double bind

 

Double bind is a communicative situation where a person receives different or contradictory messages. The term, coined by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson and his colleagues (including Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley and John H. Weakland), attempts to account for the onset of schizophrenia without simply assuming an organic brain dysfunction.^[1][2] Today it is more importantly understood as an example of Bateson's approach to the complexities of communication.

The phenomenon itself was functionally observed in its negative sense, and utilised in a therapeutic context, by Milton H. Erickson. The double bind is based on paradox turned to contradiction.

Explanation

The double bind is often misunderstood to be a simple Catch-22 situation, where the victim is trapped by two conflicting demands. While it is true that at the core of the double bind are two conflicting demands, the difference lies in how they are imposed upon the victim, what the victim's understanding of the situation is, and who imposes these demands upon the victim. Unlike the usual no-win situation, the victim is largely unaware of the exact nature of the paradoxical situation he or she is in. This is because a demand is imposed upon them by someone they regard with respect, and the demand itself is inherently impossible to fulfill. Bateson defines the double bind as follows (paraphrased):

1. The situation involves two or more persons, one of whom is designated, for the purposes of definition, as the "victim". The others are people who are in some way in a higher position to the victim, for example a figure of authority such as a parent whom the victim respects.
2. Repeated experience. The double bind is a recurrent theme in the experience of the victim and as such cannot be constituted as a single traumatic experience.
3. A primary injunction is imposed upon the victim by the other person in one of two forms: (a) Do "X", or I will punish you. (b) Do not do "X", or I will punish you. The punishment is assumed to be either the withdrawing of love, the expression of hate and anger, or abandonment resulting from the authority figure's expression of extreme helplessness.
4. A secondary injunction is imposed upon the victim that conflicts with the first at a higher and more abstract level. For example, "Do what I told you but only do it because you want to." However, it is not necessary that this injunction be expressed verbally.
5. If necessary, a tertiary injunction is imposed upon the victim to prevent them from escaping the dilemma.
6. Finally, Bateson states that the complete list of the previous requirements may be unnecessary in the event that the victim is already viewing their world in double bind patterns. Bateson goes on to give the general characteristics of such a relationship:
   1. When the victim is involved in an intense relationship; that is, a relationship in which he feels it is vitally important that he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that he may respond appropriately.
   2. And, the victim is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and one of these denies the other.
   3. And, the victim is unable to comment on the messages being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e., he cannot make a metacommunicative statement.

Thus the essence of a double-bind is two conflicting demands, neither of which can be ignored, which leave the victim torn both ways in such a way that whichever demand they try to meet, the other demand cannot be met. "I must do it but I can't do it" is a typical description of the double-bind experience.

For a double bind to be effective, the victim cannot plainly see that the demand placed on them by the primary injunction is in direct conflict with the secondary injunction. In this sense the double bind differentiates itself from a simple contradictory Catch-22 to a more inexpressible internal conflict where the victim vigorously wants to meet the demands of the primary injunction but fails each time because the victim fails to see that the situation is completely incompatible with the demands of the secondary injunction. Thus victims may express feelings of extreme anxiety in such a situation as they attempt to fulfill the demands of the primary injunction, but are met with obvious contradictions in their actions.

For example, a common double bind in western culture are the marriage vows taken by the bride and groom when they make an oath to love each other until death. In this situation, the primary injunction is the oath itself, and the secondary injunction is that which is imposed onto them by their society, that their love must be true. Thus a conflict arises in their relationship if either party falls out of love with the other, but attempts to fulfill their obligation to the oath. The more he or she tries to love the other, the less genuine their love is.

The double bind was originally presented as a situation that could possibly lead to schizophrenia if imposed upon young children, or simply those with unstable and weak personalities. Creating a situation where the victim could not make any comment or "metacommunicative statement" about their dilemma would, in theory, escalate their state of mental anxiety. Today, it is more important as an example of Bateson's approach to the complexities of communication.

The solution to a double-bind is to place the problem in a larger context, a state Bateson identified as Learning III, a step up from Learning II, which requires only learned responses to reward/consequence situations. In Learning III, the double bind is contextualized and understood as an impossible, no-win scenario. Bateson maintained that in the case of the schizophrenic, the double bind is presented continually and habitually within the family context. By the time the child is old enough to have identified the double bind situation, it has already been internalized and the child is unable to confront it. The solution, then, is to create an escape from the conflicting logical demands of the double bind in the world of the delusional system.

The Double Bind in Evolution

Having proposed the double bind theory, Bateson went on to be dismayed that it was only considered in the context of psychiatry. Bateson recognized that the double bind also plays a role in evolution, for example: "Humans disagree about important things like politics and religion because if there was unanimous agreement about those important things, humans would no longer be human and humanity as we know it would become extinct." This may sound quite strange, but it is quite logical - if everything is 'good' how can 'great' become successful without making 'good' worse/obsolete? To put it another way, whatever pattern makes the fit survive is also the thing which (ultimately) must doom the pattern to extinction.

Usage in Zen Buddhism

According to philosopher and theologian Alan Watts, the double bind has long been used in Zen Buddhism as a therapeutic tool. The Zen Master purposefully imposes the double bind upon his students (through various "skillful means", called upaya) in hopes that they achieve enlightenment (satori). One of the most prominent techniques used by Zen Masters (especially those of the Rinzai school) is called the koan, in which the master gives his or her students a question and instructs them to pour all their mental energies into finding the answer to it. As an example of a koan, a student can be asked to present to the master their genuine self, "Show me who you really are." According to Watts, the student will eventually realize that there's nothing they can do, and also nothing they can not do, to present their true self, and thus they truly learn the Buddhist concept of anatman (non-self) via reductio ad absurdum.

Phrase examples

• Mother telling her son: "You must love me"

The primary injunction here is the command itself; the secondary injunction is the unspoken demand that the child must love the mother genuinely, of its own accord.

• Zen koan: "Be genuine" or "Who are you?"

Argued by Watts to be the underlying theme of all Zen koans, the idea here is to present to the roshi (master) your true self. The more the student tries the phonier they are, and even the act of not trying is just another version of trying.

• "You must be free"

Freedom is the ability to be spontaneous and do whatever you want, to be told that you must do this means that you are conforming to a commandment that orders you to express a state of freedom.

• Mother to son: "Show your relatives how you play"

Child play is a spontaneous process that the child does of its own accord, to be forced to play is not play. This is very similar to the double bind: "You must be free".

• "You should enjoy playing with the children, just like other fathers"

Same as the double bind between the mother and son.

Criticism

Gregory Bateson's double bind theory is very complex and has only been partly tested; there are gaps in the current psychological and experimental evidence that is required to establish causation. Current subjective assessments of individuals, faced with making a serious decision while exposed to conflicting messages, report feelings of anxiety. It is argued that—if the double bind theory is indeed to overturn findings that point to a genetic basis for schizophrenia—more comprehensive psychological and experimental studies are needed, with different family types and across various family contexts.^[3] The current understanding of schizophrenia takes into account a complex interaction of genetic, neurological as well as emotional stressors including family interaction.

Neuro-linguistic programming

The field of neuro-linguistic programming also makes use of the double bind. Grinder and Bandler asserted that a message could be constructed with multiple messages. While the recipient of the message is given the impression of choice, both options have the same outcome at a higher level of intention.^[4] This has application in both sales and therapy. A salesperon might ask "Would you like to pay cash or by credit card?" Both outcomes presuppose that the person will make the purchase, whereas the third option, that of not buying, is intentionally excluded from the list of choices. The well known "heads I win, tails you lose" is an example of this. In selling, the double bind is commonly used for closing through the phrase. A therapist might wish to create a message similar in structure but both options have therapeutic consequences.

See also

• Cognitive dissonance
• Complex question
• Dialectics
• False dilemma
• R. D. Laing

Notes

1. ^ Bateson, G., Jackson, D. D., Haley, J. & Weakland, J., 1956, Toward a theory of schizophrenia. (in: 'Behavioral Science', vol.1, 251-264)
2. ^ Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press. 
3. ^ Koopmans, Mathijs. "Schizophrenia and the Family: Double Bind Theory Revisited", 1997. 
4. ^ Bandler, R., Grinder, J. (1981) Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning Real People Press. ISBN 0911226257

References

• Watts, Alan (1999). The Way of Zen. Vintage. ISBN 0-375-70510-4. 
• Bateson, Gregory. "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia," in Part III, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University of Chicago Press, 1999, originally published, San Francisco: Chandler Pub. Co., 1972.

External links

• http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/treatments/famsys/dblebnd.htm
• http://www.laingsociety.org/cetera/pguillaume.htm
• Reference in Encyclopedia of NLP

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