Framing and Reframing

Ecological Anthropology:Framing and Reframing

• Part 3 number 2 pages 177-193; A Theory of Play and Fantasy in Steps to an Ecology of Mind by Gregory Bateson, 1972 [2000]– Originally presented at the American

Psychiatric Association (APA) Regional Research Conference, Mexico City, March 11, 1954

A Theory of Play and Fantasy

• Research on the hypothesis or tentative explanation regarding the epistemological base for psychiatric theory led to the following generalizations:

Psychiatric Theory: Generalizations

Human Verbal Communication Operates at Many Levels of Abstraction

• Metalinguistic: subject of the discourse is language, communication is about language, e.g., “The word ‘cat’ has no fur and cannot scratch”

• Metacommunicative: subject of the discourse is the relationship of the speakers, communication is about communication, e.g., “This is play” or “My telling you where to find the cat was friendly”


Communication Evolves When

A Sign is Recognized as a Signal• Organisms cease to automatically respond to

physiologically based “mood signs”– Signs become signals when interpreted to

have varied complex “abstract” meanings


Signals: can be trusted, distrusted, falsified, denied, amplified, corrected

e.g., “This is play, not combat” – Sequence or pattern of signals as a whole

are similar to, but not the same as combat» Play demonstrates the organism is

capable of metacommunication, the exchanging of signals that carry a message about the communication


• Play and Fantasy: generate paradoxes, or self-contradictions that express possible truths– “The playful nip denotes the bite, but it does

not denote what would be denoted by the bite”– “The clenched fist” of threat is like play, it

denotes a punch but it does not denote what would be denoted by the punch

– “The metaphor that is meant,” the flag which men will die to save,” blurs the distinction between what is denoted, the cultural map and what is not denoted, the actual territory

Psychological Frames Frames: are labile localized expressions of

cultural maps that organize perceptions around shared premises in the active interpretive process of perception

• Conceptual filter for identifying relevance • Typically unconscious• Both inclusive and exclusive

Figure Frame

Y Map

• Re-framing or frame alteration: changing a conceptual viewpoint or context so that the meaning or significance of perceptions are altered

• Psychotherapy utilizes play and fantasy to change “metacommunicative habits” or rules of interpretation that govern the making and understanding of perceptual messages

• E.G., the not real pseudo-love and pseudo-hate of psychotherapy foster an “as if” learning process similar to pseudo-combat

Re-Framing

Technology

Framing and Reframing