Talk and Real Talk: The Voices of Silence and the Voices of Power in American Family Life

Abstract

All messages . . . are like phrases or segments of equations which a mathematician puts in brackets. Outside the brackets there may always be a qualifier or multiplier which will alter the whole tenor of the phrase. Moreover, these qualifiers can always be added, even years later. . . . What exists today are only messages about the past which we call memories, and these messages can always be framed and modulated from moment to moment. -Gregory Bateson The Group Dynamics of Schizophrenia