Parataxical Integration
Encyclopedia
First used by Irish psychoanalytic psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan
Harry Stack Sullivan
Harry Stack Sullivan was a U.S. psychiatrist whose work in psychoanalysis was based on direct and verifiable observation .-Life and works:Sullivan was a child of Irish immigrants and allegedly grew up in an...

 in the 1950s, the combination of terms refers to the mutual condition of parataxic distortion
Parataxic distortion
Parataxic distortion is a psychiatric term first used by Harry S. Sullivan to explain the inclination to skew perceptions of others based on fantasy. The "distortion" is in the perception of others, based not on actual experience with the individual but from a projected fantasy personality...

s (another concept of Sullivan’s). Parataxical integration exists when two people, usually intimate with each other (parents and children, spouses, romantic partners, business associates), are reciprocally reactive to each other’s seductions, judgmental inaccuracies, hostile comments, manipulations or other "triggering" behaviors. One says or does something causing the other to react, setting off a cyclical "ping pong" or "tit for tat," "you get me and I get you back" oscillation of verbal and/or behavioral reactions.

The concept first appeared in his The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (1953). It was developed further by his protégé, Lorna Smith Benjamin in her Interpersonal Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorders (1996). Benjamin saw parataxical integration as typical in the interpersonal behavior of couples with unresolved autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...

 (separation, boundary
Boundary
Boundary may refer to:*Border* in psychology,**Personal boundaries* in mathematics,**Boundary , the closure minus the interior of a subset of a topological space; an edge in the topology of manifolds, as in the case of a 'manifold with boundary'**Boundary value problem, a differential equation...

) and identity issues. Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T...

 had himself described the unconscious, reciprocal reactivation (without using Sullivan’s terms) in his essay, “The Problem of Ego Identity,” in Stein et al.’s Identity and Anxiety (1960).

Though the term is not used in so many words, the interpersonal manifestation to which it refers appears regularly in the case study literature of the family systems school of psychologists, including Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley
Jay Haley
Jay Douglas Haley was one of the founding figures of brief and family therapy in general and of the strategic model of psychotherapy, and he was one of the more accomplished teachers, clinical supervisors, and authors in these disciplines.-Life and works:Conceived in a log cabin on his family's...

, Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. He had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe...

, Virginia Satir
Virginia Satir
Virginia Satir was an American author and psychotherapist, known especially for her approach to family therapy and her work with Systemic Constellations...

 and Salvador Minuchin
Salvador Minuchin
Salvador Minuchin is a family therapist born and raised in San Salvador, Entre Ríos, Argentina. He developed Structural Family Therapy, which addresses problems within a family by charting the relationships between family members, or between subsets of family. These charts represent power dynamics...

. Parataxical integrations are also presented in similar studies reported by Ronald D. Laing, Aaron Esterson
Aaron Esterson
Aaron Esterson was a British psychiatrist, practising in Glasgow.He was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Association along with R. D. Laing- Bibliography:...

, and anthropologist Jules Henry
Jules Henry
Jules Henry was a noted American anthropologist.After studies at the City College of New York, Henry earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 1935. His classmates included Irving Goldman, Ruth Landis and Edward Kennard...

, largely during the 1950s and ‘60s. Harold Searles
Harold Searles
Harold F. Searles, M.D. is one of the pioneers of psychiatric medicine specialising in psychoanalytic treatments of schizophrenia. Harold Searles has the reputation of being a therapeutic virtuoso with difficult and borderline patients; and of being 'not only a great analyst but also a sagacious...

 and Charles McCormack describe manifestations of parataxical integration in their work on borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a personality disorder described as a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person , characterized by depth and variability of moods.The disorder typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood; black and white thinking, or splitting; the...

 in the 1980s and 2000s.

Paul Watzlawick
Paul Watzlawick
Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he has commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy...

, et al, describes the concept in his book, Change: "...the circularity of their interaction makes it undecidable... whether a given action is the cause or effect of an action by the other party... either party sees its actions as determined and provoked by the other's actions..."

Rodger Garrett also employs the concept in his millennial era work on borderline personality disorder and family of origin etiology, typically using the term “reciprocal reactivity” along with it.

Reciprocal reactivity was studied by Gary Sperduto et al. in the 1970s, and it is clear from the abstract of his paper (see below) that his definitional terminology equated to Sullivan’s.

Numerous mass market psychology authors, many writing about the topic of "codependence
Codependence
Codependency is unhealthy love and a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively caretaking ways that negatively impact one's relationships and quality of life. It also often involves placing a lower priority on one's own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others...

," including Melody Beattie
Melody Beattie
Melody Beattie is the author of Codependent No More, published in 1987 by the Hazelden Foundation. The book was successful and influential within the self-help movement, selling over eight million copies and introducing the word codependent to the general public.Following the success of Codependent...

, Pia Mellody, Anne Wilson Schaef, Barry & Janae Weinhold, describe the interpersonal manifestation without using Sullivan’s term per se.

References
  • Bateson, G.; Jackson, D.; Haley, J.; Weakland, J.: Toward a Theory of Schizophrena, in Journal of Behavioral Science, Vol. 1, 1956.

  • Beattie, M.: Codependent No More, San Francisco: Harper/Hazelden, 1987.

  • Beattie, M.: Beyond Codependency, San Francisco: Harper/Hazelden, 1989.

  • Benjamin, L. S.: Interpersonal Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorders, Second Edition, New York: Guilford Press, 1996.

  • http://sighkoblahgrr.blogspot.com/2008/04/borderline-lovers-narcissists-drugs.html Garrett, R.: The Borderline Lover as the Narcissist’s Drug, 2008.

  • Goldenberg, I.; Goldenberg, H.: Family Therapy: An Overview, Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, 2000.

  • Henry, J.: Pathways to Madness, New York: Random House, 1965.

  • Jackson, D. (editor): The Etiology of Schizophrenia: Genetics / Physiology / Psychology / Sociology, New York: Basic Books, 1960.

  • Laing, R. D.; Esterson, A.: Sanity, Madness and the Family, London: Tavistock, 1964.

  • McCormack, C.: Treating Borderline States in Marriage: Dealing with Oppositionalism, Ruthless Aggression, and Severe Resistance, Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aaronson, 2000.

  • Mellody, P.; Miller, A. W.: Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Come From, How It Sabotages Our Lives, San Francisco: Harper, 1989.

  • Schaef, A. W.: Escape from Intimacy, New York: Harper-Collins, 1987.

  • Schaef, A. W.: Co-dependence: Misunderstood, Mistreated, New York: HarperOne, 1992.

  • Searles, H.: My Work with Borderline Patients, New York: Jason Aronson, 1986.

  • Sperduto, G.; Calhoun, K.; Ciminero, A.: The effects of reciprocal reactivity on positively and negatively valenced, self-rated behaviors, in Journal of Behavior Research and Therapy, Vol. 16, No. 6, 1978.

  • Stein, M.; Vidich, A.; White, D. (editors): Identity and Anxiety: Survival of the Person in Mass Society, Glencoe, IL: The Free Press of Glencoe, Illinois, 1960.

  • Watzlawick, P.; Weakland, J.; Fisch, R.: Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution, New York: W. W. Norton, 1974.

  • Weinhold, B.; Weinhold, J.: Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap, Revised Edition, Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008.
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