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 often 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.
Therapist: Margaret, is there anything that you would like to say to Marcie?
Margaret: Oh, oh ... , mmm, let me see ... well, actually, I do want to tell you that your face looked so nice and soft when you just said what you did. I mean, ... I really liked watching you and hearing what you said, and any time you want to say anything like that again, I'll be glad to listen.
Therapist: Marcie (turning to her), did you hear her? (pointing to Margaret)
Marcie: (crying softly) Yes, I did.
Here, the therapist begins by identifying the by-now-familiar pattern of Mind Reading. He challenges the calibrated feedback by asking the mother to check with her daughter to find out whether or not her hallucination is accurate. Marcie immediately balks. This notifies the therapist at once that a family rule is involved — specifically, the rule that, in this family, the expression of concern by the mother for the daughter (and, in our experience, this rule probably applies to other members of the family as well) cannot be explicitly communicated verbally. In other words, in the terms which we have been developing, the rule eliminates the output channel of verbal expression for messages of concern.
The therapist stays with Marcie, encouraging her until she successfully breaks the family rule against expressing concern through bodily contact. As soon as the mother has accomplished this, he moves to the daughter and works with her to provide positive feedback to Marcie. Then, he extends this new learning, the ability to use the output channel of direct verbal expression to communicate concern, and has the daughter break the rule, also. Next, he creates another option for expressing messages of love and concern within the family system. He guesses at and then verifies that there is a rule against the mother and daughter (and, most probably, the other family members) expressing their love and concern physically — that is, he identifies another output channel which has been knocked out by a rule.
Therapist: I have a hunch about something. Marcie, is there any way that you can imagine that you could, right now, express your concern for Margaret?
17
We recommend that the reader read Parts II and IV of
18
We intend to explore the notion of rules, their development and utilization in therapy, in Volume II of