[From Rick Marken (931129.1300)]
Bruce Nevin (Mon 931129 11:55:21 EST) --
Mrs. Corrie is only doing the best she knows how to maintain control. As
she perceives the world, she must arrange for her daughters to feel
obligated to please her,
Mrs. Corrie cannot arrange for her daughters to have a particular goal
(such as feeling obligated to please her). The daughter's goals are
determined by other control systems in the daughters themselves.
she must arrange that the means for
pleasing her should be paradoxically opposed,
She can do this only if, for their own reasons, the girls have adopted
the goal of pleasing her.
so that the girls can't actually
carry them out to please her and must suffer conflict that they cannot
resolve.
Now you are describing a conflict betweem Mrs. Corrie and the girls -- an
INTERpersonal conflict; there is no INTRApersonal conflict (double bind).
The girls are trying to achieve one goal (pleasing mom); they are not
achieving it because mom is (actively) pushing back. Mrs Corrie does share
responsibility with the girls for the existence of this INTERpersonal
conflict -- but this is entirely different than the case of Annie's
INTRApersonal conflict (trying to please mom by both exerting her own
independence and by deferring to mom's authority -- she cannot achieve
both by giving or not giving gingerbread). Mrs. Corrie had nothing to
do with THAT conflict.
Bruce Nevin (Mon 931129 13:20:49 EST) --
Rick, it appears that you are claiming here that perceptual control does
not include imagined perceptions, and that the only way to include
imagined perceptions in perceptual control is to live in a world of
imagination all the time, that is, to be psychotic. Is this what you
intended to say?
No. My intent was to say that conflict (intra or interpersonal) is
always the result of controlling perceptions, not imaginations. In
fact, conflict can disappear when you control imagination instead
of perception. Imagination is not constrained by boss reality; per-
ception is so constrained; that's the problem. Annie could solve her
problem by imagining that she has exerted her independence AND deferred
to Mrs. Corrie's authority by giving the gingerbread. The actual
result of giving the gingerbread could be (and was) quite different;
only one goal was actually achieved by giving the gingerbread (exerting
independence); the other goal was not (Mrs. Corrie scolded Annie for
not deferring to her).
We control imaginations all the time; but when we start controlling
imaginations as a MEANS of avoiding conflict there will be problems
(since you aren't really controlling anything at all).
Best
Rick