The Interactional View of Paul Watzlawick - Essay Example

The Interactional View of Paul Watzlawick Personal Reflection example As of a year ago, my friend, Dan’s father had developed a mental disorder that greatly affected him and in extension, his whole family. While the father was the one that really had the problem, the whole family played a part in perpetuating the problem. He and his brothers could no contend with the issue. They openly kept themselves distant from him. They failed to visit him in the hospital whenever he suffered a breakdown. The father in turn tried to keep himself distant from them whenever they were outdoor so as not to ‘embarrass them’. Their mother also chipped in the issues by disregarding her husband’s suggestions in the way things were done at home. For instance, there occurred an instance where the father wanted their youngest son to get enrolled in a certain school as he felt that it offered a higher quality education than the others. However, his mother disregarded this advice even though he was in a perfect medical condition at that time. The brothers engaged in fiery tempers regarding the matter. The resistance to broach the topic kept everything neatly swept under the rug. His mother encouraged them to approach a family, counsellor. After the visit, Dan and his brothers got the nerve to approach the dad and began showing love. They realised that they could not make him well. They could only offer their love. Application of the theory Paul Watzlawick believes that understanding individuals is easier when one does it within the family system. A stable family cannot not communicate. In this context, then family’s avoidance of verbal communication with the father did not mean that there was no actual communication (Gîfu and Teodorescu 49). Instead, it served to cause more estrangement of the father from them. The children and the mother as well expressed their embarrassment of the father’s condition (content) and communicated this through the way they avoided being associated with him in public. As punctuation dictates, communication depends on whether the person is in a reactive or provocative position (one who starts the conversation) (Gîfu and Teodorescu 50).In this context, the father was mostly in the reactive end. He reacted to his family’s behaviour by ceasing to associate with them in public. The communication is not symmetrical.It was one-up communication (Gîfu and Teodorescu 49. The other members of his family assumed a higher role in the exchanges as depicted in the case of the mother shutting down his opinion regarding the education of their youngest son. Reframing in the family comes about when the family decides to visit the counsellor. The members of the family decide to get rid of the destructive rules that had guided their previous relationship. This meant understanding that the father deserves respect, love and equal chance in the relationship. Scenes from the fictional movie ‘When a Man Loves a Woman The film features a family wracked by alcoholism. Alice Green portrays the character of a school counsellor who harbours a serious drinking problem and is married to Michael, who is an airline, pilot. Though she is a loving and light-hearted woman, she is often drunk and reckless causing her to ignore her children. The whole movie can be used to illustrate the interactional theory as different scenes illustrate different elements. . Alice returns home one day drunk and incoherent for which her eldest daughter confronts. She responds by violently slapping her. She regrets this and in the process of trying to reconcile with her daughter, she misses a step and experiences a domestic accident. She is taken to the hospital, and while undergoing treatment, she and her husband engage in a discussion about her drinking problem and jointly decide that she must seek professional help and support. Alice enrols herself into an alcohol rehabilitation program. She makes remarkable progress and becomes sober. Michael, on the other hand, assumes the main Guardian at home and flourishes at being in control. On the return home, Michael cannot cope with the fact that her wife is sober, and they subsequently become estranged. It is established that Michael depended in her wife’s alcoholism, and thus they separate. Alice continues flourishing as a mother at home.She decides to invite Michael to her 180th sobriety speech. The speech is clouded by emotions after which Michael admits that the reason for their estrangement was that she never listened to his wife. The scene closes when they share a passionate speech. Application of the theory The movie has several scenes that illustrate the theory of interactional view. The theory asserts that one cannot not communicate (Gîfu and Teodorescu 49). Michael keeps watching his wife do bad things but does nothing to confront her. Alice perceives this as a way of showing his disinterest in her life. Essentially this represents the content part of the second part of the axiom of the theory (Gîfu and Teodorescu 49).Communication is missing pertaining to the straining relationship between the husband and the wife (i.e. meta-communication is absent). Punctuation is also depicted in the scene where the couple visits a marriage counsellor as part of their efforts to salvage their marriage (Gîfu and Teodorescu 49). According to the marriage counsellor, Michael was feeding off her wife’s addiction to alcohol. Essentially, he unconsciously interpreted Alice’s alcoholism as the cause of his ability to control and lead the family. Alice, on the other hand, seemed to perceive the initial distance in the relationship as a logical reason for her to continue drinking. The communication seemed to have been complementary in nature (Gîfu and Teodorescu 49). There was a difference in symmetry in communication in the family. For instance, the scene when Jess, Alice’s eldest daughter confronts her regarding her drunkenness, Alice assumes the role of the one with the higher power and proceeds to slap her. This is a portrayal of the one-up communication where one person assumes the possession of power (Gîfu and Teodorescu 49). Her husband also assumes the role of the leader of the family while Alice is away undergoing rehabilitation. When she gets back, he cannot accommodate the symmetry that is required for a stable relationship. The couple, therefore, opts to split up. It’s important to note that even after the mother ceases to drink, other family members continue exhibiting the patterns of behaviour that existed when she was still a drunkard. Everyone must reframe if there is going to be an improvement of the family system. Works Cited Gîfu, Daniela, and Mirela Teodorescu. "Communication concepts vs. Sciences concepts." International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences 18 (2014): 48-57. Read More