Double Bind

A double bind is an emotionally distressing dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, in which one message negates the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), so that the person will be automatically wrong regardless of response. The double bind occurs when the person cannot confront the inherent dilemma, and therefore cannot resolve it or opt out of the situation.

Double bind theory was first described by Gregory Bateson and his colleagues in the 1950s.

Double binds are often utilized as a form of control without open coercion—the use of confusion makes them difficult to respond to or resist.

A double bind generally includes different levels of abstraction in orders of messages, and these messages can be stated or implicit within the context of the situation, or conveyed by tone of voice or body language. Further complications arise when frequent double binds are part of an ongoing relationship to which the person or group is committed.

Double bind theory is more clearly understood in the context of complex systems and cybernetics because human communication and also the mind itself function in an interactive manner similar to ecosystems. Complex systems theory helps us understand the interdependence of the parts of a message and provides "an ordering of what to the Newtonian looks like chaos."

Read more about Double BindExplanation, History, Complexity in Communication, Examples, Phrase Examples, Positive Double Binds, Theory of Logical Types, Science, Schizophrenia, Usage in Zen Buddhism, Girard's Mimetic Double Bind, Neuro-linguistic Programming, Terminology

Other articles related to "double bind, double, double binds":

Master Suppression Techniques - The Five Master Supression Techniques According To Ås - Double Bind
... See also Double bind To punish or otherwise belittle the actions of a person, regardless of how they act ...
Paul Watzlawick - Work
... Jay Haley) responsible for introducing what became known as the "double bind" theory of schizophrenia ... Double bind can be defined as a person trapped under mutually exclusive expectations ... used in the Interactional View is 'double-bind' ...
Double Bind - Terminology
... Double binds have also been called Crazy-Making ... see below in the Reference section—Paul Gibney (May 2006)The Double Bind Theory Still Crazy Making After All These Years ...

Famous quotes containing the words bind and/or double:

    By some might be said of me that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange flowers, and have put nothing of mine unto it but the thread to bind them.
    Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    [The] elderly and timid single gentleman in Paris ... never drove down the Champs Elysees without expecting an accident, and commonly witnessing one; or found himself in the neighborhood of an official without calculating the chances of a bomb. So long as the rates of progress held good, these bombs would double in force and number every ten years.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)