During the 1950's there was a growing interest in the role disturbed family interactions might play in the development of schizophrenia in a family member. Of particular interest were disturbed patterns of communication. Once a very popular theory of schizophrenia, there has not been a lot of empirical support for the double bind hypothesis. In addition, it has been difficult to explicitly define double bind communication. Families of schizophrenics tend to have deviant communication patterns.
Verbal exchanges are often confused, vague, or incomplete.
Everybody is trying to still me. One hypothesis is that such communication patterns teach the child the disturbed thinking associated with schizophrenia. In addition, these communication disturbances are often occurring in the context of marital conflicts, thus making the home environment even more stressful for the child. It seems clear that deviant communication occurs in these families, but such deviance may not be causally related to schizophrenia. Perhaps such communication is how the family learned to cope with the schizophrenic child.