Do you have the feeling lately that no matter how hard you try, what you do, or how well you follow society’s implicit instructions, there always seems to be something that doesn’t quite fit?
We live in a world that pulls us in a thousand different directions at once. It tells us to be free, but within increasingly strict limits. To be authentic, but without going too far off script. To rest, but without ceasing to be productive.
This constant bombardment of contradictory messages is like an invisible spider web that traps us, so it is not strange that we end up feeling exhausted, anxious or with the permanent sensation of doing something wrong.
The double bind theory, a mental short circuit that traps us with no way out
In schizophrenia, the person is unable to respond adaptively because he or she has lost touch with reality. Therefore, his or her thoughts, emotions and behaviors are perceived as abnormal. In fact, etymologically the word schizophrenia means “split mind.”
Some psychologists and psychiatrists have attempted to explain the origin of schizophrenia through the double bind theory. In 1972, social scientist Gregory Bateson proposed a type of dead-end communication that traps us in an ambiguous and paradoxical situation created by two contradictory messages.
It is hypothesized that when a person spends much of their life trapped in a double-bind relationship, especially from an early age, these permanent contradictions are likely to end up affecting their ability to understand messages and process reality, leading to maladaptive responses typical of schizophrenia.
Today we live, to a large extent, in a society that constantly sends messages and makes demands that are impossible to satisfy at the same time. A typical example is the imperative “be spontaneous!” , where the command itself imposes exercising some form of control over our actions. If I force myself to be spontaneous, how spontaneous am I really?
This dynamic creates confusion and anxiety, because we are forced to choose between options that always put us between a rock and a hard place, generating an alternating experience of emotional and cognitive contradictions that can have very negative effects in the long term. In fact, it may not be so coincidental that being born in a city increases the risk of suffering from schizophrenia.
An impossible game: how does society entangle us in unsolvable paradoxes?
In contemporary times, so schizophrenic in their externalization, the double bind has become a leitmotif, especially since the popularization of extreme positivism, ubiquitous advertising and unrealistic expectations spread by social networks.
A typical example is hidden behind the imperative: “enjoy life!” But to really enjoy life we must first cover our basic needs, which means we need money. And if we work all day to earn money because jobs are increasingly precarious, we will not have the time – or the energy – to enjoy life.
Another example of a very common double bind today is the desire to preserve the environment, but on the other hand, to grow the economy and preserve our high standard of living based on consumerism, demands that neutralize each other.
Modern Western society, as it is constructed – with its contradictions and impossible demands – structurally leads to daily short circuits. This widespread form of communication pushes us to abdicate the demands of logic, making us surrender, exhausted, to so many discordant demands.
When we are caught in a perennial double bind and perceive the world as too complex, we stop using reason and, like schizophrenics, we build a parallel universe. We fragment reality so that its contradictions do not hit us so hard. We convince ourselves that the problem is not so serious, we choose which part of the discourse to accept and which to ignore, or we simply float in a state of learned indifference.
This is how we build cognitive bubbles, internal worlds in which everything fits because we have decided to leave out what doesn’t fit. The problem is that these bubbles don’t protect us, but rather isolate us. We live surrounded by narratives that give us a false sense of control: forced optimism that tells us that everything depends on our attitude, the commercialization of well-being that sells us quick solutions, and digital hyperstimulation that keeps us distracted.
Instead of facing dissonance, we avoid it, taking refuge in simplistic discourses that offer us momentary relief. But reality is still there and, sooner or later, the bill comes. So we end up trapped in a loop, with fewer and fewer psychological tools to assertively confront reality.
To get out of the labyrinth, you have to recover your own thoughts.
The demand to be everything at once – successful but relaxed, sociable but independent, ambitious but humble – traps us in a dynamic of constant tension. It is as if the world has become a labyrinth where every path leads you back to the same point: doubt, exhaustion and the feeling that something is not right.
The more we try to fit in, the harder it is to understand what is really expected of us. It is an everyday paradox: we are hyperconnected, but alone; over-informed, but confused; more “free” than ever, but with a strange feeling of being trapped in a choreography that we have not chosen.
Where is the exit?
A Zen story gives us a clue.
A Zen master told his disciples: “If you say this stick is real, I will hit you. If you say this stick is not real, I will hit you. If you say nothing, I will hit you.”
It seemed that there was no possible escape.
However, one clever disciple found a solution by changing the level of communication. He approached the master, grabbed the stick and broke it.
To break the double bind loop we must not look for easy answers, but ask ourselves better questions. As Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve a problem by using the same level of consciousness that created it.” That means we must raise our level of reasoning.
Instead of resigning ourselves to the contradictory rules of the game, we can question them: Why do we accept impossible demands? Where do these imperatives come from? Who benefits from them?
The way out is not in evasion, blind acceptance or apathetic indifference, but in a conscious process of rebuilding our criteria. Learning to tolerate different types of uncertainty without giving in to prefabricated discourses allows us to recover the ability to choose consciously. Only in this way can we get out of the labyrinth of the double bind without falling into a new trap.
References:
Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. Nueva Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc.
Bateson, G. et. Al. (1956) Toward a theory of schizophrenia. Journal of the Society for General system Research; 1(4): 251-254.
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