Further light was shed on such interactions by Gregory Bateson's concept of the double bind - "a situation in which contradictory demands are being put upon a child (or patient) in such a way that there is no avenue of escape or challenge". Laing considered that the concept allowed a completely new understanding of what a familial environment could entail: "this paradigm of an insoluble 'can't win' situation, specifically destructive of self-identity" greatly illuminated the way the subject's "disturbed pattern of communication...a reflection of, and reaction to, the disturbed and disturbing pattern characterizing his or her family of origin." In such a light, he considered that "mental illness" might be the outcome of a problematic configuration of a family nexus more than a necessary result of the nexus itself: in the words of Charles Rycroft, the psychotic is "the overt casualty of a deeply concealed family tragedy...the end-result of complex and skew[ed interactions within his family."