This situation faced by both me and by the client is not too different from that of the
prisoner's dilemma outlined here:
Two criminals Bob and Al, are captured near the scene of the crime and are
interrogated separately by the police. Without either a confession or one of the
prisoners implicating the other the police will not have enough evidence for the
full criminal charge, and both will get the minimal sentence of a month for a
lesser charge.
If neither man confesses nor implicates the other, then both will serve one month on the
lesser charge.
If each confesses and/or implicates the other, both will go to prison for 10 years.
However, if one burglar confesses and implicates the other, and the other burglar
does not confess, the one who has turned informer will go free, while the other
burglar will go to prison for 20 years on the maximum charge.
The difficulty lies in that neither prisoner can know what the other is planning to do
and no matter how good the rapport between the two, both face a very mind-boggling
decision.
Paradoxes like these are enough to induce a sizable headache and form the basis of Zen,
whereby a Master continuously puts riddles and paradoxes to his pupils with the aim of
creating an altered state of consciousness in the pupil.
Consider the following two examples:
Zen:
Addressing the assembly at the end of the summer sojourn, Suigan said, 'My
brothers, since the beginning of the summer I have done a lot of talking. Look,
have I got any eyebrows left?' Hofuku said, 'The robber has a cowards heart.'
Chokei said, 'Growing!' Ummon said, 'KANF'
Psychiatry:
Shrink: "How are you feeling, John?"
John: "I haven't got a head."
The Palo Alto group suggest that the schizophrenic communication is an attempt at not
communicating, itself a paradox. Engaging in normal dialogue with frank schizophrenic
communication, using normal logic, can begin to induce an uneasy feeling into the
practitioner (something akin to a need to scream loudly and a need to reach for the
thorazine.)
Consider this following exchange I observed occur repeatedly with an institutionalised
schizophrenic lady, almost on a daily basis.
Nurse: "Good morning, Sally, how are you today?"
Sally: "I haven't got a head."
Nurse: "How do you eat then, Sally, if you haven't got a head?"
Sally: "Food just goes down my back, feel here (indicates left shoulder) that's just
food there, feel
it!"
Nurse: "No it isn't, that is just your shoulder."
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