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coercion-in-psychiatry

Attempts to eliminate power dynamics in psychiatric treatment paradoxically reinforce power structures through enforced norms and spontaneous compliance.

1 chapter across 1 book

How Real Is Real? (1976)Paul Watzlawick

2: Paradoxes

The chapter '2: Paradoxes' explores the nature of paradoxical communication, particularly the double bind, where contradictory demands inhibit appropriate action, thought, or feeling, causing psychological distress. It further examines paradoxes related to spontaneity and power, illustrating how power dynamics create double binds in social and psychiatric contexts, and how attempts to eliminate coercion paradoxically reinforce authority, as exemplified by historical and literary cases like Catch-22 and the Order of Maria Theresa.