-16 problem, in particular the interests of and relationships with the powerful prison staff unions. In order to find a lasting solution to this problem, a strategic communication approach with staff should be devised which takes their needs and interests seriously. Questions for monitors • Monitors could deepen their analysis of a human rights problems by asking the following questions: • When did the problem start? How did it evolve? • Which events/situations/actors form part of the problem? • What are the relationships between different actors that might cause or contribute to the problem? • How do different actors see the problem? What is the difference in perspectives and why? • Which (competing) interests are involved in the problem? How could they be brought together? • Are there comparable situations where the problem does not exist or has been solved and which could serve as good practice? 2.4. See circularity: causes are effects and effects are causes Meaning of the principle - the basic idea Closely linked to the relational principle above, systemic thinking stresses that complexity, circular causality and unpredictability characterize (social) life. We commonly think: “If I do A – B happens.” In contrast, systemic thinking posits that most phenomena of life, including communication, occur in “reciprocal feedback loops”22 where cause and effect become indistinguishable: cause is always effect and effect is always cause. As the pioneer in communication theory, Paul Watzlawick famously described in the example of a relationship between a man and a woman: he says: “I withdraw because you nag” and she says: “I nag because you withdraw”, their behaviour becoming both feedback and trigger within the communication.23 22. Seliger, 50-53. 23. Paul Watzlawick, Janet H. Beavin and Don D. Jackson, Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes (W.W. Norton & Company 1967) 56.