Notice that neither of these choices requires the therapist to engage in Mind Reading. In the first case, he merely asks for a translation into words (the full Complex-Equivalence relationship), and, in the second case, he assigns no oral meaning to the non-verbal messages he is receiving, but simply decides whether or not the messages fit together. Following are several examples of these patterns, taken from the same transcript further on in the session.
Therapist: Yes, Marcie; and I'm wondering just how you would know when Dave is respecting you.
Marcie: Well, for one thing, he has to learn to pay attention to me; how can he respect me when he doesn't even pay attention to me? Like right now . . .
Therapist: Marcie, how do you know that Dave's not paying attention to you?
Marcie: See for yourself; this whole time, like always .. . I'm talking and he's looking at the floor.
Therapist: So, when you're talking and you see that Dave is not looking at you — then you know that he's not paying attention to you?
Marcie: Good; I see that you've got the picture.
Therapist: Well, I'm not so sure. I'd like you to ask Dave whether or not he was paying attention to you, OK?
Marcie: Yeah, OK. Dave, I would really like to know if you are paying attention to me. (As Marcie says this, she leans forward, with her left index finger extended in Dave's direction, her right hand on her hip, her tone of voice shrill and tight, her throat and neck muscles taut.)
Dave: Of course, Marcie, you know that. . .
Therapist: (interrupting Dave) Hold it a minute, Dave, (turning to Marcie) Marcie, I want to tell about some things I was just aware of when you asked Dave whether or not he was paying attention to you, OK? I had some difficulty understanding exactly what you were communicating. I heard the words which you used, but, somehow, the way that you moved your body, your left hand, and the tone of your voice that you used when you spoke didn't fit for me.
Marcie: Oh, yeah. Well, you're the one who wanted me to ask him. I already knew that he wasn't paying any attention.
Disregarding the patterns which we have already identified, you will notice that the therapist is using his senses — his input channels — to detect incongruity in Marcie's communication to Dave. Specifically, the words which he hears do not match her tone of voice nor her hand movements and positions. Without attempting to assign any meaning to these non-verbal cues, he simply presents them to Marcie and states that he had a difficult time understanding her communication. Consider what has happened here: The therapist detects Mind Reading and Complex Equivalence by Marcie:
not pay attention to me = not look at me when I'm talking
Next, he moves to break up this piece of calibrated communication by asking Marcie to check out her Mind Reading-Complex Equivalence with Dave. As she asks Dave about this, her voice tone, body posture and movements fail to match her words. The therapist again intervenes by making Marcie aware of the incongruities which he detected in her communication and tells her of his difficulty in understanding her incongruent communication. Marcie's response clearly indicates that she is completely calibrated with respect to Dave's communication; she is absolutely convinced that Dave is not paying attention to her when he is not looking at her. Since she is totally convinced, the task which the therapist has asked her to perform is not congruent with what she believes, and the result is an incongruent communication.
Marcie: Oh, yeah; well, you're the one who wanted me to ask him; I already know that he wasn't paying any attention.
Therapist: (turning to Dave) Dave, I'd like you to respond to Marcie's question.
Dave: Sure; well, I really was listening to what Marcie (the therapist gestures that Dave should speak directly to Marcie), to what you were saying, Marcie (looking at her). Oh, what's the use (looking down at the floor).
Therapist: Dave, what happened with you just then? You seemed to look at Marcie and then you looked
back at the floor.
Dave: Oh, I just saw that look again on Marcie's face. I know what that means: She's unhappy with me.
Therapist: Marcie, true or not true, what Dave said?
Marcie: No. Actually, I was watching Dave's face and thinking how much I'd like to believe him.
Therapist: Dave, tell us about how you end up looking at the floor instead of directly at Marcie.
Dave: What?
Therapist: I'd like you to describe what happened to you when you were talking to Marcie and looking at her, and then you ended up looking at the floor.
Dave: Oh, I'm used to that. I don't talk so good when I get tight — you know, like I was describing before.
And when Marcie looks at me that way, I sorta go blank, you know what I mean?
Therapist: And when you are trying to listen to Marcie and understand her, what happens that you end up
looking at the floor?
Dave: I really want to hear and understand what she is saying, and if I try to look at her and I see that look
on her face like before, I don't hear what she's saying. Marcie, I really do . . . really.
Therapist: I'm wondering (turning to Marcie) whether you realized that Dave was not looking at you but rather at the floor, not because he wasn't paying attention to you, but because it's really important to him that he is able to pay attention to what you are saying. Did you know that before?
Marcie: (beginning to cry softly) Yes, Dave, I believe you.
Therapist: And you, Dave, when you see that look on Marcie's face — the one that you used to think was because she was unhappy with you — do you understand that that's Marcie's way of showing interest, of paying attention to you?
This portion of the transcript shows several important patterns. First, notice that some of the pain connected with Dave and Marcie comes directly from the calibrated communication system which they have built up with one another. In the way that Marcie organizes her experience, she has set up the Complex Equivalence that if Dave is not looking at her, he is not paying attention to her. In Dave's way of organizing his experience, whenever he is looking at Marcie and he sees a certain expression on her face, he has to look away from her in order to continue to be attentive. This is just the vicious cycle of communication failure we encounter so frequently: The very thing that one family member does to accomplish something is the cue or signal to another family member that he is not doing that very thing. The cycle continues indefinitely as there is no way in the present patterns of communication for the individual members to get feedback.
This exchange between Marcie and Dave, then, is an excellent example of the way in which the patterns of Complex Equivalence and Mind Reading can hook up to create a chain of calibrated communication which results in pain for the family members. We can break up the process in a step-by-step manner to identify the overall pattern and the separate elements of it.
1. Both Marcie and Dave are caring, well-intentioned people. They sincerely want to communicate with each other. Marcie begins to talk; Dave is watching her as he listens.
2. Marcie struggles to express herself accurately, and Dave struggles to understand. In her efforts to communicate, Marcie changes the expression on her face, narrowing her eyes as she makes mental pictures to help her organize her communication (remember, her most used representational system is visual), and leans forward. Dave, in the past, has seen a similar expression on Marcie's face and observed similar body movements by Marcie when she is unhappy with him. That is, Dave has a Complex Equivalence of:
Marcie narrows eyes and leans forward = Marcie is unhappy with Dave
3. By the Complex Equivalence, Dave "knows" what Marcie is feeling and thinking; that is, employing the Complex Equivalence, Dave uses Mind Reading to determine Marcie's experience. This is the first piece of calibrated communication.
4. Since Dave "knows" that Marcie is unhappy with him, he is tight and finds it difficult to listen and to understand what she is saying while he is aware of her signals. Thus, he shifts his gaze from
Marcie to the floor. Notice that this shift comes from his desire to understand Marcie, plus his Mind Reading.
5. Marcie notes the shift of Dave's eyes from her to the floor. In the past, Marcie has seen this movement on Dave's part when he is not paying attention to her. Thus, Marcie has the Complex Equivalence of:
Dave shifts gaze from Marcie to the floor = Dave is not paying attention to Marcie
6. By Complex Equivalence, Marcie "knows" that Dave is not paying attention to her — she "knows" the inner experience which Dave is having. Marcie is now Mind Reading; this is the second piece of calibrated communication.
7. Since Marcie "knows" that Dave is not paying attention to her, she increases her efforts to capture his attention — leaning farther forward in her chair, narrowing her eyes even more, as she attempts to organize her communication more effectively (by making pictures of the ways she might use to gain his attention). Notice that these changes which she goes through come from her desire to communicate with Dave, plus her Mind Reading.
Dave and Marcie are now locked into a vicious cycle: The more that Marcie tries to express herself effectively, the more she presents Dave with signals that she is unhappy with him, and the more that Dave detects the signal that Marcie is unhappy with him, the more he responds by trying to understand, presenting her with signals that he is not paying attention to her, and the more that Marcie detects Dave's signals, the more she strives to communicate and to capture his attention, and the more .... After some period of time — after the cycle has gone around several times — Marcie will, in fact, become unhappy with Dave, and Dave will, in fact, stop paying attention to Marcie to avoid the bad feeling it gives him. This last step puts the finishing touches on the calibrated communication as it confirms the Complex Equivalence and Mind Reading upon which that communication cycle is based.
In our experience, one of the results of calibrated communication cycles, such as those we have observed between Dave and Marcie, is that, as they continue to miscommunicate in other ways, they come to doubt their worth as human beings. For example, Marcie may come to question whether she is worth Dave's attention, and Dave may come to wonder whether Marcie's being unhappy with him is because he is incapable of being the cause of her experiencing happiness.
A pattern closely connected with one way by which the therapist breaks up a calibrated communication is that of translation. Marcie's most used representational system is visual, and, consistent with this, is the type of Complex Equivalence she sets up: Dave is not paying any attention to her unless he is looking at her when she speaks. But Dave's primary system for his experience is kinesthetic. Since he feels bad (tight and blank) when he sees her look at him in a certain way, he then shifts his gaze to the floor in order to be able to pay attention. The therapist recognizes this pattern and states it explicitly, in effect translating from one model of the world (Dave's) to the one which Marcie uses.
Omitting part of the transcript, we come now to another example of incongruity:
Therapist: (turning to the son) OK, Tim, just tell me one thing that you would like to change in your family.
Tim: (glancing quickly at his mother) Well, I don't really know . . . Mom always says not to talk about...
Marcie: (interrupting, leaning forward in her chair, pointing her finger, slowly moving her head from side to side) Go ahead, dear; just say whatever you'd like, (voice tone shrill)
Tim: Ah ... I think that I don't want to . . . maybe later.
Therapist: Margaret (15-year-old daughter), when Marcie spoke to Tim just now, what were you aware of?
Margaret: Well, I don't know . . . she looked kinda angry and . . .
Therapist: What did she say to Tim?
Margaret: Gee, I really don't remember.
There are several useful patterns in this exchange. First, notice that the words which Marcie uses to express herself do not agree with the posture, body movements and voice tonality which she uses as she says the words. The boy Tim (12 years old) must decide to which message he will respond from the conflicting ones he is receiving from Marcie. We can represent this process visually:
Tim decides (not necessarily consciously) to accept the first group of three messages and respond to them rather than to the last single one.
The therapist has identified another piece of incongruent communication — in this case, rather than comment on it himself, he asks another member of the family to do so. Her response allows the therapist to determine several things: Margaret, apparently, is not aware of the incongruity; she reports only the information which she received visually. One of the unfortunate but all-too-common patterns which result from incongruent communication is that the people exposed to it decide to shut down one of their major sources of information. In other words, since the messages which they are receiving do not fit together, their response to this incongruity — the way in which they resolve it — is simply to delete one of the sources of the non-matching messages. In Margaret's case, she is aware of what her mother, Marcie, looked like but not of what she said.
Several unfortunate things result from this kind of decision on the part of Margaret. First, she has developed a pattern by which, whenever she is presented with an incongruent communication — a situation in which the messages which she is receiving from the other person do not fit — she systematically selects the information which she receives visually. This deprives her of a major source of knowledge about other people and the world around her. Secondly, when Marcie (or anyone) communicates incongruently, she is indicating that she, herself, is uncertain, split, or of more than one frame of mind about what is going on. Incongruent communication is a signal that that person has more than one map or model for his behavior, and that these maps or models conflict. Since these maps or guides for his behavior clash, when he attempts to respond to others, he presents messages from each of these models and the messages do not agree. When Margaret chooses to respond to only one set of messages (derived from Marcie's one model of the world), Margaret loses touch with the other part of Marcie. Each of the models which Marcie has is truly a part of, and a resource for, her. When the people around her come to respond to only one of these parts, Marcie herself begins to lose touch with the other part, and she becomes wholly unaware of this other resource which could be available to her. Typically, she becomes blocked in her growth and development as an alive and creative human being, her communication remains incongruent, and she feels split, paralyzed — even confused — about what she really wants.[17] Thirdly, when Marcie communicates incongruently, other family members are faced with the task of deciding to which set of messages they will respond. Take Margaret as an example: She is only aware of the information she receives visually. Notice that she labels the non-verbal signals: She looked kinda angry. This, of course, is a pattern which we have already identified several times, that of Complex Equivalence:
This particular Complex Equivalence is likely to become generalized into a piece of calibrated communication — that is, whenever Margaret sees and hears the signals listed above, no matter what else is happening, she will decide (again, probably unconsciously) that Marcie is kinda angry. This is the way in which the phenomenon of incongruent communication serves as the basis for establishing the Complex Equivalences from which come Mind Reading and the calibrated communication sequences which are all too often the source of pain. By asking different members of the family to describe their experiences of the ongoing processes, the therapist begins to find out about the rules, the patterns of what the family members are allowed, or are not allowed, to do, say, or notice about themselves and each other.[18]
One of the classes of rules which is, in our experience, very useful in coming to understand family systems, especially in the context of therapy, is the class of rules about what the family members may perceive and act upon when they experience incongruent communications. Another way of understanding these rules is to determine which input channels the family members may use. These are oft
en the patterns of Complex Equivalence which occur over and over again. The foregoing example of Margaret and Marcie suggests that the information from the visual input channel will take priority over the other channels when there is a mismatch.
Another, and in our experience, equally important, set of rules is that which specifies which output channels may be used to express which types of messages by which family members.
Therapist: Yes, Marcie, I understand that you are worried about what Margaret is doing at school. I wonder if you would let her know directly by telling her right now about your concern for her.
Marcie: That's silly; of course she knows that I'm concerned about her.
Therapist: Are you sure, Marcie? How do you know that she knows that you're concerned about her?
When was the last time that you told her?
Marcie: Look, things like that don't need to be said; after all, I'm her mother; I mean . . . (fading out)
Therapist: Well, just go ahead and try it, Marcie; you know, being her mother and all.
Marcie: Margaret, I . . . (pause) . . . (Marcie laughs nervously) . . . this is really hard. I don't see what. .. OK (laugh), I am concerned about you, Margaret. I care about you and what you are doing.
Therapist: (turning to Margaret) Well, Margaret, did you hear what she said?
Margaret: Yeah, I heard . . . but it's blowing my mind . . . and I like it.
Changing with Families - A Book About Further Education For Being Human Page 6