Schizophrenic Communication*

Although communication with his fellow men is one of the basic goals to which every person's life is dedicated, it is for the schizophrenic individual an even more absorbing activity. Unlike his relatively healthy fellows, who possess reliable tools of communication in both verbal and non-verbal media, tools to which they can confidently turn as the need arises, he has few if any such dependable techniques. Thus in his activities the communicational facet which is, perhaps, present in every human activity, is the facet which takes precedence over other aspects, or motives, of his behavior. Rarely if ever can he “just” eat, or walk, or read, or listen to music, or whatever, immersed in this as an immediate experience having an end in itself; instead, for him, it presents itself as primarily another front in the unceasing battle for communication with others—or sometimes, for a prevention of disturbing delusional communication with others—a front on which a breakthrough may at last be achieved. The following comments by Ruesch, concerning two of the varieties of nonverbal language in human beings generally, are particularly applicable to the schizophrenic individual and, in my opinion, are proportionately less applicable to the person who has developed reliable modes of communication and who can afford, therefore, to “just live” as a subjectively separate entity at least a fair share of the time:

… Action language embraces all movements that are not used exclusively as signals. Such acts as walking and drinking, for instance, have a dual function; on the one hand, they serve personal needs, and on the other, they constitute statements to those who may perceive them. Object language comprises all intentional and non-intentional

1. * This research was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation to the Chestnut Lodge Research Institute.

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display of material things such as implements, machines, art objects, architectural structures, and last but not least, the human body and wh