ventilate the stress of two people where there will be no space to process all those negative tensions and emotions and eventually burst out in anger and rage, but when somebody is driven to that point, everything of all those years will come out at that moment.

   So, in my opinion, it is very important to recognize those patterns and mechanisms because they all come from early youth development (social-cultural-context) and are the signal that unresolved youth traumas are present that have a destructive influence not only in the care and nurturing of the child but also a very destructive influence in the healthy understanding between parents and a sabotaging role in cooperation.

   Double Binds is passive-aggression and the counterpart of defensive characteristics ìn a person that will be present in an ongoing pattern, especially in High-Conflict-Divorce, and they are all driven to the end result where the spirit and the moral is totally broken by the child because: What happens (in the family) behind closed doors must stay (in the family) behind closed doors!

   The parent with disorganized attachment does not want that the child has a safe haven, a place where it is safe to express their feeling and emotions and share or vent their experience and put their dirty laundry in the middle of the street or the sidewalk.

   The only reason that the child goes to the other parent is that the disorganized parent forces the child to go to the other parent to keep up the appearance that is a normal healthy circumstance behind closed doors.

   So the double bind of the child is; the child will be punished when it does not go to the parent, and the child will be punished when it comes back home from the healthy parent. The child must do something and always is punished when doing so.

   The adaptation is like kicking the stick or taking away the stick.

   The Effect of The Double Bind
   In the Eastern religion, Zen Buddhism, the goal is to achieve Enlightenment. The Zen Master attempts to bring about enlightenment in his pupil in various ways. One of the things he does is to hold a stick over the pupil’s head and say fiercely, “If you say this stick is real, I will strike you with it. If you say this stick is not real, I will strike you with it. If you don’t say anything, I will strike you with it.” We feel that the schizophrenic finds himself continually in the same situation as the pupil but he achieves something like disorientation rather than enlightenment. The Zen pupil might reach up and take the stick away from the Master–who might accept this response, but the schizophrenic has no such choice since with him there is no not caring about the relationship, and his mother’s aims and awareness are not like the Master’s.

   So a child in the same situation will resist being punished by attacking the request/obligation (that it should go to the healthy parent) because it is ridiculous because the child knows that he is being punished or going now or not, so the request/obligation is ridiculed by the child, just to protect itself. There is the real story of parental alienation.

   I Have found some books where they go a lot deeper into these double binds situations!

   Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation: Emerging Perspectives on Severe Psychopathology (2008) by Andrew Moskowitz, Martin Dorahy, Ingo Schäfer.

   Ego-fragmentation in schizophrenia: A severe dissociation of self-experience
   Christian Scharfetter

   Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation: Evolving Perspectives on Severe Psychopathology
   Second Edition (2019) by Andrew Moskowitz, Martin Dorahy, Ingo Schäfer.

   An Attachment Perspective on Schizophrenia: The Role of Disorganized Attachment, Dissociation, and Mentalization Andrew Gumley and Giovanni Liotti [pp. 97-116]

   Childhood Experiences and Delusions Trauma, Memory, and the Double Bind
   Andrew Moskowitz and Rosario Montirosso [pp. 117 – 140]

   The Role of Double Binds, Reality Testing, and Chronic Relational Trauma in the Genesis and Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
   Ruth A. Blizard [pp. 367 – 379]

   Passive-Aggression: Understanding the Sufferer, Helping the Victim
   Second Edition by Martin Kantor, MD.

   Here he talks about the tactics of the double binds
   [Chapter Seven] Other (Nonsyndromal) Anger Styles: Tactical, CognitiveBehavioral, Interpersonal, and Biological Features

   Here he talks about the circle and the impact of the ongoing experience
   [Chapter Ten] More Interactions Between Passive-Aggressives and Their Victims

   And if everybody takes the effort to stand still by the fact when a defensive parent in a high-conflict-divorce structure distorts reality, everybody is not allowed to (stand with both feet on the ground) stay in contact with reality, because their paradox is their own reality that’s accepted (where all personal rights and boundaries disappear in thin air) their experience and feelings have no existence and are forbidden, and every effort to stay in contact with reality is a reason (from their inner conflicts) impulsively punish the person. That is the foundation of a very hostile and toxic environment!

   Masochistic and Sadistic Ego States: Dissociative Solutions to the Dilemma of Attachment to an Abusive Caretaker by Ruth A. Blizard, PhD
   https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=c77fd1f4805079439f672ffeba40ca6d8c9ea969

   What also really strikes me is that in all research worldwide (on domestic violence, communication problems, youth care, partner violence, child abuse, neglect, etc.) the subject’s primitive/psychotic defense mechanisms, cognitive distortion, passive-aggressive behavior, and alexithymia, are almost never discussed. is spoken.

   When 1 person conducts an investigation, it is a personal consideration to leave out certain topics.

   It can also be a request from the client to leave certain subjects out of consideration.

   Only most studies are done together by several scientists, so then they would all be made aware that the request is a joint agreement

   But when scientists are specifically chosen because they avoid certain subjects in research for personal reasons, they have an unspoken rule together.

   Here in the Netherlands social work/ child protection service professionals also use those double binds and do not accept authentic feelings and emotions, metacommunication, metacognition, feedback, or criticism. Also, they distort reality in every case in all documentation that they deliver to the court. And nobody from policymakers, remedial educationalists, and scientists, to social workers, are not at all aware of what is happening, or together they have no problem at all with the fact that this is just the normal course of events.

   (In politics, these patterns also come back very coincidentally in their actions, especially in debates)

   I had translated all documents but two days ago my PC crashed, and I work every day for more than 14 hours a day, literally day and night on research, and I can’t retrieve the data from February this year. And also my case for the court all vanished like a fart in the wind.

   So I must reconstruct all documents and instruments research and download all references!

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2. Bob Rijs

   June 1, 2023 at 4:23 am

   Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation: Evolving Perspectives on Severe Psychopathology
   Second Edition; Andrew Moskowitz, PhD; Martin J. Dorahy, PhD; Ingo Schäfer, MD, MPH

   Click to access 10.1002@9781118585948.pdf

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3. Bob Rijs

   June 8, 2023 at 4:16 am

   Passive-Aggression Understanding the Sufferer, Helping the Victim Second Edition
   Martin Kantor, MD

   CHAPTER TEN
   More Interactions Between Passive-Aggressives and Their Victims

   As Mahrer describes them, passive-aggressives are “accomplished crafts[men] at forcing individuals into . . . roles”

   Passive-aggressives often intend, and know how to make, their victims depressed. For that reason they are what might be called (in line with Kernberg’s 1994 term paranoiagenesis”)2
   “depressogenics,” individuals who either deliberately and/or unconsciously, generate depression in others.

   These depressogenics might deliberately, if unconsciously, set out to target their victim’s self-esteem, lowering it, crafting self-blame and self-criticism in others by not taking their side in such a way that their victims are led to think, “If you don’t side with me it must be because you are against me, and if you are against me it must be because I deserve it.”

   Generally, the nature of the victims’ discomfort and resentment ranges from mild to resounding, and depends to a great extent on the specific anger style(s) used by the individual passive-aggressive in question.

   Moreover, the effects of passive-aggression on the second party (the victim) are diagnostic of passive aggression in the first party. And that is because if victims’ responses are carefully orchestrated by the passive-aggressive him- or herself, it follows that when these responses are detected, and they are generally detectible, one can walk them back to infer (diagnose)
   passive-aggression in the person to whom the victim is responding.

   What follows is a detailed discussion of the different responses passive-aggressives elicit in those they victimize. This victim response to passive-aggressives consists of six phases, which can either develop rapidly, even within a few seconds, or take days, months, or even years to completely ripen.

   Phase 1: Denial

   Victims going into denial often first become dismissive of a passive-aggressive’s assault upon them. Either they completely fail to recognize that it has taken place, or they view it as being of minor importance. Typically we hear, “So he uses me for a punching bag; I’ll put up with that for the sake of the relationship” or “for the sake of mom’s last will and testament.” (When desensitized, as in a long-term ongoing relationship with a passive-aggressive relative, e.g., a spouse, many victims bypass this phase entirely.)

   Phase 2: Becoming Emotionally Ill

   As noted throughout, victims of passive aggression often get depressed or paranoid, develop psychosomatic symptoms like headaches and gastrointestinal disturbances, or, if children, become hyperactive as a way of literally and figuratively shaking off the incoming hostility.

   Reactive Depression

   Those victims who get depressed as a consequence of others’ passive-aggressive behavior soon come to recognize the assault but blame themselves for having provoked it, and think they deserved being thusly abused.

   They ask themselves, “What did I do wrong?”—that is, “What is wrong with me?” as in, “Would she be more prompt if I were more interesting?” or “would my mother-in-law be more kindly disposed to me if I were more her type?” or “am I really a plagiarist or did I just forget to put quotes around that sentence?” Then they do nothing to resist because of their failure to ask themselves, “What is wrong not with me but with this (passive-aggressive) person?” Often we even see apologies offered in an attempt to make amends (for how the victim presumably created the problem in the first place, and/or mishandled the situation afterwards).

   Passive-aggressives will have their greatest depression-inducing effect on victims primed to accept blame, that is, on victims who are already somewhat self-critical, who already think across many situations, “What did I do to deserve this; what did I do to bring this down on my own head; and what didn’t I do to prevent this person from being abusive to me?”

   Thinking they deserve the snide remarks being hurled at them, they might get even more depressed than they already are, as they too readily condemn themselves for not accepting a relationship as it is even though the acceptance could only possibly come with serious reservations along the lines of, “You have few enough friends and hardly any family. Do you want to destroy this relationship, your last, too?” (It’s similar to what happens to people with a sexually transmitted disease who, already depressed because they are ill, tend to buy 100 percent into the suggestion that their illness is not vitally caused, e.g., by a virus, but is self-induced, e.g., as punishment for something they presumably did wrong).

   Depressive self-blame, often paramount and problematical, is routinely associated with passivity (“kissing-up”) characterized by a reluctance to protest one’s fate. A conviction that protesting at the very least will do no good generally exists as does a fear of the consequences of complaining (“doing that will only make things worse.”).

   Many abused wives, taking things out on themselves—thinking that complaining risks more intense emotional or even physical abuse than does just keeping quiet, prefer to continue depressed and full of self-blame just so they don’t have to expose themselves to the consequences of having to complain about how they are being treated.

   Depression here is often dynamically speaking an emotional compromise between tolerating abuse and doing something about it, an alternative to getting angry accomplished by retroflexing anger self-protectively, a way of asking others to please not “hit someone who is already down.”

   This compromise, however, comes at a price. For targeting oneself to avoid troubling others, and changing for others when one should instead be changing for oneself, leads victims to stay in an abrasive relationship with a passive-aggressive individual.

   Here are some examples of specific passive-aggressive assaults that produced reactive depressions in their victims:
   The president of a patient’s co-op board put up a notice: “We are looking for members to serve on the board, since some of the board members want to retire.” The patient replied, “I would be glad to help out,” and volunteered. The next day, by chance, he ran across the president of the board in the courtyard. She said, “We have had so many volunteers that
   we will have to cross straws.” Her remark upset him. He had intended to volunteer, not to compete, and he understood, all too well, the implication of her words. She had contaminated the expression, “draw straws” with the expression “cross swords,” and he thought he knew what that meant. As a result, he got anxious, feeling, “I may be wrong, but there is a good possibility that she is planning to throw me to the wolves.”

   At first he tried to deny the implication of her words. He began to think, “Aren’t you being hypersensitive, even paranoid?” Then, almost in spite of himself, he got depressed. And his depression worsened when subsequent events proved him more prophetic than paranoid. For, a few days later she suggested he withdraw from the running because she had more volunteers than she could use. But he was the only one she asked to withdraw. He was not surprised, given the prevailing atmosphere, to discover that something even worse had happened to another man, one already on the board. When the latter was in the hospital with pneumonia during the weeks preceding the board election, he too got a message from this board president. At first he was delighted to receive what he thought were getwell wishes—that is, until he opened her card. It said, “I suggest that, considering your heightening age and your deteriorating physical health, you resign from the board, and you do so before the next meeting.”

   A patient noted that a woman he had not seen for six months had lost a great deal of weight. Truly amazed, he asked her outright, “How much weight have you lost?” Instead of just answering the question, she replied, “You don’t ask a woman how much weight she has lost any more than you ask a woman her age!” In his typical response to his having his knuckles
   rapped he felt stupidly ashamed of himself, and blamed himself for misspeaking.

   Clearly, therapists treating depression should look for causal interpersonal passive-aggressive skirmishes with important passive-aggressives in the patient’s life and, when indicated and possible, involve these passive-aggressive people on some level in the treatment process.

   Blaming the victim is a common, sneaky, often socioculturally manifest trick passive-aggressives use to defile and thus depress their rivals (or other class of those they see as adversaries). A particularly unfortunate but typical example of blaming the victim is blaming a woman for having been raped because she wore seductive clothing. Husbands who abuse their wives often seek reasons to convince themselves that their wives have provoked their own abuse, e.g., “you know I don’t like my hamburger welldone. How did you think I would react to your practically burning it?”

   Schizophrenia

   Some years ago (around 1960) as he revealed in a personal communication to me, Bateson advanced the theory that being double-binded acts as a proximate or direct cause of schizophrenia.3

   By double binded he meant that the victim is ordered to do something, or to feel a certain
   way; then ordered to do the opposite, or to feel the opposite way; then prohibited from ignoring/getting out from under both marching orders, for emotional (the victim is too psychologically dependent to rebel) or for practical (the victim is too financially dependent to complain) reasons. Since double binding is a characteristic passive-aggressive way
   of expressing anger, schizophrenia, according to this theory, might be a characteristic way to react to the “ministrations” of certain passive-aggressive (particularly family members) who make inordinate use of this anger style to defeat their targets, e.g., by rendering them too depleted to fight back.

   Paranoia

   Paranoid reactions often occur in victims of passive-aggression. Paraphrasing Kernberg, speaking of the paranoiagenesis (paranoia-inducing behaviors) of bosses, in the workplace victims get paranoid/more paranoid when they feel their dependent needs frustrated and their privacy invaded; feel that others are silent, distant, and unavailable out of personal disdain for them; feel over-controlled or micromanaged; feel under-controlled, that is, completely ignored and left to wither on the vine; and/or feel humbled or even sadistically humiliated—for example, when they feel they are being unfairly accused of being incompetent, or falsely accused of cheating sexually.4

   A neighbor of mine asked me to stay home to await her parcel post delivery. I graciously (I thought) said no because I didn’t like having my movements curtailed. In reply to my balking, both she and her husband gave me a guilt-inducing lecture on how what I needed to do was to learn how to be a better neighbor, one who in an improved way fit into the mood
   and spirit of this, a cooperative, not only in name, but also in fact.

   Somatic Effects

   An example of the somatic effects passive-aggressives induce in their victims is the iatrogenic or white-coat hypertension some passive-aggressive doctors can create in their patients, e.g., by making them fear doctor’s wrath for not having done enough to keep their blood pressure down. Too many physicians, in effect attacking their patients out of hostility and disdain for them, perhaps just for their having “allowed themselves to become patients,” slap the cuff on their patients even before the patient has been able to calm down, e.g., right after beginning a visit, thus creating a falsely high BP reading that reflects how the patient, sensing a true assault was taking place, goes into the fight mode, doing so in spite of him- or herself.

   Impotence is another possible outcome of negative interpersonal enmeshments with a passive-aggressive partner. Chronic fatigue (syndrome) can be a way both to react to abuse and to express, “How tired I am of being abused.” Asthma can be a response to disguised hostility. For example, Berne, noting that asthma can be a response to the passive-aggression of others, describes a child’s asthma as the product of a mother’s double binding her child in a way that the child “is not equipped to handle”5 leading the child to play “the Asthma Game.” Taubman also notes that asthma itself “like the other forms of passive-aggressive [behavior can be] a silent and not very effective way of retaliating.”6 Insomnia, ulcers, and headaches are other possible somatic outcomes that can occur as a response to the passive-aggression of others. As with depression and paranoia, those treating patients with any of these or other, related, disorders should, walking them back, try to determine whether the disorder they are treating in any way represents a response to one or more passive-aggressive machinations now going down in the patient’s relationships/life.

   Hyperactivity in Children

   In children, a pattern similar to Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder can sometimes be induced as the response to a passive-aggressive parent or teacher. In this category belongs the provocation of the boring passive-aggressive classroom professor who basically dislikes teaching, and it shows. Such a child might need a change of teacher or schools instead of,
   or in addition to, any indicated psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy for ADHD. The hyperactive student as victim needs to be distinguished from the oppositional, passive-aggressive student as agent who is restless and uninterested because he or she lacks motivation—and is understandably not eager to pay attention, listen, or learn—and to self-excuse, then eager to criticize the teacher for being boring and out of touch, although the problem is that the student is the one, who as a participating victim feeling actively bored, is deliberately staying out of touch as a way to retaliate.

   Phase 3: Slow Burn/Mounting Anger

   The slow-burn phase begins when victims begin to feel uncomfortable—feeling themselves turning angry. There is dawning recognition that “you” are the problem, not “I.” In some of the above examples ultimately there was a (healthy) cognitive shift from “What did I do wrong?” to “Why are you being so rude (cruel, critical, persecutory) to me?” For example, the
   man who asked the woman how much weight she had lost at first got angry with himself for acting in a way that he believed provoked his being abused.
   But then he got angry at the woman for putting him down, his slow burn intensifying as he began to recognize the faulty rationale of her complaint about him. In reality, as he came to realize, “Asking a woman about weight loss is not nearly as problematical as asking a woman her age. In fact, most people are proud of how much weight they lost, while many people are
   ashamed of how old they are, so that asking someone who looks newly thin, ‘How many pounds did you shed?’ is the rough equivalent of asking a proud grandparent, ‘How many grandchildren do you have?’”

   Phase 4: Overt Anger

   In this phase, which may not appear in all cases, the anger ball bursts and the “slow burn” erupts into overt anger, typically ineffective in part because it is so delayed that the blowup only appears, if it appears at all, when it is too late to have much impact/be of much productive value. Often with the anger comes insight into the abusive nature of the interaction and a strong desire for fight (revenge) or flight (removal). For example, the victim who contemplates fight thinks, “I’ll get back at him; I’ll make a date and stand him up.” Or the victim who contemplates flight thinks, “I will never see that boyfriend of mine again—I am sick and tired of his always standing me up.” Sometimes the victim actually takes revenge, as did a woman who got her revenge on a noisy neighbor by throwing a packet of seeds of a fast-growing invasive vine into the neighbor’s yard. It is not unusual for actual/physical violence to erupt, e.g., road rage as a response to passive-aggressive provocation—an important reason why there are personal and sociocultural gains to be derived from understanding passive-aggression and handling passive-aggression and passive-aggressives
   correctly, therapeutically, before it is too late, and things escalate.
   A victim’s overt anger can often start a spiral of interpersonal psycho-pathology, where retaliation for the passive-aggressive attack leads to more passive-aggressive behavior in the form of counterattack. This is the sadomasochistic interaction discussed in Chapter 11.

   Phase 5: Forbearance (Forgiving and Accommodating)

   Passive-aggressives are particularly adept at blaming the victim while setting their victims up to blame themselves—for being hypersensitive, overly dependent, uncooperative, hypercritical, and/or jealous. Not surprisingly then, victims soon learn ways to get along as well as they can with the passive-aggressives in their lives. One way they adapt is by exonerating those who victimize them. They might think, “He really doesn’t do anything bad; or, if he does, it’s only because he had a bad day, anyone can have one; or if he had many bad days it is because he could not help himself; and besides no one is perfect.” Victims who are therapists typically even make excuses for their patients, doing so by bringing masochistic
   acceptance to his or her relationships with difficult patients.

   Self-blame can often shade into a depressive-like attitude consisting of forgiving and accommodating in order to forbear and so to “heal through love.” Since passive-aggressives mostly select dependent victims to be their targets, many victims of passive-aggressives, taking their own dependency and neediness into account, think twice about removal and vengeance, and instead think only about being practical—so that for them it soon becomes
   all about keeping friends and family, and doing what everyone can to keep everyone close. Victims often forbear because their own emergent anger elicits guilt in the form of self-questioning/self-condemnation. At the very least this avoids if not a continuation/repeat of the original abuse, then the vicious cycling around the issue of who is doing what to whom.

   The explanation for why the victim stays in an abusive relationship can lie as much in the nature of passive-aggression as it can originate with any personality issues/problems on the part of the victim. This is because passive-aggressives deliberately, if unconsciously, in their relational behavior follow the model not of the parasite that kills the host, but of the saprophyte that lives more or less comfortably with it. Passive-aggressives make certain that there is enough in a relationship for the victim to stay put, perhaps hoping for a change for the better. They do so by providing real rewards for their victims so that, despite all the relational problems in this phase, victims stay put/go back for more, sometimes even stalking their persecutors hoping to get closer after convincing themselves that the relationship is not really over, but is in fact actually working, at least as best as can be expected.

   Victims may in this phase accommodate by thinking up specific strategies to use to bring the passive-aggressive more fully around. For example, a woman whose boyfriend always canceled dates at the last minute thought, “I bet if I get him an expensive gift, or wear sexy underwear, he will want to keep me as his girlfriend.”

   Phase 6: Repetition

   In most cases the scene is now set (successful suicide on the part of either the passive-aggressive or his or her victim obviously excepted) for the passive-aggressive to continue “business as usual.” Indeed, the victim, already bruised, is now, being even more helpless, an even better object for further, cautious-as-usual, battering.

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4. Bob Rijs

   June 9, 2023 at 12:18 pm

   The Double-Bind Theory
   Some Current Implications for Child Psychiatry
   John H. Weakland

   Abstract. The behavioral-interactional view of problems in the original statement of the double-bind theory is outlined. and the broad significance of this viewpoint for treatment is discussed. Recent emphasis on the cybernetic causal model is noted. and its implications for family therapy in general and for child-centered problems, in particular, are reviewed. A case example of brief treatment of hyperactivity based on this approach is described.

   The double-bind theory, originally set forth by Bateson et al. (1956), together with contemporary work on the family and schizophrenia and on families with very difficult adolescents constitute the main bases from which family therapy arose (Guerin, 1976). The concepts described by Bateson et al. embody most of the ideas concerning problems, families, and interaction that are still central to the theory and practice of the communications school of family therapy today, including family treatment of problems involving children primarily. It therefore seems worth reviewing the main premises and concepts involved in the double-bind theory for understanding the treatment of child-centered problems. This consideration of the implications and effects of the double-bind theory will focus initially and largely on its general features. The original double-bind theory was not a stopping point, but a starting point, for theory and practice. Weakland (1974) noted that the concepts were fundamentally concerned with the general relationship between behavior and communication, and with an approach to investigating the nature and significance of this relationship. It is the development and application of this orientation that appears as increasingly important to psychiatry in general-here defined broadly as the understanding and treatment of problems of human behavior-and child psychiatry in particular.

   What are the basic elements of this view of communication and behavior? First, that the “problems” with which therapists generally deal consist primarily of behavior and should be considered as such–even when the behavior involved is as extreme or extraordinary as occurs in schizophrenia or some kinds of interpersonal violence (Weakland, 1978a). Second, that a most important aspect of social (nonisolated) behavior lies in its communicative effects, while equally communication is a major factor in the ordering of behavior (including both action and verbal behavior) socially. In contrast to other views which consider behavior to be an external manifestation of individual characteristics, innate or learned early in life, the communicational view proposes that behavior depends mainly on maintenance of patterns by repeated reinforcement in social interaction in the ongoing here and now. Third, communication is basically and pervasively interactive and systematic. While people often make unidirectional attributions of messages and effects (“I withdraw because she nags me”), in any ongoing relationship behavioral influence is circular (the other half of the circle of interaction being “I nag because he withdraws”). Communicative interaction is systematic in the sense that messages and their effects do not occur at random in couples, in families, or in any ongoing social group. Rather, repetitive patterns develop, often rapidly, and these may become so persistent as to appear fixed-for example, to seem an expression of set personality traits of the individuals involved. Yet the possibility of change of behavior in response to altered communication always exists.

   Such a view makes sense only if communication itself is considered or conceived in a way that has not been usual. Ordinarily, communication has been considered and studied as the transmission of information; from this an ideal of simplicity and clarity of communication naturally follows. The position basic to the double-bind theory, however, is very different. In this view, human communication is not simple but complex. Messages occur not in isolation but in the context of other related messages; ongoing exchange of messages largely constitutes what usually are termed relationships. The significance of any message singled out for attention can only be estimated in relation to its context, not by any form of analysis of the message itself. Furthermore, even an analytically isolated single message is complex, involving multiple channels of communication-words, tone, facial expression, and so on. The import of these different channels may be similar or congruent and therefore mutually reinforcing. But the import of these channels may also be different and incongruent either grossly or subtly (as “Yes” can, according to how it is said, convey anything from “Certainly” to “Not really”).

   Moreover, Bateson et al. proposed that every message conveys both a report (information) and a command (influence). It is this influential aspect of communication that is most significant in determining behavior for good or bad, persistence or change. Information itself, in the common but restricted sense of “facts,” is influential, but there is much more to it than this. Misinformation may be as influential as facts, conflicting messages may produce conflictful responses, and messages may influence general premises, including those determining the whole tone of interpersonal relationships, as well as specific ideas and actions.

   Once we begin to consider communicative influence, it is possible to glimpse some cogent reasons why communication may affect behavior powerfully. In the first place, human behavior is based, not on direct perception of a response to reality, but on some interpretation of the natural and human environment–on conceptual maps, if you will-whether these are more or less explicit.

   Communication, especially verbal formulations about human events and relationships, is crucial in determining such interpretations. This holds equally whether a given message is such as to maintain (reinforce) an existing interpretation, or to alter it.

   Further, the effect of communication is multiplicative, in two ways.

   First, communication is not a physical force but a signal; it taps and directs the energy of the receiver. A new idea may be much more potent than a shout. Second, one brief message may serve to alter the interpretation of many other messages or behaviors, prospectively or even retrospectively (“I admit that I did and said all that you charge me with, but it was involuntary, so I am not responsible”-i.e., “I did it, but I didn’t really do it.”)

   At the same time, while there are ample reasons to recognize the potential power of communication to shape and organize behavior, this does not tell us what particular kinds of communication, in what particular circumstances, lead to what effects, nor what the limits of communicative influence may be, nor how it may be used deliberately to alleviate problems. These are more specific and empirical questions, answerable only by experiment and experience.

   In my view, Bateson et al. posed such questions, and much of the subsequent development of family study and treatment is best understood as an exploration of them.

   Just as the double-bind theory–or more generally, the interactional view of behavior-was based on a variety of conceptual and observational sources, so also it had a variety of implications. Obviously one of these was toward application in clinical practice. Once problems are seen as primarily matters of behavior, and behavior is seen as greatly influenced (if not primarily determined) by communication and interaction among the individuals composing a social system . it no longer seems reasonable to consider a patient in isolation, and his symptomatic behavior as primarily a manifestation of inner defects. Rather, the only reasonable step is to bring the identified patient together with the other members of his family (as the most basic social system) for study and treatment. Using direct observation in addition to verbal inquiry, such study correspondingly focuses on their current interaction, particularly on how the behavior of the other members may lead, even if unintentionally and unwittingly, to the disturbed behavior of the patient.

   Therapy similarly becomes focused on attempts to change such pathogenic patterns of interaction in order to improve the functioning both of the identified patient and of the family as a whole.

   In addition , such a focus on a need for change in family communication patterns, which involve complex, mutually reinforcing interaction, implies that the therapist must intervene as an active agent of change.

   These views constituted the basic conceptual foundation for the first attempts to apply the double-bind theory by treating schizophrenics in the family context. Quite soon thereafter the family approach to treatment was expanded from this base and its other base, family work with certain child problems, toward application to the whole spectrum of recognized psychiatric problems, except the manifestly organic. This too was logical enough, since the viewpoint involved was fundamentally a general one, not specific to schizophrenia, and since schizophrenia is such a varied and extreme problem that almost any other appeared relatively easier to treat. Furthermore, once initiated, the practice of family therapy has grown greatly over the past 20 years. Nevertheless, these few and rather simple ideas still appear as basic to the practice of family therapy generally. They also are basic to a fundamental tenet of many in the field-that family therapy is not just an additional treatment technique, but involves a whole new conceptualization of problems and their resolution. from which a new approach to practice derives.

   Some of the orientations that developed in family therapy may be seen as involving a failure to pursue the fundamental premises fully. For example, there have been considerable tendencies, first evident in the original statement by Bateson et al. and persisting in spite of later corrective statements (e.g., Bateson et al., 1963) to view the identified patient as a sort of passive victim of conflicts or deficiencies elsewhere in the family. Young patients especially tended to be seen as overtly manifesting problems that really were centered in their parents’ relationship. This notion seems more an inversion of prior views that stigmatized the patient as sick or bad than the broader and more balanced view that an interactional orientation calls for. As another example, some family therapists have become extensively involved (often with the family’s help) in inquiry about the past history of the family or of the problem.

   While this might provide some information useful for understanding the present situation, more strictly it represents a digression from what the theory posed as central.

   On another side, several tendencies developed in family therapy that may best be seen as deriving from eager but overspecific or literal reading of the basic principles, resulting in losing sight of more general and basic implications, and arriving at narrowed or distorted rules for practice. First, the idea of the family system and family influence led to prescriptions (e.g., Jackson and Weakland, 1961) that the entire family must always be seen in therapy, or even to expansion of the therapy group into “network therapy” including grandparents, collaterals, and perhaps close neighbors (Speck and Attneave, 1971). Again, seeing the whole family may have helped as a means of information gathering and understanding of interaction, especially in early family work when relationships between interaction and specific problems were hard to perceive, but the system’s orientation does not imply this is essential for treatment, as will be discussed further on. Also, the concept of the family as a unitary system was at times taken to mean that the resolution of any problem must require a revision or restructuring of the whole family system, and the more severe the problem the wider and deeper this restructuring would need to be. This again is not an essential consequence of the interactional view. Further, the idea of the family as a system was closely associated with the concept of family homeostasis (Jackson, 1957); specific observations that patient improvement was often accompanied by new difficulties elsewhere in the family led to views that this necessarily would occur unless family therapy was rather deep and extensive instead of focused mainly around the presenting complaint-a family analogue of the concept of “symptom substitution” in individual therapy. An analogue to the concept of “insight” in individual treatment also developed, apparently related to recognition of the importance and power of communication. It is as if some family therapists became too aware of how problems could relate closely to vague or incongruent messages, and of the therapists’ own needs to see the nature of communicative interaction clearly and explicitly.

   At any rate, some therapists became almost exclusively involved in promoting “good”-simple, clear, and direct communication to their patient families, usually by rather didactic analysis and instruction. Such practice neglected the fact that much normal human communication, not just the pathological, is complex or even contradictory, and that clear observation of what is going on may be very different from effective action to alter this.

   Although it was recognized early that the double-bind viewpoint involves a cybernetic or circular model of causality rather than a linear one, the conceptual and practical implications of this have seldom been pursued fully. In this epistemological view, the behavior of any part (“individual”) of a system (“family”) is governed and is to be understood by reference to present organization and functioning of the system, not by past history. Applied to human problems this most fundamentally means that what is most significant is not why or even how a problem began, but how the problem behavior persists, which can occur only by repetitive performance. Basically, this is a positive feedback or vicious-circle view of problems (Maruyama, 1963; Wender, 1968). In this view the main focus of inquiry and intervention is that behavior by the patient and/or concerned others which-regardless of intentions acts to maintain or escalate the problem behavior. Such a view also implies that there need be no similarity in size or nature between a current problem and its sources. A major problem may arise from an ordinary life difficulty, if this is persistently dealt with in a way that reinforces the difficulty rather than resolving it. Unfortunately, it appears that this may happen quite readily; for understandable reasons, people often get rigidly committed to inappropriate means of handling difficulties.

   This cybernetic view of the nature of problems has powerful implications for all the major aspects of practice. First, if most problems are seen to consist of behavior, then it is important to focus inquiry and treatment as completely as possible on actual behavior: what people concretely do and say, here and now, rather than inner states or long-past events presumed to underlie observable behavior. Second, attention should be concentrated on the behavior constituting the problem and those behaviors most directly related to it (primarily people’s behavior in dealing with the problem) rather than on family interaction in general. If it is necessary to look at behavior in the family more widely, this will become evident, but it should not be assumed necessary in advance and in general. Third, if one takes the idea of systems quite seriously, its implication is not that the therapist must regularly see the whole family, but the reverse. If there is a system of interaction, while some change throughout the system may be necessary for resolution of a problem, potentially the entire system can be influenced through appropriate changes in any of its parts. Accordingly, so long as the interactional viewpoint is clearly kept in mind, whom to see in treatment becomes a question of strategic choice: who can best provide any necessary information, and who is most open to influence leading to useful change? Fourth, the basic task of the therapist becomes one of active intervention to interdict whatever behaviors are seen as functioning to maintain the problem behavior, and to allow more appropriate behavior to occur instead, by whatever means are most effective in producing behavioral change.

   Fortunately, in this connection there is a very positive side to the cybernetic view of causation. It implies that, just as large problems may arise from small sources, even apparently complex and severe problems may not require heroic therapeutic measures and great changes for their resolution. An apparently small change, if it is strategic in effecting an alteration in the behavior maintaining the problem (rather than the problem behavior itself) may initiate a beneficient circle leading to further and progressive improvement.

   The foregoing summarizes the concepts deriving from the double-bind view that we now see as most basic to family therapy, and their general implications for practice. Now let us consider their significance for the treatment of child-centered problems in particular: what sort of practice do such views lead to, and how is it different from traditional child psychiatric theory and practice? <

   A CURRENT APPLICATION OF THE THEORY

   The territory covered in a typical practice in child psychiatry is extensive and, on the surface, varied. Therefore, I will focus on describing the application of our typical approach to just one currently important child problem, contrasting this with the approach of traditional child psychiatry-which is admittedly my construct and somewhat of a straw man, set up only to help make clearer and more concrete the implications for practice of seriously pursuing the double-bind ideas, and how this differs from other approaches.

   The problem selected is hyperactivity in children. In conceptualizing the nature of a problem–on which all else rests-traditional child psychiatry seldom sees the deviant behavior forming the presenting problem as both central to treatment and as behavior in the ordinary sense of the term. Instead the child's unusual or troublesome activities are often seen as involuntary, or as "only the tip of the iceberg," or both. The underlying and more significant matter (the "cause" or the "real" problem) is presumed to be located within the individual child patient. In nature this is commonly conceived as some kind of deficit, or at times the opposite, an excess of some factor. Rather curiously, in the case of hyperactivity, an apparent excess in behavior is often related to a presumed covert deficit, namely, "minimal brain damage." The "minimal brain damage" obviously refers to a presumed physiological deficit. Or the underlying factor may be conceived as belonging to the alternative class of causal factors, emotional in nature, e.g., anxiety. In this latter case, interpersonal influence may be deemed significant. However, major significance is attributed usually to early rather than current experience, and in any case the concerns about experience are likely to center around presumed emotional deprivations. Thus, this again is a deficit theory. Something is lacking in the constitution, or the experience, of the child and this makes him sick.

   Correspondingly, treatment is focused largely on making up for such deficits, or at least compensating for them as much as possible, by therapeutic attempts in child problems generally to supply better understanding, more support, and perhaps reduced demands, plus special teaching or corrective drugs such as Ritalin for hyperactivity. In this view, too, the child is naturally seen as the primary object of treatment, though supplementary attention may be given to parents, largely directed toward helping them to understand and fulfill the child's needs better. This naturally is likely to involve special treatment of the child by the parents, in addition to that by teachers and therapist.

   Finally, with this approach it may be somewhat difficult to evaluate improvement or resolution of the problem, since the child's behavior is often not itself seen as the fundamental matter, but rather as an indicator of something deeper and more covert.

   Observable changes in behavior can then hardly be an adequate criterion of progress, leaving one to rely on clinical judgment or psychological tests, both of which involve inference rather heavily.

   The approach to hyperactivity deriving from the double-bind concept and its subsequent developments differs from the foregoing point by point. To begin with, superficial as it may seem, hyperactivity is viewed first and foremost as a problem of behavior, and handled and evaluated on this basis. The observable fact in hyperactivity, and indeed in many problems, is that a child is doing something that is judged (possibly by the child, but more usually by concerned others such as parents or teachers) as abnormally disturbing or harmful to the patient or others, and that this persists in spite of efforts to change it.

   We would not be concerned about whether the problem was a matter of voluntary or involuntary behavior. This is a question which we believe is fundamentally insoluble and misleading (a more useful question would be: "Under what observable circumstances does such and such behavior occur, and under what circumstances does it not occur?"), although the views of the patient and others concerned with the problem about the voluntary or involuntary nature of the problem behavior are important to know.

   Instead, in our practice, we would first aim to get a clear, concrete, and specific account of what behavior is seen as "hyperactive" and constituting a problem currently, who sees this behavior as a problem (the child patient may not), and how it is seen as constituting a problem. This is mainly done by direct, explicit, and if need be, persistent inquiry.

   Our view thus sees the problem as consisting essentially-not just superficially—of concrete, identifiable, current behavior and related evaluations of such behavior as deviant. We avoid viewing behavior such as hyperactivity (or other common deviant child behaviors) as based on inner or experiential deficits unless there is plain and ample evidence for doing so, for two reasons. First, failures to behave "normally" may occur readily as responses to situational factors (e.g., parent-child interaction), though these often will not be obvious; one must deliberately look for them. Second, even if some physiological or experiential deficit exists, the demands of everyday life really are not so great that passable performance is impossible despite deficits, if other factors are favorable and we believe that improving the operating conditions of child and family constitutes the most hopeful and humane initial line of approach.

   Since our viewpoint focuses on the maintenance of problems by other behavior within the family system as the central issue, we would next inquire, again specifically and concretely, about how the problem is being handled. We want to know what everyone concerned-including the patient, but with child problems especiall y the parents and involved others, if any seem significant-is doing and saying in their attempts to control, lessen, or alter the problem behavior. The reason for this is that we seek to identify the behavior that serves to maintain the problem-that unwittingly provokes or reinforces the problem behavior as rapidly as possible. While theoretically this might be an thing in the family's total behavioral repertoire, in practice this has quite regularly turned out to lie in the area of people's attempts to handle the problem.

   Correspondingly, the basic task of the therapist is not to support or compensate, but to identify what in the attempted "solutions" of the patient or family members is maintaining or exacerbating the problem behavior, despite their good intentions, and to change such behaviors as efficiently and expeditiously as possible.

   This sort of approach obviously is likely to involve the parents as much as, or more than, th e identified child patient. In fact, we often will see the child only once or twice , separately or with the parents, and thereafter see only them, with the aim of interdicting inappropriate handling of the child's behavior and replacing this with better ways. If such a change can be initiated, even a small first step may well start a beneficent circle of interaction going, even in severe problems. This allows the therapist to step aside soon, and let th e cycle of social reinforcement of positive change within the famil y do the rest. Evaluation of the outcome of treatment, like evaluation of the original problem, is based on observation or report of concrete behavior.

   Our goals in a case of hyperactivity would generally be toward reduction of the original hyperactive behavior (or, in some cases, reduction in parents' and others' evaluation of child behavior as indicating hyperactivity), return of the child to ordinary handling by parents and schools, and return of the parents to normal (less child-centered) social life.

   Rather little has been said here about how therapists working on this basis intervene to promote such changes. A major part of the difficulty derives from the fact that such change involves getting parents (and sometimes others as well) to take actions with the hyperactive child very different from those they have been committed to, and often have seen as the only logical thing to do.

   Methods of promoting such change may vary considerably among different th erapists and cases; th ey have been discussed elsewhere (Weak- land et al., 1974; Watzlawick et al., 1974). Some general principles will now be mentioned, and one case example illustrating several means of promoting change will be summarized.

   A CLINICAL EXAMPLE THE USE OF PARADOX AS A TREATMENT TECHNIQUE

   With this approach, the basic goal is change of behavior, not insight or understanding of the problem-though these may follow successful change. The simplest method of promoting change is best if-but only if-it works. That is, if clients will follow direct requests or suggestions about handling a hyperactive child differently, fine. In our experience, though, this is rarely the case, although the odds may be improved somewhat by defining such a change as an experiment. Usually, however, to be effective suggestions for changes of behavior must be indirect. It is especially important to perceive the views and motivations that clients bring with them into therapy, and to reframe the problem situation in such a way that these motivations can lead to new and more useful behaviors-to offer an oversolicitous sacrificing mother the greater sacrifice of backing off, or the real challenge of making a change to a father who prides himself on capability-rather than trying to remake the individuals one is dealing with.

   In hyperactivity as in other problems, sometimes the problem, in the sense of what needs to be changed, may lie not in the behavior of the child, but in the evaluation of this behavior. This, in essence, was the Brief Therapy Center's view of one particular case (Weakland and Fisch, 1976) in which the parents were "making a federal case" out of what appeared on specific and concrete inquiry to be rather ordinary misbehavior by their two sons, aged 12 and 13.

   Meanwhile, expectably, the boys fanned the flames by exaggerated verbal accounts of their misdeeds, which the anxious and credulous parents received as gospel.

   The parents' efforts to control the situation involved overkill treatment. This had proceeded from provocative futile warnings and nagging to attempts at 24-hour surveillance by the parents and school personnel in collusion. It had also included repeated medical examinations and diagnoses of hyperactivity, resulting in medication first with Ritalin and then Thorazine. Finally, after a halfhour joyride in the family car, the younger son was incarcerated in Juvenile Hall for three months (the juvenile probation authorities were very reluctant about this, but the parents had been so anxious and insistent they felt forced to go along). At this point the family came to the Center.

   This problem was resolved in 10 sessions, largely by pursuing three tactics. First, since the parents' anxiety was so obvious from their exaggerated accounts of the boys' "illness," we avoided any suggestion that they were making a mountain out of a molehill.

   Instead, paradoxically, we suggested they probably were minimizing the problem and giving us an overoptimistic view. At this, presumably feeling understood instead of opposed, they relaxed and backed off a bit. Second, the father was induced to take a firmer stand with the older son, who threatened aggressive behavior at times, by explanations that the boy needed reassurance that his father was strong enough to protect him if need be. Third, the mother was encouraged in her existing beliefs that she had certain powers of extrasensory communication with her sons, and given the suggestion that these could be used to control their behavior better than mere words could. This increased her confidence, decreased her anxiety, and helped her to stop her provocative verbal nagging and lecturing.

   The family settled down, the boys began to get along at home and at school without further medication, and without need for further confrontation by father or ESP use by mother. A major sign of positive change, in our follow-up evaluation, was that the parents had begun to rebuild an active social life of their own, after half a dozen years of virtual "house arrest" for themselves, since they had not dared go out, leaving the boys without their direct surveillance, or invite friends in.

   CONCLUSION

   In other cases, of course (as in the case of learning disability reported by Weakland, 1977), difficult child behaviors are more real and parental evaluation less exaggerated. Yet on the basis of the approach deriving from the double-bind theory that has been described here, the same principles apply in all child problems: identify the behavior that is serving to maintain the problem by inappropriate handling and, by reframing the situation to utilize the views and motives of the participants, help people to abandon their unhelpful "solutions" and try new ways of dealing with their children's behavior.

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5. Bob Rijs

   June 9, 2023 at 12:20 pm

   PARENTAL ALIENATION

   When a request for visitation arrangements is submitted through the court, there is apparently 1 parent who (due to inner conflicts) is not waiting for this. When that parent (supposedly) shows that he is open to this (to prevent loss of face), the inner conflicts remain subcutaneously present. After all, the parent is then obliged to cooperate, so the child will have to appear in front of the court in any case (to prevent loss of face).

   When a child does not want to and resists, the parent will punish the child from an inner conflict (to prevent loss of face towards the court).

   (Ambivalence intolerance is the inability to deal with conflicting feelings and thoughts)
   When a child is punished at home after intercourse out of an inner conflict (not out of losing face in court), the parent cannot deal with the conflicting feelings and thoughts (ambivalence intolerance).

   They call this experience of the child the Double Bond.

   [a] If the child does not go, he will be punished

   [b] If the child does go, he will be punished

   As long as the parent does nothing about the (contradictory feelings and thoughts) inner conflicts, this situation will keep coming back endlessly, as a result of which the child will remain stuck in this double bind.

   [a] If a child wants to talk to the parent about this subject, the parent will punish the child from that inner conflict.

   [b] When a child is angry or disappointed towards the parent on this subject, the parent will punish the child from that inner conflict.

   [c] A child is also not allowed by the parent to talk to others about this subject, otherwise they will be punished.

   How can a child avoid being punished?

   Accept that this is a forbidden topic, keep this topic from being discussed anywhere, if someone asks the child about (forbidden topic) the other parent is the best response; I don’t want to talk about, I don’t want to see, etc.

   If a child does not want, can not force a child, right?

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6. Rosie

   June 9, 2023 at 1:57 pm

   So many of the articles in this website really resonate with my partners situation.
   There’s been years of court cases which have culminated in his daughter rejecting him.
   The only way I can describe his situation is it feels like I have front row seats to a psychological thriller with no conclusion. It’s like he’s the protagonist in a crazy film where no one believes him. Thankfully in a recent S7 the cafcass officer recognised his daughter is aligning with her mother and picking up her mothers anxieties. But their solution was to stop face to face time spent between dad and daughter but try therapy.
   Of course, the therapy route then relies on mother playing ball and not simply stating “my daughter doesn’t want to go”.
   I just feel like, when will it end.

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7. Rosie

   June 11, 2023 at 10:02 am

   I find all if the articles resonate with my partners situation.
   His daughter (eldest of 2 children) has been alienated from him.
   There’s been years of court hearings, false allegations and it’s followed the predictable path of how PA is described.
   My big overwhelming feeling is, what can be done!?
   Family therapy can be put in court recitals but how can this be enforced? If the alienating parent doesn’t participate and they’re gate keeping the child it just feels like a stalemate.
   I have wonderful visions of my partners daughter sitting with somebody like Karen who can see what’s happening and the eureka moment happening. But if the mother blocks intervention what can be done?

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   1. Bob Rijs

      June 12, 2023 at 1:09 am

      When professionals also use the double bind as an instrument to complete their goals it’s impossible to resolve these situations, because the whole department/organization may be infected with professionals’ disorganized attachment so their social-cultural-context (in the family) became the organizational cultural context as one big happy family.

      When the court does not recognize these destructive patterns then, in fact, they are self-destructive or/and with a self-destructive outcome, because it only needs time before one of the own family members is caught in the same situation with the same (self)destructive outcome.

      When this (trauma) infiltrates the family’s bloodline it is almost impossible to get it out, driven by their ongoing inner conflicts the whole future generations transmit their sorrows by the same rigid patterns to cope with their inner conflicts, from parent to child & grandparents to grandchild.

      Their motto:

      Everybody Shall Adapt to their inner conflicts, so everyone will bow to their requests!

      Thus the court wants that:

      Nine billion People must adapt to the Inner Conflicts of Nine Billion People?

      This is not Sustainable Development because it disrupts society from birth to the grave!

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