Double bind theory

• Bateson (1956) suggests that children who frequently receive

  -contradictory messages from their parents are more likely to develop SZ
• An example of this

  -would be a mother telling herson she loves him and at the same time turning her head indisgust. 
• The child receives contradictory messages

  -about the relationship on different communication levels, loving in the verbal form and disgust on the non-verbal form
• The child’s ability to respond

  -is incapacitated by the contradictions because one cancels out the other; these interactions prevent the development of a coherent construction of reality.
• In the long run

  -this shows itself as schizophrenic symptoms such as affective flattening and withdrawal from social interaction.
• A weakness is that looked at patterns of family communication with a schizophrenic child and found

  -no difference when compared to the family patterns with a non-schizophrenic child.

  -Further contradictory evidence comes from Hall& Levin (1980) who conducted a meta-analysis and found no difference between families with a schizophrenic member or without. This suggests that there is little evidence for double bind theory which casts doubt about the validity of the theory.