Chapter 6

FORMATS AND RELATIONS AT THE LEVEL OF THE POSITION

By describing the sequential relation of point units which occurred again and again throughout Session I and demonstrating how these were integrated into positions and relations, I can show the origin of the positions described in Section A. Then we can go on to the two major types of relations, which I will term complementary and reciprocal.

THE REPETITIVE CYCLING OF POINT UNITS IN SESSION I

As described in Chapter 4, Mrs. V began the session by recounting an episode about the day Marge became psychotic. You will recall the steps in this account:

1.Mrs. V addressed a recounting point to Malone. She quoted Marge as asking to be helped upstairs. Then she intercalated a comment about her daughter: ‘A young girl like that.’

2.Then Mrs. V addressed Whitaker and said: *The next day I thought she’d get better. She has a doctor’s prescription.’

3.Then, Mrs. V turned to Marge, who had muttered a comment, and said: *Did I say anything wrong, dear?’

4.Mrs. V tried to continue her narrative, but Marge mumbled something and Whitaker invited the girl to speak up.

When Marge did speak up, the Period 2 constellation appeared. These steps followed:

5.Marge asked her mother, challengingly: ‘Do you hate me?’ Mrs. V dismissed the comment.

6.Then Marge and Whitaker broke off their alliance.

7.Malone asked Mrs. V a question, thus restarting her narrative.

Subsequent Repetitions of the Point Sequence

This sequence of point units recurred again and again throughout the session. There were variations at each recurrence. Sometimes, for example, Mrs. V completed a much longer series of recounting points before she was interrupted. Marge’s challenges became more and more direct and sometimes Whitaker initiated the first challenge. But the variations did not alter the basic features of these cyclic recurrences. In short, this first cycle was a prototype for point sequences which recurred throughout the entire session.

Consider, for example, the second repetition, which is depicted in the multimodality transcript beginning at 2 minutes:

In response to Malone’s question, Mrs. V recounted her husband’s death. She addressed her comments to Malone at first. Marge, as usual, lamented and disparaged.

At 2 minutes: 20 seconds, Whitaker asked Mrs. V a question and the older woman turned to him and recounted a rather long series of point units.

At 2 minutes: 45 seconds, Marge lamented to Whitaker, then insinuated that her mother laughed when her husband had died.

The men did not support Marge this time. Instead, Whitaker addressed another question to Mrs. V. At 2 minutes and twenty seconds and at 3 minutes and 12 seconds Whitaker turned away from Marge in a repetition of his point, rejecting. Marge went ahead and challenged her mother without Whitaker’s support, but she quickly trailed off and conceded. Malone started to rock forward, so Marge did not shift position and escalate a Period 2 activity. It appeared that an active period of contending was warded off.

At 3 minutes and 40 seconds another repetition of this point sequence began, (I class the sequence as a continuation of Period 1 since the full shift to a Period Z did not occur):

Mrs. V again recounted and Marge lamented and disparaged. Mrs. V dismissed the girl’s comments. Marge appealed to Whitaker, but the men each performed the nose-wiping monitor and Whitaker turned his head away. He asked Mrs. V another question instead of picking up Marge's insinuation.

Again a Period 2 did not occur. But the point cycle immediately began again and this time did eventuate in a full Period 2.

There is no point in describing subsequent point cycles one after the other. They followed this same basic pattern of sequence throughout the session — even in Phase II when the relationships and roles changed. So it will be more economical to abstract the pattern and generalize about it, as I have in previous chapters.

Notice that the behaviors of each participant influence the others ' sequence. Their actions bring about some modification or the use of an alternative performance. But in each case the format was ultimately adhered to. The performer got back in some measure to his original part. His previous position was resumed, though modified.

Point Cycles in the Position

The reader already knows that these sequences of points were integrated into one or more positions in the performance of each individual. Each person performed one or more positions in each period and there were two fully developed periods to a cycle (I will simply remind you of the positional cycles in each performance).

Mrs. V's Format of Positions in a Cycle

Mrs. V performed two positions in each cycle as follows:

A.Explaining which consisted of a sequence of recounting points, in which defending and disparaging points were sometimes intercalated. The sequence was addressed from a spot next to Marge toward Malone, then toward Whitaker.

B.Maintaining which consisted of a sequence of defending points, often ending with conciliating or conceding, and sometimes interspersed with points more typical for other participants; e. g. , ironic supporting, confronting, insinuating, disparaging, and questioning. This sequence was addressed to Marge.

Marge ' s Format of Positions in a Cycle

Marge carried off two well-developed and lasting positions in each cycle:

A.Passive protestingwhich consisted of a sequence of disparaging and lamenting points, to which she added insinuations. This position was addressed to the men, the camera, and to the floor.

B.Contending which consisted of a sequence of chailenging, accusing, and insinuating points, usually followed by conciliating and/or conceding.

Marge tried to escalate challenging point units to a position of contending while she was in the position of passive protesting. These did not come off, but she did intercalate a number of brief positions in each cycle.

C.In transition between passive protesting and contending, Marge intercalated a point of appealing and sometimes a position of appealing and lamenting, which was addressed to Whitaker. At the end of a Period 2, she would again turn to Whitaker and enact the point, repelling. Through the entire cycle Marge was likely to enact an escalating sequence of nonlanguage point units, quasi-courting and Kleenex play.

D.In either phase of this cycle Marge might intercaíate the brief positions, interfering or resigning.

Whitaker ' s Positional Format

A.Whitaker maintained a position of listening and questioning. In Period 1 he would question Mrs. V, but he would tend to pick up Marge’s insinuations and challenges as Period 1 progressed. When Marge enacted repelling or when Malone intervened, Whitaker would use the point rejecting to break off the relation with Marge and the cycle would then terminate.

Malone’s Positional Format

A.Malone maintained a position of listening and questioning. He would primarily attend to Mrs. V in a Period 1, then shift to Marge in a Period 2

B.Then he would intervene, confront-Marge, and restart Mrs. V's narrative, thus ending a Period or warding off its occurrence.

C.In the first 5 and the last 1Z minutes Malone moved in synchrony with Marge, a behavior which I will later claim indicated some covert alliance between them.

The repetition of these periods and cycles produced a structure which is diagrammed in Figure 6-1.

Figure 6-1:Diagram of the Structure of Session I

THE COMPLEMENTARY RELATIONS OF POSITIONS

At any moment of time, of course, each participant was engaged in some one of these point performances and the behaviors of each point were interrelated. A number of types of such relations occurred. Consider first two such types which had a common quality.

Complementary Sequences of Language

In each Period 1 of these cycles Marge and her mother repeatedly performed in a collaborative way and addressed the behavior to the men. Just before and early in any Period 2, Marge and Whitaker showed a conjoint enactment of a similar type.

The Complementary Sequence Between Mrs. V and Marge

As Mrs. V recounted, Marge would disparage or make an insinuation about what her mother was saying. Often Marge would match one such point with each of Mrs. V's recounting points. Here is an example which began at 2 minutes: 40 seconds:

Often the parallel metacommunicative points of disparagement that Marge used were kinesic — a look of mock incredulity, a shrug of the shoulders and upright palm gesture (which seemed to indicate: ‘What can one do about a comment like that’), or a mocking imitation.

Notice the character of this relation: a metacommunicative reaction was made to a communicative utterance. Both points were ordinarily addressed to the men.

The point performances of Marge in the sequence quoted above had an additional quality of lamenting. Sometimes this quality was pronounced. Marge would match every comment her mother made with a lament parallel to her mother’s recounting point in address and duration.

The Complementary Sequences Between Marge and Whitaker

Marge would make an insinuation about her mother or maybe an insinuation combined with a lament. She might repeat this several times in various forms. Then Whitaker would sometimes pick up the idea and reformulate it as a challenging question to Mrs. V. When Whitaker picked up the challenge in this manner, Marge would shift to contending and a Period 2 consteilation would be initiated.

The sequence quoted below led to the first occurrence of Period 2. Notice that Mrs. V and Malone also participated in this first occurrence.

At 20 seconds Marge whispered something.

If the members of an alliance carry out the same type of behaviors one after another, Birdwhistell (1967) calls it tandemic sequencing. These sequences ended up with one person (usually Whitaker or Marge) addressing a remark about another person to a third person. Thus Marge, for instance, commented on what her mother said: ‘She is mentally ill. ’she pointed to her mother, but addressed the remark to Whitaker. At the end of another such sequence Whitaker said to Marge: ‘She [Mrs. V] is saying the devil was your father. ‘

As we will see, the metacommunicative comment can be addressed to someone, as the men tended to do, or it can be made about someone, but addressed to someone else. Ordinarily we would call this configuration, ‘talking about someone.’

The Side-by-Side Relation

These complementary relations were almost invariably performed by people who sat side by side. Marge sat near and like her mother, when she commented on Mrs.V's account. When Whitaker took up Marge's insinuations and restated them, Marge got up and sat nearer to him and in the posture he was using.

Side-by-side positioning in a group is an indication of corroboration such as would be expected in an established relationship. It ordinarily occurs between relatives, spouses, colleagues, or allies.¹ Thus Marge sat side by side with her mother in any Period 1. But she shifted to sitting as close to a side-by-side position with Whitaker as she could whenever he supported her and allied with her against Mrs. V.

In a side-by-side relationship the partners address in common a mutual task or a third party (or parties). Thus Mrs. V and Marge, when side by side, addressed the men. But in Period 2 when Marge was, in effect, side by side with Whitaker, she came into a face-to-face address with Mrs. V.

Congruent Postures an Interactional Synchrony

Two or more members of a side-by-side complementarity²will probably be in the same posture. Not only will they be oriented in the same direction but at least half their bodies will show a postural isomorphism. For example, each member will have his arms crossed, his left leg crossed over his right, and each will be leaning to his left. Another subgrouping of participants may be present who share a different postural set; for instance they may all have their feet together on the floor, their hands clasped on their laps, and their heads cocked to the same side.³ These postural isomorphisms, direct or mirror-imaged, I call parallelism (Scheflen 1964). Charny (1966), describing the same phenomena, used the term, ‘postural congruence.’

In any period Marge and Mrs. V showed such parallelism.

Figure 6-2:Marge in Complementarity With Her Mother; Then With Whitaker

Participants in parallel postures are likely to show synchronous movement; they puff on their cigarettes at the same time, use similar facial expressions, direct their gazes coordinatively, sometimes say the same things, and gesture alike. Condon and Ogston (1966, 1967), using high-speed filming, have shown that people in established relations also show synchrony of micromovements at a ‘beat’ of about a forty-eighth of a second.

In general, people in parallelism and synchrony are acting as a social unit.⁴ In psychoanalytic terms, they are said to be ‘identified.’ But they may be following a common traditional program and need not be copying each other.

Dissociation

It is apparent that Marge was not an agreeable and cooperative partner in the mother-daughter side-by-side relation. She indicated this in speech and gesture, as I have described. She also indicated this by intervals of dissociation. She would sprawl back on the sofa in the position of ‘resigning.’ For a few seconds she would not engage in the activities of the session. She would turn her head away from the others, fall into a marked hypotonus, and appear depressed and apathetic. In these periods she did not sit near or like her mother.

At other times Marge would partially dissociate. She would not sprawl, but she would look down, cover her face, and seem not to be interested in the behavior of the others. But she would maintain her parallelism of posture and she would make comments under her breath. When we could hear these, it was evident that they were relevant to the immediate account her mother was providing. She only appeared to be dissociated or, one might say, her address was discontinued (Figure 6-3).

Figure 6-3:Marge Dissociated in All Modalities Except Speech

Such dissociation can be emphasized or exaggerated. A participant can make a point of not agreeing or not participating in an aliiance or side-by-side relation. I think this is what Marge was doing.

Whitaker acted similarly in turning his head away from Marge.

Defining a Complementarity

So the basic feature of a complementarity is not a ‘felt* affiliation or agreement. The basic characteristic seems to be the shared enactment of a single role or part. The partners share in a division of labor — something that one of them could do alone. So Mrs. V and Marge were to present a history that Mrs. V could have provided without Marge. And Marge and Whitaker came into a side-by-side relationship in a shared confrontation with Mrs. V.

In formal ritualized activities like group dancing and singing, the partners in a side-by-side relation may perform exactly the same way synchronously and in unison.

RECIPROCAL RELATIONS IN SESSION I

Vis-ӈ-vis Configurations in Periods 1 and 2

In any Period 1 the two women sat side by side with each other and faced the men vis-à-vis (Figure 6-4), At the level of the position, this constellation can be diagrammed as follows:

Sometimes Marge would dissociate herself, looking down or away, and Mrs. V would face the men alone.

In any Period 2 Marge and Mrs. V came into a well-developed vi s —éi — vi s relationship with each other. (In a Period 1 when Marge contended with her mother, but did not stand up and turn her whole body, she came into a partial vis-à-vis relation with her mother. ) The Period 2 constellation could be diagrammed as follows:

Figure 6-4:The Major Vis-à-vis Relations of Session I. Top: In recounting, the two women face the men, turning from one man to the other. .Middle: When Marge dissociated, Mrs. V turned alternately to Malone and Whitaker. Bottom: In contending and maintaining the women faced each other.

The Transitional Vis-k-Vis

Just before Marge shifted to the Period 2 arrangement for confronting her mother, she would come briefly into a vis-a-vis with Whitaker. As she returned to sitting with her mother at the end of a Period 2, she would also face Whitaker for a few seconds as they repelled and rejected each other. In these instances Mrs. V would turn and address Malone. As a consequence the group briefly broke down into two separate twosomes (Figure 6-5).

Figure 6-5:The Brief Transitional Twosomes of Session I. Above: Before contending Marge lamented or appealed to Whitaker. Two dissociated reciprocals then occurred. Below: Before she returned to sitting with mother Marge would turn back to Whitaker and act ‘repellingly.’ (In the motion picture frame traced above she was captured turning from Whitaker while exhibiting her legs)

Chronologically, then, the vis-à-vis configurations appeared in each full or abortive cycle in the following order:

People who are related in a vis-à-vis orientation characteristically interact or reciprocate with each other. They so something to each other; feed each other, or court or groom or mate or else inform each other.⁵ If people are to carry out such reciprocation they will ordinarily stand or sit down facing each other. If they are not facing they will turn to each other when they begin to interact. If people find themselves in a face-toface relation, they are more or less constrained to reciprocal behaviors, and they may have to actively inhibit such behavior if for some reason they are not to engage in it. In situations like Session I, in which two people in complementarity do not agree, they will characteristically turn to each other and try to recalibrate their relationship.

Thus Mrs. V and Marge often turned face to face for a brief argument foUowed by an attempt at reconciliation. Whitaker and Malone only exchanged glances once in the entire session. (This was when Marge lamented that they were watching her get angry at her mother.) I will describe the complementary relation of the men's behavior in Section E.

The behaviors among participants in a vis-à-vis relation is basically different than the complementary relation in a side-by-side arrangement. It takes at least two people to behave reciprocally.

The sequencing of reciprocal behavior may consist of simpie action-reaction or interactional sequences, or such sequences may escalate or progress. Both of these types often occurred in the vis-à-vis relations of Session I as I will now illustrate.

Simple Reactive Sequences

In the simplest case one participant will ask a question and the other will answer him. But often, especially in psychotherapy, the response is not a simple question. A communicative action triggers a metacommunicative response.

Question and Answer Sequences

Ordinarily, for instance, a speaker makes a statement to which someone responds with a question. This question is followed by a reply which may elicit a further question. Such sequencing often is called interaction. For example, just after five minutes in Session I, Mrs. V admitted she had mind pictures (hallucinations) :

Communicative-Metасommunicative Sequences

But Whitaker's questions were not usually simple requests for detail. As the session proceeded he loaded his questions with suggestive paralanguage and they took on the quality of confrontations. For example, at 14 minutes: 41 seconds Mrs. V denied that she had ever been sick, but Whitaker said, ‘Can you tell us about the last time you were sick?’

Psychotherapists will recognize this type of questioning. The question constitutes an indirect challenge to the metaconceptions of the patient. It may be framed gingerly and ambiguously so the patient can ignore the implication and answer literally if he is unable or unwilling to pursue the matter (see Chapter 11).

Programmed Reciprocation

Interviewing

Such sequences are likely to be escalated. A progressive series of alternative behaviors follow a tact or move toward a focus. In the sequence below Whitaker interviews Marge, leading her toward a more specific statement.

The Quasi-Courting and Kleenex Play Reciprocals

The nonlexical sequences also tended to be escalated according to a pattern. Thus on two occasions Marge took out a Kleenex, blew her nose, then waved the Kleenex about, and finally plopped it down on the sofa near Whitaker. On one of these occasions Whitaker picked it up and handed it to her, thus initiating the first tactile contact. And Whitaker’s hand-play sequence also built up to a tactile contact.

The same escalation occurred with the quasi-courting behavior. Marge would begin a sequence by sitting up and daintily crossing her ankles. She would then cock her head, put her hand on her hip, smile, and become increasingly coquettish. Then she would either cross her legs or exhibit her thighs. As she did this she and Whitaker would exchange glances. She would ‘point’ her courtship-like behavior to him and address appeals. Finally on some occasions he would move in toward her and face her so the transitional tête-’c1-tête configurations would occur (Figure 6-6).

Figure 6-6:Behaviors in Formation of the Whitaker-Marge Relationship

The Alliance-Breaking Reciprocals

The sequence of mutual rejection between Marge and Whitaker at the end of a Period 2 also escalated in a regular pattern: Marge would sprawl, then cross her legs in a bizarre caricature of sexy behavior (Figure 6-7), making a sexy, provocative comment as she crossed her legs. Whitaker would then turn his head away from her. Marge would then look away from Whitaker. She would lower her head, appear dejected, and look to Malone, who was rocked forward in his chair to confront her. Then Marge would stand up and move back to sitting near and like her mother.

Figure 6-7:Behaviors in the Disaffiliation of Marge and Whitaker (End of Period 2)

It is difficult to claim that participants in sequences like these are merely responding to each other. Such reciprocal escalations occur again and again in the same form. They appear to follow a format and thus be programmed.⁶ They do not seem to be innovated for the occasion or arrived at by trial and error.

Many of the reciprocals of common culture are like this. In courting, for example, there may be an alternation of actions, but these escalate toward an ultimate goal and follow a traditional format.

In a game the moves follow each other, but usually they do not simply alternate in a cyclic way. Each move requires a progressive countermove and, once it has been made, the situation is no longer the same.

So I will reserve the term interaction for sequences in which it appears that each action does induce the other,⁷ But I will speak of sequences as reciprocal relations if they seem to be precalibrated (Bateson 19 58). If the participants are following a customary program they will respond not only to what the other person has just done, but also to what they can expect as a usual next step. For example, in the case of the disaffiliation between Marge and Whitaker, I do not think either of them were simply responding to a rejection. The pattern could be initiated by either of them. It occurred just as Malone rocked forward. Although the series was exaggerated by Marge’s particular manner of performance, it is a common reciprocal in a transaction, used to terminate an inappropriate relation and get back to the usual definition of that situation.

Whenever participants are engaged in such programmed reciprocals they are likely to show synchronous and postural parallelism, just as they do when they are behaving in a complementary alliance. It is therefore likely that parallel postures and interactional synchrony indicate common involvement in some traditional format of behavior, whatever their roles and relationships.

MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS RELATIONS

I would like to remind the reader of something about relations which I detailed in Section B. In Session I the participants were not in complementary reciprocal relations exclusively. They were, rather, almost always in both simultaneously, side by side with one participant while facing another. Marge, for instance, would disparage her mother’s behavior in complementarity while she looked at and appealed to Whitaker.

This type of multiple engagement occurred throughout Session I and unified the various relations to make a single social organization. Thus Whitaker and Malone related reciprocally to the women and in complementarity to each other and so did the women. And Whitaker would relate reciprocally to Mrs. V while in complementarity with Marge.

From the standpoint of any individual, we would say he is multiply engaged. He may sit side by side with one person, speak to another, and touch a third. Marge is shown in such relations in the upper drawing of Figure 6-8. She is in the act of shifting back to a side-by-side relation with her mother and away from Whitaker. In the process she temporarily addressed Malone.

From the standpoint of the group a configuration of multiple simultaneous relations coexists. In the lower half of Figure 6-7, Whitaker and Malone are partly side by side, each facing the women. The women are side by side, oriented to the men in their torso position, but face to face with each other.

Figure 6-8:Multiple Simultaneous Relations in Session I

COMMENT: CUSTOMARY RELATIONS IN A NARRATIVE TYPE OF TRANSACTION

In the main the relations which I have described here are characteristic of narrative and conversational transactions like Session I.

The Customary Side by Side, Complementary Relations

Some features of the mother-daughter relationship in Session I are by no means usual. We would not usually see the bizarre exaggeration of postural shifting or of courting behavior which Marge used, nor the huddling against her mother. But the basic features of side-by-side relations with intervals of turning toward each other are quite characteristic of a motherdaughter relationship in conversation with outsiders. Whenever two or more people have an established relationship in which they are not afforded an equal status, they will be expected to sit side by side.

In Figure 6-9 I have drawn the configuration of seating in another psychotherapy session. A husband and wife here are facing a therapist.

Figure 6-9:A Threesome Arrangement in Which a Husband and Wife Sit Side by Side Facing a Therapist

It is also characteristic for partners in a side-by-side relation to turn to each other whenever they disagree or need to recalibrate their shared role. They may indicate nonagreement by dissociating. If one of the partners initiates a flirtation, or even if he merely looks unrelated and searches the room with his eyes, he invites relationship from someone outside the partnership and the complementarity may break down with the formation of new alliances as it did periodically in Session I.

We assume that an established relationship is reciprocal in private. The members turn to each other and service each other. But in public the established reciprocal opens up to provide access to others. It becomes a complementarity for exchanging information with outsiders and a developing relationship with these outsiders may be allowed. Thus a dyadic mother-daughter vis-à-vis relation is periodically formed to feed, groom, and teach the child, but it will open to allow mother and daughter to relate to a husband-father and later to a suitor or a psychotherapist (see Chapter 9).

In our culture, at least, when members of an established relationship come together with relative strangers the rule for orientation and seating seems to be something like this. The members of the established relationships will sit on the same side of the room facing each other. The status figures of each subgroup will be afforded the primary vis-à-vis positions and their juniors will array at their sides.

Each partner in a side-by-side arrangement ordinarily carries out a specialized subpart in a customary role. In this case the side-by-side partners will use postural parallelism and synchronous movement. If these partners are of equal status, they will usually sit at the same height and at the same distance from the others in the vis-à-vis. Thus when Marge contested Mrs. V’s occupation of the floor she sat upright exactly like Mrs. V. If one partner is subordinate he will sit lower, farther back, and tend to keep his head down. He takes a less active part, at least in speaking. His behavior is essentially supplementary, though he may be afforded a ‘turn’ for more active participation.

Thus I think of Mrs. V as the primary, initial narrator in Session I. In Phase I Marge was a ‘supplementary’ narrator. She was sometimes afforded a turn by Whitaker and she sometimes tried to usurp the position, whereupon she was confronted and rejected.

The Reciprocal Relations in a Narrative

In a conversation some narrator addresses the other persons who are in a vis-à-vis relation with him. His remarks are ordinarily addressed to all of those of roughly equal status. Thus the supplementary narrator and the other side-by-side partners are not directly addressed.

At sites where conversation is traditionally held, the furniture is usually arranged for such a configuration. Large chairs face each other, for instance. In large groups a lectern or rostrum faces rows of chairs for the audience. In a semi-circular arrangement, major chairs are often at the ends of the semi-circle. Session I was held in a room which was arranged as a living room, with two chairs facing a sofa.

If three principal speakers are present, the seating arrangement may be triangular and each narrator traverses his head to speak to two other vis-a-vis partners, as Mrs. V did when Marge was dissociated.

If only two people are present they may sit facing each other, but they will not usually close their orientations into a complete vis-^-vis unless they are on very intimate terms. In psychotherapy, for instance, where there is one patient and one therapist, the two participants will ordinarily sit somewhat at right angles to each other, as I have depicted in Figure 6-10.

Figure 6-10:Therapist and Patient Sitting at Angles. They thus include each other and the camera with only a turn of the head. They also avoid a full vis-à-vis of total bodies which makes leg room scarce and implies an intimate relationship.

But the therapist and patient will come into a more and more complete vis-à-vis relationship as they enter a state of rapport. In a group larger than two, such complete vis-à-vis relations will exclude the others and break the group into subgroups.

The listeners in a conversation conventionally are enjoined to face the speaker, remain relatively quiet, and from time to time provide comprehension signals and affirmations.

Whitaker and Malone were co-listeners at the beginning of Session I. Accordingly they at first used the positions which are typical in this role. They suppressed their own speaking, addressed the narrator, and sat back slightly hunched down in their seats. They assumed attentive facial expressions and occasionally signaled comprehension (see Chapter 4).

Proper listeners are thus constrained to limit their speaking to questions and points of order and support the narrative with attentiveness. They are also constrained to limit nonrelevant behavior. They are to avoid attention to participants other than the speaker.

If you recall the times you have tried to complete a complicated narrative in the presence of an itchy child, you can gain some recollection of the amount of activity which could occur as noise in a transaction and you can guess at the years of training it takes to make a disciplined participant. Also recall the amount of irrelevant or partly relevant mental activity you carry out during a transaction. A tremendous amount of ‘nonperformance’ thus occurs in accommodating as a listener.

Such suppression is evident in a kind of active nonmobility. The body shows signs of hypertonicity or tension. The hands are often held crossed or closed, or over the genitals or the mouth, and one hand may actively restrain the other. And the legs may be crossed and one foot locked behind the other ankle. If listeners are smokers, they will commonly smoke while listening. Psychotherapists discipline themselves to an even more marked immobility in the position of listening. Sometimes they hardly move at all.

But even the most disciplined listeners are not entirely impassive. They will show perceptible microbehaviors. Their eyes narrow, their nostrils flare. The skin blanches and reddens. The lips are pursed and sucking movements may occur. Rings are touched, the fingers are steepled. The feet are pointed, shaken, waved, and so on.

It is therefore possible to make psychoanalytic inferences about the participants' cognitive and affective states, even though they are not speaking. In communicational language, some of these behaviors are metacommunicative reactions, which may refer to attitudes about the speaker's behavior and they thus may influence and alter it. And others of these behaviors represent abortive performances which indicate suppressed plans from which we may infer motives. So the listeners’ nonparticipation is relative. When Mrs. V narrated, Malone was markedly controlled, Whitaker less so, and Marge continually was overtly active.

The Narrative Format

The narrator will follow some format in developing his narrative. He may make a generalization, then fill in details or substantiations. He may list details and then draw a conclusion. Or he may narrate events in a chronological order as Mrs. V did.

But the format will ordinarily include intervals for questions or comments. Mrs. V sometimes paused, I think for this purpose, but ordinarily she was interrupted. The narrative format may also provide time for the supplementary narrator to add ideas or details. Occasionally Mrs. V did invite Marge to speak more audibly. And the format ordinarily provides that a principal narrator will complete his account, and turn over the floor to some other narrator for the presentation of his views.

Thus there is an over-all format for a conversation which provides parts for all the participants. This format is generally known in common culture, followed by the participants, and enforced when it is violated. We ordinarily abstract the rules of the format as etiquette.