Bateson’s epistemology proposes a “communicational world” based on cybernetics, systems theory, and ecology. This “communicational world” is studied in terms of its structure, the function within it, and its self-referentialness.

This article, in the form of a dialogue between a poet and a family therapist, attempts to create a context for the emergence of a ‘Dostoyevskian dialogue’ wherein all voices may be heard and no final authoratative voice exists. This form is contrasted with autonomous monologue, Batesonian metalogue, self-refuting negate-alogues, and Socratic dialogue. Particular attention is paid to the ongoing dialogue between family therapists and neurobiologists. A critique is made of the passive acceptance by therapists of the neurobiologists’ pre-emptive prescriptions regarding how one must interact with their dialogues which become, in effect, repetitive rhetoric.