What Is A Double Bind? - LinkedIn

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What is a Double Bind?

The principle of a double bind is to offer a person a choice or put them in a position where they are forced to choose, but where the outcome of the choice either lead to the same result or else have results that are equally desirable to the person who is managing the situation. A double bind is a situation where a person has a choice typically between two options, but whichever way they choose, they lose out, often with the same result.

Usually in the double bind there is no alternative, as the person is forced to choose and does not have the luxury of not choosing. This situation may occur by chance, but when in persuasion situation it is often carefully engineered by the persuader, and any alternative choices are either removed or hidden so only the double bind option appears valid.

Individuals get stuck in patterns of behaving when they often unconsciously, give themselves a double bind, typically where getting out of one bind only gets you into the other. For example,

· A person whose car is broken down is offered the choice between towing it away or fixing it, either option costs about the same.

· A child purchases their parent a gift and then asks for something. If the parent refuses, they know the child will claim the moral high ground and give them a guilt trip, so they comply with the request.

· An unemployed person on state benefits is offered a job that pays the same amount as the benefit. In either case, they remain poor.

· An individual who feels that they have the choice of staying in an abusive relationship or leaving and becoming homeless.

The purpose of the secondary bind, in the example of becoming homeless, is to keep the person in the primary bind, the abusive relationship. While some double binds are no win situations they are perfectly real, or could be a psychological constructs. That is, individuals can think they are caught in a double bind when they are not. Double binds can tie emotional problems in place and the individual becomes stuck, here are some examples:

· A man who is bored and stagnant in his job maybe too afraid to make a change. If he stays, he suffers; if he leaves, he believes he will suffer. So he feels stuck.

· A woman wants to end her guilty affair but fears she will remain unfulfilled in her marriage if she does.

· A person heartily wishes to be slimmer but at the same time craves fattening comfort foods.

· A man wants to have sex but fears he will be unable to perform and so avoids all sexual contact.

Such apparent double binds are at the heart of so many emotional and psychological problems. Escaping or helping the individual’s escape a double bind requires:

· Flexible thinking

· A capacity to see beyond the obvious

· A willingness to forgo either limitations

· Look for the payoff

· Compromise

· Change one part of the pattern

We cannot always choose what happens to us, but we can choose or at least alter, to some degree, how we respond to the variations in life.

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