This is about how double messages penetrate into all possible structures of upbringing and communication and split the psyche. “Stay there, come here”, “Go to sleep, you’re tired”, “Never dare raise your voice at others!!!”, “Oh my onion”, “Who do you love more, mom or dad?”, “What You wanted it, it’s your own fault!” - these are hopeless phrases in which one message overlaps the previous one and it is not clear what to believe. That is, I can’t raise my voice at others, but you can shout at me and I can’t do anything. Double messages split the personality and put it into a stupor. Instead of reacting, a person begins to doubt, “Maybe I’m really doing something wrong? There’s something wrong with me. You could treat me unfairly.” And he gets used to the feeling of being “not like that,” and it is not clear what it means to be “like that.” In ordinary life, you can conduct an experiment. Saying “I love you” while silently thinking about hatred, or “What a loser you are” with an intonation of care. You can use your imagination and come up with a variety of designs in which one meaning will overlap the previous one, the main thing is to treat this as a game and not kill each other during the exercise. What to believe? Words or intonations? What are you observing? And if you are an adult, capable of thinking logically and critically, and then no, no, you fall into this trap, then what is it like for a child for whom mom and dad are the whole world? The little daughter comes to her father, shows her first drawing, and dad watches football and nods, “Yeah, yeah, beautiful, well done.” The daughter sees that dad doesn’t care, but he seemed to praise him - who’s wrong? Such phrases greatly undermine self-esteem (with that toxic feeling that something is wrong with you, but what exactly is not clear) plus they develop insincerity due to the fact that you have to constantly understand the contexts. Getting into a stupor, a person, starting from childhood, does not learn to clarify, clarify what exactly was meant and therefore every time he tries to grasp the meaning of what was said, understand it and adapt. This quality is especially developed in women; escapism is more typical for men (refusing to try to figure out what was meant and going into the world of fantasy). The model of such relationships is consolidated and manifests itself in adult relationships. In psychotherapy, examples of double messages arise quite often. When the client says, "I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me," his right leg twitches and the muscles in his neck are so tight that the veins are visible. And then, as a psychotherapist, I stop and pay attention to the fact that the person’s body is reacting to something, and I begin to slow down and stop the client in this process. And gradually we delve deeper into the essence of the experience and come to understand the true meaning of the client’s message.