Double bind is a term coined by anthropologist and psychologist Gregory Bateson while trying to grasp the causes of schizophrenia (one of the great “mysteries” of psychiatry). The model he elaborated rapidly spread among academics for being explanatory yet uncomplicated. It leans on the concept of ambiguity of a message. The sender delivers a message that contradicts his behavior. Let’s see how the model works.
A person is brought in front of a dilemma, for example: If you do such thing, I’ll punish you. Obviously, the person will instantly refuse to do this for fear the speaker might punish him. However, when the person refuses, the speaker says “As you didn’t do that, I’ll punish you”.
In a double bind, whether the person accepts or refuses to do the thing specified by the speaker, he fails. The speakers says Do but he means Don’t do at the same time. Gregory Bateson described it as A situation in which no matter what a person does, he can’t win.
Some examples
Let’s look at a concrete example.
A parent tells his son not to stay at home all time but instead to go out and have fun. When he comes back home, they scolds him by saying Are you staying out all this long time because you don’t like staying in with me?. Here we have a double bind. No matter what the child does: he will be punished in any case. As a result, he will grow up deprived of the knowledge of what other people really mean.
Using this pattern to relate within a family can result in hideous effects. If a child lives in such a context his upbringing might be permanently affected. In fact, schizophrenic patients are found to have lived double bind situations periodically.
Using double bind to manipulate
Contemporary society delivers many messages that meet the criteria of double bind. In fact, we are surrounded by messages that conceal an ambiguous thesis underneath, whose aim is to control our interpretation of facts.
Think about this statement: Let’s discuss whether the Prime Minister’s battle for financial support from the EU has been effective. This sentence will deliver in any case (whether we agree or not) the idea that the Prime Minister has delivered a battle, shaping his image of hero in any case. Just imagine what it implies in terms of popularity, polls, etc.
I want to leave you with this excerpt from Bateson’s famous article, that instantiates his theory:
A young man who had fairly well recovered from an acute schizophrenic episode was visited in the hospital by his mother. He was glad to see her and impulsively put his arm around her shoulders, whereupon she stiffened. He withdrew his arm and she asked, “Don’t you love me any more?” He then blushed, and she said, “Dear, you must not be so easily embarrassed and afraid of your feelings.” The patient was able to stay with her only a few minutes more and following her departure he assaulted an aide and was put in the tubs. The impossible dilemma thus becomes: “If I am to keep my tie to mother, I must not show her that I love her, but if do not show her that I love her, then I will lose her.”
Bibliography
Gregory Bateson (1972) Toward a theory of schizophrenia, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind.