arguments, that Gregory and others labored to “unpack” over the intervening years; and still there are surprises hidden within them that become visible as the reader comes to move freely in the text. Frequently , during his career, as his Introduction indicates, Gregory felt as if he were speaking and writing in a foreign language. People did not simply agree or disagree with him; they were bewildered or intoxicated. Mark Engels, in his 1971 Preface, recognized the analogy between the “mind expanding” experiences of drugs and religious conversion and the kinds of intellectual change that could be achieved by a pervasive reshaping of patterns of thought. In retrospect it strikes me that intoxication and conversion were common responses even to these abstract and difficult pieces—responses in which a fraction of the argument was carried on a tide of intuitive affirmation. Today, however, it is becoming increasingly possible to come to grips with Gregory’s thinking, to select, affirm, contest, question. Throughout his life, he treasured the relationships in which he found opportunities for intellectual grappling that went beyond admiration adulation; critical reading is essential. This new edition, then, invites readers into an encounter with the work of Gregory Bateson that was only available to a few when the collection first appeared. My advice to readers would be to hang on to the challenge as well as the affirmation. We have not as a civilization achieved those epistemological shifts that may some day enable nuclear disarmament, ecological responsibility, and new approaches to both education and healing that will value and enhance the complexity of persons in their familial and social setting. In these and in Gregory’s later books (Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, Dutton 1979, and, jointly with me, Angels Fear: Toward an Epistemology of the Sacred, Macmillan, 1987) the intellectual tools are offered. Today they will come more readily to hand, be easier to balance and handle in a disciplined manner than they were in the early 1970s, be more accessible to practice and skill. But still there remains the challenge of using the tools in such a way that they be-come a part of the user. And still the tasks for which these tools have been shaped largely remain to be done, more urgent today than ever. —Mary Catherine Bateson Cambridge, Mass. August 1987

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Steps to an ecology of mind : collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology

Effects of Mindfulness on Psychological Health: A Review of Empirical Studies

Communicative work directed to transforming an individual's total identity lower in the group's scheme of social types is called a "status degradation ceremony." To reconstitute the other as a social object, the denouncer must get the witnesses to appreciate the perpetrator and the blameworthy event as instances of an extraordinary uniformity, in dialectical contrast to ultimately valued, routine orders of personnel and action. The denouncer must publicly claim and manage the status of bona fide representative of the group of witnesses. From this position he must name the perpetrator an "outsider." Organizational varibles will determine the effectiveness of a program of degradation tactics.

Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies

The purpose of this article is to integrate previous theory and research addressing interpersonal complementarity, a construct that is central to refined and extended research and clinical applications of interpersonal theory. The article first describes the 1982 Interpersonal Circle, which the author constructed as a comprehensive taxonomy of the domain of two-dimensional interpersonal behavior. The 1982 Circle integrates and expands the content of four major adult interpersonal measures (LaForge & Suczek's Interpersonal Check List, Wiggins's Interpersonal Adjective Scales, Lorr & McNair's Interpersonal Behavior Inventory, and Kiesler et al.'s Impact Message Inventory) to provide a circle taxonomy consisting of 16 segments, 128 subclasses, 2 levels, and 350 bipolar items. Second, the article reviews previous conceptions of interpersonal complementarity and, using the 1982 Circle as a theoretical and operational guide, derives 11 propositions of complementarity as they apply in personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy.

The 1982 Interpersonal Circle: A taxonomy for complementarity in human transactions

Many doctors, patients, journalists, and politicians alike do not understand what health statistics mean or draw wrong conclusions without noticing. Collective statistical illiteracy refers to the widespread inability to understand the meaning of numbers. For instance, many citizens are unaware that higher survival rates with cancer screening do not imply longer life, or that the statement that mammography screening reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer by 25% in fact means that 1 less woman out of 1,000 will die of the disease. We provide evidence that statistical illiteracy (a) is common to patients, journalists, and physicians; (b) is created by nontransparent framing of information that is sometimes an unintentional result of lack of understanding but can also be a result of intentional efforts to manipulate or persuade people; and (c) can have serious consequences for health. The causes of statistical illiteracy should not be attributed to cognitive biases alone, but to the emotional nature of the doctor-patient relationship and conflicts of interest in the healthcare system. The classic doctor-patient relation is based on (the physician's) paternalism and (the patient's) trust in authority, which make statistical literacy seem unnecessary; so does the traditional combination of determinism (physicians who seek causes, not chances) and the illusion of certainty (patients who seek certainty when there is none). We show that information pamphlets, Web sites, leaflets distributed to doctors by the pharmaceutical industry, and even medical journals often report evidence in nontransparent forms that suggest big benefits of featured interventions and small harms. Without understanding the numbers involved, the public is susceptible to political and commercial manipulation of their anxieties and hopes, which undermines the goals of informed consent and shared decision making. What can be done? We discuss the importance of teaching statistical thinking and transparent representations in primary and secondary education as well as in medical school. Yet this requires familiarizing children early on with the concept of probability and teaching statistical literacy as the art of solving real-world problems rather than applying formulas to toy problems about coins and dice. A major precondition for statistical literacy is transparent risk communication. We recommend using frequency statements instead of single-event probabilities, absolute risks instead of relative risks, mortality rates instead of survival rates, and natural frequencies instead of conditional probabilities. Psychological research on transparent visual and numerical forms of risk communication, as well as training of physicians in their use, is called for. Statistical literacy is a necessary precondition for an educated citizenship in a technological democracy. Understanding risks and asking critical questions can also shape the emotional climate in a society so that hopes and anxieties are no longer as easily manipulated from outside and citizens can develop a better-informed and more relaxed attitude toward their health.

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Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics

Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry

This book, which carries the imprint of the Mental Research Institute of Palo Alto, Calif, deals with human communication as an interaction process. The volume is divided into seven chapters and an epilogue, covering in succession the frame of reference, axioms of communication, pathological communication, general systems principles, analysis of the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" double-bind theory, therapeutic paradoxes, and existentialism and the theory of communication. In terms of language and structure the volume is not addressed to the lay public, but to the professionals working in the field. In the midst of a publishing explosion, the first question one might ask about any book is "What is its function?" Is it a research report, a teaching manual, a review, or the formulation of a new approach? From the authors' statement in the introduction that this book "... does not claim to be more than an attempt at model

Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes.

Nonverbal Communication: Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations

Nonverbal Communication; Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations

The author, by profession minister, philosopher, writer, and teacher, has for many years been an outstanding interpreter of Asian thinking. In this book, he raises the problem of the therapeutically effective process, and compares the liberation procedures of Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga to the Western psychological and psychiatric methods of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. The search for a common denominator is presented in 6 chapters in which philosophical, cultural, social, and psychological considerations are tightly interwoven. The book is well documented and contains many original quotations; it is easily readable and full of pearls of wisdom. However, it is not recommended for the man who is easily disturbed when the underpinnings of his existence are examined too closely. He had best put the book aside with the statement, "just philosophy." However, the professional who seeks an understanding of modern psychological man will find this book enlightening, entertaining, and brief in

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/articlepdf/333035/jama_179_10_030.pdf

Jurgen Ruesch

Papers

Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry

Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes.

Nonverbal Communication: Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations

Nonverbal Communication; Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations

Psychotherapy East and West