Caution: Manipulative maneuvers ahead!
Consider the following interpersonal verbal and/or nonverbal scenarios between two individuals:
- You speak candidly to a friend about his or her drug addiction, destructive behavior, covert hostility (or whatever). He or she responds, “You must have a drug problem (or whatever) yourself; otherwise you wouldn’t be accusing me of this.” (In other words, “It takes one to know one.”)
- Your friend (or spouse, boy/girlfriend) sends you a verbal (or nonverbal) message: “Your feelings don’t matter. If you don’t stay in this relationship (or friendship) with me, then consider yourself an unforgiving, selfish, ungrateful person who has no forgiveness or compassion.”
- Your spouse slams cupboard doors, throws things, or gives you the “silent treatment.” When you ask him or her what’s wrong. Your spouse says, “Nothing’s wrong.”
- Your friend says, “Now, tell me the truth! Do these jeans make me look fat?” (In other words, lie, but don’t you dare lie… (And yes, I do this all the time!)
Now, consider the following scenarios within a group (for example, among friends, co-workers, or ward members). Again, these can be verbal or nonverbal messages:
- “I am very kind and loving, but if you disagree with my opinions or politics, then you are a hateful person.”
- “You must be a bigot because you’re being defensive because I called you a bigot. Your defensiveness proves your bigotry.” (This double bind is also known as the “Kafka Trap”: “When someone denies being X, it is taken as evidence that the person is X because someone who is X would deny being X.” This fallacy is obviously illogical (not to mention, tyrannical), but it works because so many people are afraid of being called “X.” I tell my students that this method is the most persuasive for purposes of compliance gaining in present-day North America.
- “Forgive and forget.” (This statement is often used to hold others emotionally hostage: If you commit the “sin” of remembering the injustice done to you, that means you haven’t fully forgiven the person who injured you.)
- “We all sin, but we better be perfect—or at least look perfect to others.”
- “My company (or group) encourages feedback from everyone. I want to talk openly and honestly about my experiences and feelings, but I’m afraid I’ll be labeled, or punished (or whatever). My co-worker was ostracized after telling his truth, so, I suffer in silence.”
In my last post, I discussed the Double Bind theory, and how we consciously or unconsciously engage in it. Sometimes we play the role of hostage, and other times we imprison others with this attitude and/or behavior. Again, double binds are conflicting messages that create “Can’t Win” and “Can’t Talk” rules. (See my previous post for specific definitions.) When we candidly speak to a person or group who is using the double bind to control or influence, we are often labeled “the problem.” Thus, double binds rely on unwritten rules and expectations to get compliance. These types of interactions are extremely powerful in shaping behavior and can create terrible internal emotional, ethical, and spiritual conflicts within ourselves and/or within a group. Left unresolved, these internal conflicts lead to resentment, confusion, hopelessness, protest or rebellion, and finally detachment (or getting “cancelled”) from the person or group creating the double bind.
“Red Riding Hood Meets the Wolf” by Scott Gustafuson
Sociologists Richard Bandler and John Grinder developed The Neuro-Linguistic Programming model to help us sort through various communication messages. NLP is defined as a practical communication model “of the processes we experience to experience reality.” Their mission is to teach people how to recognize, use, and change mental programming. Here’s how they break down any verbal or nonverbal communicative message we receive:
- Neuro: Reality is processed by our five senses and nervous system into experience.
- Linguistic: Our experience is coded, organized and given meaning by language and nonverbal communication systems.
- Programming: Discovering, using and changing our behavior, language and nonverbal communication systems to achieve desired outcomes or directions.
We all learn to process these messages (and thus shape our reality) and behaviors from parents, teachers, religious leaders, and cultural norms. Here are a few common double bind methods taken from the NLP website. The examples used here are my own:
- You are chastised for correct perceptions. The right perceptions are the wrong ones. Example: “We’re both standing here looking at this beautiful, leafy, green tree. However, in order for me to feel good or validated, or to “be right,” you need to pretend with me (or with the group) that the tree has no leaves and is dead.” If you claim otherwise, I (or the group) can or will punish you in some manner. Thus, the other person either convinces herself that the tree is dead, or stays silent to keep the peace. (This technique is called “gaslighting” and has become very common in North American social and political discourse.)
- Your personal fulfillment requires someone else doing something for you without being asked. When asking someone to do something that requires them doing it without being asked—this is a self-defeating paradox. Example: “If you really loved me, you would already know what I want or need. Something’s wrong with you if I need to ask you or tell you.”
- You are expected to feel a different way than what you actually feel. You can’t feel that way, and what you feel is wrong. A person also denies your right to your own feelings. Example: This is a typical double bind unwritten rule: “You should feel nothing but gratitude after all I have done for you,” or “You owe me,” or “You don’t have the right to feel bad.” Or, “You hurt me, so you have to spend the rest of your life atoning for what you did.” In North America, some of the political and social discourse relies on this double bind to gain cultural and political power and change.
- Demand and prohibit at the same time. You are placed in a position of having to disobey to obey. Example: These are also unwritten rules: A mother says to her kids, “We’re an honest and open family. All of you children can and should talk to me about anything. Just don’t tell me anything that will hurt me or hurt my feelings.”
- Using the opposite of the desired type of relationship. Relationship paradox: To get the desired relationship the opposite one has to be used, so the desired relationship is never achieved. Example: “Why can’t you be independent like me? Why can’t you be like me and act like an adult? You never do what I tell you to do!” Or, “Look how Christ like I am, you idiot!” Again, this tactic can be seen in the social and political landscape as collective group think divides and categorizes people.
Another name for all of this: “crazy-making!” Each of the scenarios at the beginning of my post are also applicable to the above double bind methods. In terms of public policy making, religion, and within the workplace, we can see how damaging (no matter how well-meaning) these double binds can be to our spiritual and emotional well-being and progress. Latter-day Saints understand that the “original double bind” came from God, Himself, as a commandments to Adam and Eve. God commanded them not to partake of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil,” while simultaneously commanding them to “multiply and replenish the Earth” with posterity (See Genesis and the Pearl of Great Price). I’m certainly not here to condemn or challenge God in any way! As a loving perfect God, He’s entitled to create double binds! However, we mortals obviously don’t have that kind of authority.
Interestingly, Jesus Christ saved His greatest condemnation for the Jewish religious leaders of His day: the Pharisees and Sadducees. Christ often rebuked them because of this type of double-bind bondage they inflicted upon the Jewish people; the spiritual and emotional sickness (along with the desire to maintain social, religious, and political power) the Jewish leaders eventually crucified Christ. Jeff Van Vonderen is a wonderful therapist and interventionist who regularly appears on the television show Intervention. In his book, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, he discusses how Christ confronted and tried to cleanse the early Church of double binds. In reading the New Testament, we can clearly see the involvement of these causal effects as Jesus Christ labels and expose double binds. Dr. Von Vonderen writes:
So how can we avoid blindness to double binds? First, by becoming aware and recognizing our own and others’ attempts to trap and snare. Secondly, we can remove these blinders by nurturing our relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. The New Testament describes many situations in which the Pharisees and Sadducees were masters of the double bind. They set up traps to condemn and punish fellow Jews in religious practices, and they also concocted double bind traps to ensnare Christ in His doctrines and in His methods. Little wonder that it was part of Jesus’ mission to expose an abusive system. It’s important to remember four things about His confrontations.
First, His confrontations landed on those who saw themselves as God’s official spokespersons—the most religious the best [outward] performers. [Excuse me, dear readers, I’m obviously not including our Latter-day Saint Prophet and Apostles in this quote. I’m applying Van Vonderen’s ideas to LDS Church members who consider their personal standards of righteousness as the Church standards for righteousness. I would imagine that most, if not all of us are guilty of this at one time or another.] Second, Jesus broke the religious rules by confronting those in authority out loud. [Remember, the “Can’t Talk” rule.] Third, He was treated as the problem because He said there was a problem. Fourth, crowds of broken people rushed to Him because His message offered hope and rest”
(p. 36).
Let’s protect ourselves and each other from these binds that wound! And let’s help bind each other’s wounds from double binds. Even harder, let’s have the courage to stand up to those who use double binds to unrighteously gain our compliance.
Here’s to “He that hath eyes that see and ears that hear,”
Julie
