Schizophrenia—its nature, etiology, and the kind of therapy to use for it—remains one of the most puzzling of the mental illnesses. The theory of schizophrenia presented here is based on communications analysis, and specifically on the Theory of Logical Types. From this theory and from observations of schizophrenic patients is derived a description, and the necessary conditions for, a situation called the “double bind”—a situation in which no matter what a person does, he “can't win.” It is hypothesized that a person caught in the double bind may develop schizophrenic symptoms. How and why the double bind may arise in a family situation is discussed, together with illustrations from clinical and experimental data.

This article describes a general view of the nature of human problems and their effective resolution and of related specific procedures, growing out of our prior work in family therapy, that have developed during six years of research on rapid problem resolution. With treatment limited to a maximum of ten sessions, we have achieved significant success in about three‐fourths of a sample of 97 widely varied cases, and this approach to problems appears to have considerable potential for further development and wider application.

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In a previous paper (1) my colleagues and I developed the concept of a "double bind" as a pattern of communication provoking behavior characteristic of schizophrenia. Our attention there centered on two-person interaction, especially communication between mother and child. Since that time we have become increasingly interested in the involvements of patients in three-party interaction, particularly the father-mother-child relationship and such institutional relationships as administrator-therapist-patient and doctor-nurse-patient. These three-party situations, while overtly different and more complex than the two-party ones previously studied, show important This paper is a product of the Schizophrenic Communication research project directed by Gregory Bateson and carried out at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto, California. This research has been aided by a grant from the Josiah Macy Jr.

Several letters to schizophrenic patients from their mothers are presented verbatim as raw communicational data. These letters are examined, microscopically and macroscopically, for characteristic formal patterns of expression. It is found that: 1) While the letters vary greatly in details of content, style, etc., they exhibit similar pervasive and highly influential patterns of incongruent communication. 2) These letters agree with another schizophrenic's characterization of such letters generally. 3) The observed pattern fits prior general statements of the authors' research group about the “double bind” and incongruent communication in schizophrenia.