THE INTERACTIONAL VIEW
THE PALO ALTO GROUP
Griffin, 7th ed., chapter 13
CLICKER QUESTION
• Complementary communication is based on
differences in power.
• A. TRUE
• B. FALSE
• Watzlawick developed his theory of social
interaction by looking at dysfunctional
patterns in families;
• Watlawick (and co-authors, Janet Beavin and
Don Jackson) stated much of this theory in
their book, Pragmatics of Human
Communication;
THE FAMILY AS A SYSTEM
•
Imagine the family as a mobile suspended from the ceiling;
•
Pressure placed on any one thread affects the others;
•
Instead of seeing communication within the family as cause and effect, a -> b -> c > d, relationships are seen as complex functions:
X= b2 + 2c/a – 5d
In other words, X is potentially influenced by many different things.
AXIOMS OR GRAMMAR OR RULES
• The axioms make up the grammar of
conversation or the rules of the game;
• The game is a sequence of behavior governs
by rules;
• But each family makes up its own rules and
the rules govern behavior in the game;
• Each family creates its own reality;
AXIOMS OF COMMUNICATION
• One cannot not communicate:
– No matter how you respond in a situation, you
communicate some message, even if you are
silent;
COMMUNICATION = CONTENT + RELATIONSHIP
• “Every communication has a content and
relationship aspect such that the latter classifies the
former and is therefore metacommunication”
(Griffin, 7h ed., p. 172).
• REPORT or content is what is said– “You are late.”
• COMMAND OR RELATIONSHIP is a social action that
implies some relationship between the people
involved—e.g., a criticism and the social realities that
go along with criticising;
PUNCTUATION OF THE COMMUNICATION SEQUENCE
• Punctuation refers to what each person in the
relationship perceives as the cause of their
behavior—where they place the starting
point;
his
guilt
his
guilt
her depression
his
guilt
her depression
Does his guilt cause her depression or does her depression cause his guilt?
ALL COMMUNICATION IS EITHER SYMMETRICAL
OR COMPLEMENTARY
• The interactional view pays particular attention to
questions of control, status and power;
• Symmetrical interchange is based on equal power;
• Complementary interchange is based on differences
in power;
• Both types of communication occur in healthy
relationships;
CHANGE
• Family systems are highly resistant to change.
Often a person is trapped between competing
expectations, e.g., act spontaneously but do
what I say!
CHANGE
• According to Watzlawick, change for the
family will come when family members step
outside of the system, when they see the rules
they have been following;
• Watzlawick calls this process of seeing the
rules and changing them REFRAMING;
• With reframing a new conceptual system fits
the same concrete situation equally well or
better and changes its meaning;
MORE ON REFRAMING
• Reframing is like waking up from a bad
dream—relief comes when you step outside
the system;
• Reframing is the sudden “aha” of looking at
things in a new light;
• Reframing is a new way to interpret old facts;
•
Critique
• Janet Beavin Bavelas calls for some changes in
the axioms of the theory;
• She says that not all nonverbal behavior is
communication—observers may draw
inferences, but in the absence of a senderreceiver relationship and the intentional use
of a shared code, she describes nonverbal
behavior as informative rather than
communicative;
Critique -- continued
• Verbal and nonverbal messages are treated together,
integrated;
• She now wants to limit the term
metacommunication for ‘explicit communication
about th process of communicating’, e.g., “Don’t talk
to me like I am a kid.”
• Equifinality, a given behavior outcome could be
caused by any or many factors that are
interconnected—thus, it is hard to know when the
system is out of whack.