Pathological communication: what does it consist of?

Pathological communication is a very particular type of communication. It is beyond misunderstandings and a lack of social skills, causing significant doses of suffering in the people who participate in it.

The consequences are especially serious when it occurs in childhood, since this type of communication will lay the relational foundations in the person, causing them to have serious problems in their adult life. Even with everything, Receiving this type of treatment is not beneficial to anyone, regardless of age..

Have you ever been made gaslighting Or have they purposely convoluted a conversation so that you lose the thread? Well, these examples and many others fall within pathological communication. Let’s see in detail how all this works and what consequences it has for people. Don’t miss anything.

The 4 axioms of communication

To define what is pathological, we must first know what is normal and healthy.. In the case of communication, there are many authors who have set out to define and categorize it. In this case, we are going to take the theory of human communication of Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson, who defined 4 columns that supported this process. They are the following:

It is impossible not to communicate: It is something inherent to living beings. Even when we don’t want to communicate, we are sending a message to make it understood.Every communication has content and establishes a relationship between its different elements.: Furthermore, the communicators agree on that content and on the definition of the relationship. An example of this would be two people who adopt a dog (content) and decide that they will both be in charge of taking care of it (relationship).The nature of a relationship depends on the sequences of communication: discrepancies in communication have a lot to do with the sequence of messages that are interpreted. For example, if a person believes that no one loves them, they will behave as such and the people around them will begin to have conflicts with them, giving rise to a spiral that fulfills the initial statement.Humans communicate verbally and non-verbally.: in healthy communication, both forms are consistent with each other. That is, a threatening gesture would be followed by “I’m going to kill you,” not “pass me the salt.”

Starting from these axioms, it is possible to find the different contradictions of human communication. Although it is logical to find some of them from time to time (since we are not infallible machines), sometimes they take forms and frequencies that jump to pathology. Let’s see it in the next section.

In pathological communication, confusion and manipulation of information are very common.

What is pathological communication?

As you may have deduced, communication involves the messages sent by each interlocutor, but also the interpretation that the viewer gives them. So, Pathological communication consists of purposely sending confusing messages or giving them a completely wrong meaning..

Below we will see some of the forms that this practice takes based on the previous axioms. Don’t miss anything, because you will surely recognize some of them in your own experience.

1. Deny communication

As was said before, not communicating is impossible. However, indicating that you do not want to establish a path of dialogue is possible with a direct message: “I don’t want to talk.” This is healthy, and even necessary in some cases.

The pathological enters the scene when this denial of communication extends without end or when it is communicated in confusing and contradictory ways.. An example of this is the silent treatment: completely ignoring a person to invalidate their opinions and feelings.

2. Disrupt the content and the relationship

Imagine a couple arguing about caring for their child when he is sick. The first assures that it is not good to cover him with a blanket when he has a fever, but the other assures that this is how they did it in his house when he was little and he always sweated. To fix this content you can go to a doctor, but to be right they could convolute the conversation until the other one is exhausted.

On the other hand, they could take the dialogue to the personal (the relationship), accusing the other of not wanting to listen, not loving their child or putting wanting to be right first; In this way they avoid content and allude to feelings to win the argument.

3. Interpretive biases and message sequence

The third axiom referred to the sequence of messages. Vicious circles are common here, in which contradictory behavior creates an expectation in the other person. This person will try to predict new behaviors, but based on something changing and that makes her obsessed with it.

This is one of the most common forms of psychological abuse: having a person permanently aware of the other’s reaction, since they cannot predict it.

Psychological abuse is exercised through pathological communication.

4. Inconsistencies between the verbal and the non-verbal

“You didn’t say it as if you didn’t care, but as if it bothered you that I went out with my friends.” Does it sound familiar to you? Sometimes, it is about generating dependency or fears in the other person, implying one thing with words and another with the body. In others, the interpretation is what becomes pathological, seeing things where there are none.

The underlying reasons are many and varied. It is necessary to see each case separately and know the variables that are causing the pathological communication. Do you consider that some form of pathological communication occurs in your life? In that case, the best advice is to address it directly or to have the support of a psychologist to get out of the loop. At other times, however, it is best to stay away from that person. It’s your decision.

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