Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the idea of the 'schizo-comic' - the processes of meaning and reflexivity that form and operate within the schizophrenic's relationship to the world. The schizo-comic is a response to what Bateson terms the double-bind. The comic, in these terms, is caught between incertitude and solution; between locked in and reflexive mobility.

Paper long abstract:

The schizophrenic, for Gregory Bateson, is locked in the context of the double bind, producing incertitude and, seemingly, lacking all means of escape. They are unable to extricate themselves and so are destined to repeat the patterns that confirm the (illusionary) paranoid fantasies. We would suggest that what is at hand in these contexts is the 'schizo-comic' object - an anthropologically driven relationship that binds all participants to this notion of incertitude and a desire to escape. The function of the comic is precisely to offer a potential escape from this double bind; for the comic can provide the reflexive moment when participant and context are revealed. More often than not the schizophrenic is denied the comic - what he/she delivers up is the very incertitude of the situation. However, the other participants (observers, spectators, analysts) are given the utterance that can be read as comic. In this way the schizo-comic operates both within and outside of the schizophrenic's world order. It is both singular (in meaning) and double (as a bind) at the same time; it is both literal and serious as well as polysemic and comic. This paper will explore how the schizo-comic can been seen in a range of social contexts, but predominately in the formation of relations of power and knowledge.