Interpreting the ACoA’s (adult children of the alcoholic) levels of perceptions through their self-reflexive messages is the primary objective of this study. Humans have multiple perceptions regarding the myriad of issues that occur in relationships with self and other. In order to check the validity of those perceptions, the individual must move to a higher level of perception in order to look back at the previous perception. In other words, we have to get out of the forest in order to see the trees. To continue the metaphor, the ACoA has difficulty leaving the forest. Six ACoAs were interviewed. The purpose of this study is to interpret the self-reflexive messages of ACoAs through a semiotic-phenomenological analysis. This process begins by (1) reading the description of the ACoA’s reactions to an excerpt from another ACoA’s autobiography, (2) uncovering the self-reflexive messages of the ACoAs, and (3) interpreting the direct, meta, and meta-perspectives of the self-reflexive messages. The results of the analysis support the work of clinical psychologists who have identified the lived-world of the ACoA as a closed system. From a pragmatic point of view, the results suggest that self-reflexive messages may be the key that close and open the dysfunctional interactional system of the ACoA.
Alcoholism; family-relations; adulthood; communication; phenomenology