The double bind in the ministry context

I had an uncle who was fond of playing a game with our large brood of cousins. He’d stare stone-faced at one of us and ask, with all apparent seriousness, “Tu eres bobo?” Which loosely translated is, “Are you an idiot?” The older children (former victims all) would chuckle at the scene of a younger one caught in the trap of a double bind. Standing stiff and nervous, feeling trapped though unsure why, the child would nervously struggle to answer the question, certain that neither a “yes” or a “no” would offer an escape from embarrassment.

One of the most devilishly ingenious emotional process messages is that of the “double bind.” The Double Bind is “based on paradox turned to contradiction” and often serves the function of binding people emotionally in an unhealthy and anxious way. It can be used to keep people stuck, confused, dependent, or helpless.

While we live constantly with conflicting demands, contradictions, and paradoxes the emotional process dynamic that fuels the double bind is in the way that it is imposed on the person on the receiving end (let’s call that person “the victim”). In other words, it’s not the contradiction itself that holds the key to the emotional process behind the double bind, it is the way in which the bind is imposed on the victim. Which is what makes the double bind a good example of what we mean by “it’s not the content; it’s the emotional process.”

Typically, the conditions required for a double bind are: (1) the victim is unable to fully understand the nature of the contradictory message; (2) the person is who is delivering the message is someone the victim regards with respect, trust, or is perceived to have “authority” or “power” over the person (a parent, boss, trusted adult, spiritual leader, etc.); and (3) the double bind becomes a patterned component of the emotional process between the persons. 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 the demand is imposed upon them by someone in trust or authority and the demand contained in the double bind is inherently impossible to fulfill.

Double bind messages contain within them the threat of punishment in the form of withdrawing love, attention, or affection; the threat of abandonment or embarrassment, or the threat of expressions of anger or hate toward the victim. Essentially, the message is, “Do X or else,” or “Do not do X or else.” But the trap is in the victim’s inability to do either in a way to satisfy the condition. That condition involves a secondary injunction that imposes upon the victim a condition 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.” The entanglement can become deeper for the victim since double binds often contain ingenious tertiary injunctions imposed upon the victim to prevent them from escaping the dilemma. For example, a prohibition to question or comment on the message so as to offer a defense or correction. This prohibition can take many forms, from the unstated rule “Don’t talk back to your parents (elders, betters, boss, superior)” to a “gag order.”

The most intense double bind patterns often exist in the mother-child relationship. For example, 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 his own accord). Or, mother gives the child a shirt along with the message, “Do you like it? Would you have preferred a different color?” When this way of communicating becomes patterned it can make for an emotionally crippling relationship. Some have suggested that this kind of relationship pattern can produce a schizophrenic in a couple of generations.
Messages along the lines of “Be genuine” or “Grow up” or “Be more confident in yourself,” “Show a little more enthusiasm in your work,” “Be more playful,” “You should enjoy doing X, just like the others around here do,” “You should be more appreciative,” etc., are forms of the double bind. The dilemma here is to demonstrate to others genuine affections—but as the other person desires it. The more the victims try the phonier they are (and even the act of not trying is just another version of trying).

I’ve been reflecting on all of the double binds that seem to exist in the ministry context. Because faith and religion exist in such intense emotional-relational context this is not surprising. Here are some examples of the double bind in the ministry context:

• Congregation to pastor: “Make us grow (numerically or spiritually).”
• Pastor to congregation: “The Bible says you must be free”
• Pastor to congregation: “The Bible says you must believe.”
• Pastor to congregation: “You must give (more money) willingly and with joy.”
• Parents or teachers to children: “You must behave because God loves you.”
• Pastor to congregation: “You must serve with joy.”
• Congregation to pastor: “You are such a great pastor, you make us happy.”
• Congregation to self: “We must love each other and act like a happy family.”
• Pastor to staff member: “You must be more loyal and enthusiastic in your work.”
• Pastor to church member: “You must be more loving to your family.”
• Pastor or teacher to children: “You must respect your parents.”

While all of those are good things, and we all “should” practice them, the double bind is not the content of the message, but the emotional process of its delivery and the person delivering it. In all of those messages, to be told that you must do them means that you are conforming to a commandment that orders you to express a state of freedom not from your volition, but from obligation, from a person in a position of authority, whom you respect, or who is difficult to question. Furthermore, they are all “good” things, so to argue back makes it look like we’re arguing against a positive good (and we come off looking like a “bad person”).

To this day I chuckle at my uncle’s playful use of the double bind on my unsuspecting cousins. And I remain intrigued at the intuitive use of the power of the double bind in the ministry context. I’m also often surprised at how adults do not recognize the double bind for what it is—even when feeling stuck and confused when they are subjected to it. As in many things related to emotional process, often it’s helpful to “trust your gut.” The genius behind the double bind is in how difficult it is to recognize it when someone is using it on us—but we “feel” its impact in the form of anxiety, stuckness, and powerlessness, nevertheless.