The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
In 1927, Russian psychologist I. P. Pavlov began an experiment using his soon-to-be-famous dogs. This was not his celebrated conditioned-response experiment, in which dogs salivated at the sound of their food bell. Rather, Pavlov showed a dog the figure of a circle, then immediately fed the dog. When the dog was conditioned to expect food each time it saw the circle, Pavlov varied the routine by showing the dog an ellipse, which was not rewarded. The dog soon learned to choose the circle over the ellipse to obtain his food. Pavlov then did something mildly diabolical. He slowly made the ellipse more and more circular, until the dog could no longer tell the difference between the circle and the almost-circular ellipse. Now the dog squealed, wiggled about, barked at experimenters, and became generally unruly. Pavlov called this result “experimental neurosis”—a subject becomes neurotic if placed in a highly ambiguous situation in which choosing the correct response is impossible.
Since Pavlov’s day, much attention has focused on subjects immobilized in highly confusing or paradoxical situations called “double binds.” A double bind has three distinguishing characteristics.1 First, the subject must be in a relationship that includes a high degree of psychological and/or physical survival value. Husband/wife, parent/child, employer/employee, counselor/client, and close friendships are all examples.
Second, within this relationship, the subject faces a paradoxical directive that is impossible to fulfill. Thus the classic Jewish mother joke: “Give your son Marvin two sports shirts as a present. The first time he wears one, look at him sadly and say in your Basic Tone of Voice: ‘The other one you didn’t like?’ ”2 Obviously, there is no way out! Whichever shirt Marvin wears will always disappoint his mother! Such is the nature of double binds.
Third, in a double bind, the subject can neither withdraw from the relationship nor question the meaning or appropriateness of the paradoxical directive. If we could just step outside the situation and discuss it with the other person (Marvin telling his mother that wearing one shirt does not mean he does not like the other one), we would slip out of the bind. But the double bind never allows this honest reflection or discussion.
Caught in Painful Double Binds
When does paradox cease being playful and instead become painful? We have seen how Jesus employs paradoxical tension to promote second-order change—for example, reframing issues in ways that push his listeners beyond accustomed worldviews. In all these cases, the paradoxical tension between seeming opposites is resolved when the paradox has done its work. But what if we cannot reflect or discuss? Then the tension is never resolved, and the paradox can become a double bind.
Look at the three characteristics of double binds in a Christian context. First, there is definitely a psychological, emotional, or existential stake in our relationship with God. Second, someone representing God (not God) gives us a command that seems impossible to perform, as when Pavlov’s dogs were required to choose between the circle and the almost-circular ellipse. Third, this same someone representing God (not God) tells us we are not allowed to question the command, reflect on it, or even discuss it with others; to question the command is to question God.
For example, the Bible says, “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). We are advised this means feeling perpetually joyful; we are further advised that not feeling perpetually joyful is a poor witness to nonbelievers and suggests something is lacking in our spiritual maturity. On the other hand, it is impossible to maintain any emotional state for long (whether joy or anything else). This inevitably leads some earnest Christians into a double bind—willing oneself to appear joyful on the outside, while (at times) feeling anything but joyful on the inside. Since emotions rarely bow to will, this failure of willpower often leads to guilt, anxiety, or depression—all opposites of joy!
Are all negative emotions unspiritual? Is perpetual joy the only measure of a person’s spirituality? I watch a widow in the back row silently crying through every song. She tells me after the service, “When I come to worship, I’m so embarrassed. All I do is sit and cry!” I tell her that it’s okay to come to worship and cry. In fact, what better place could God meet her in her sorrow than in worship? (See Ps. 34:18.)
The way out of all double binds is to disobey the third requirement, to question whether the directive (for example, a person must always feel joyful) is legitimate. In this case, we have much biblical evidence that it is not. The Psalms at times throb with grief and despair, and a whole book in the Bible is called Lamentations. What about Jesus expressing sorrow and dread in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36–46)? Often believers approach God weeping and wearing sackcloth and ashes (Neh. 8:9; Job 42:6; Lam. 2:5, 10; Dan. 9:3; John 11:33). In fact, God wants his people to lament (Zech. 12:10–14; Rom. 12:15)! Why, we might ask, do we not worship God as the psalmists do, with our full range of human emotions? Perhaps the answer is pragmatic: how do we justify a “downer” service to people expecting to leave worship every week feeling uplifted? A growing number of churches in America no longer celebrate Good Friday (or even Lent) because they cannot imagine worship encompassing sober lament.
The false assumption that God promises Christians protection from suffering sets up another classic double bind. In this scenario, suffering becomes evidence of distance from God. If God is not blessing you, if your loved one dies, if you have unmet needs, if you are depressed, anxious, despairing, if you express any kind of human weakness, you must lack faith. Such is the cancer of the prosperity gospel, currently metastasizing in many corners of the Christian world today.
Double binds can become truly oppressive. I suspect that countless Christians caught in toxic double binds suffer in silence, too embarrassed to admit such spiritual “failure.” Indeed, just like Pavlov’s dogs, Christians can exhibit an induced neurosis, with symptoms ranging from depression, anxiety, excessive feelings of guilt, and stress-related somatic problems to more serious disorientation and even psychotic reactions.3
A Way Out?
Paradox in Jesus’ hands is playfully therapeutic; it reframes reality in life-giving ways. Now we have seen a shadow side: double binds that even induce neurosis, as in Pavlov’s dogs. Tragically, I have known people to reject Christ or turn away from his church when they witness such emotional entrapment in friends, family, or themselves. More tragic, sometimes the church itself sets up the impossible directives that create the double binds, and then brooks no arguments or questions.
We can help each other avoid debilitating double binds by reflecting openly, especially about paradox. Double binds happen in the first place, remember, because we cannot question or discuss the ways we feel caught. Raising paradoxical biblical issues as legitimate inquiries, as Cheryl did (see chap. 1), allows us to consider whether the paradox is real or only a double bind resulting from misreading or misapplication of Scripture.
But, just as in Jesus’ use of paradox, might some double binds be therapeutic? I believe so, but only if they are ones God allows rather than ones that result from a misuse of Scripture imposed by religious leaders or churches. Saul, who becomes the apostle Paul, provides the classic example. On the Damascus Road, when Jesus says, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14), he implies that Saul’s refusal to consider Jesus’ way is hurting Saul. A goad is a sharp stick farmers use to prod stubborn oxen into motion. The more the animal kicks against it, the deeper it penetrates into the animal’s flesh. It is much better for the ox to obey the will of its master. Painful double binds can be therapeutic if they goad us outside our systems to a second-order solution. Much later, Paul reflects that the harder he tried to be righteous before God, the farther from God his effort took him (Phil. 3:3–9). “Only by being placed in this therapeutic double bind was Paul able to make the conceptual shift from one system to another totally different, even paradoxical one in which righteousness comes not by work, but by faith in Christ.”4
These try-harder double binds can, as with Paul, open us to God’s grace. They show us we can never try hard enough. I suspect the Lord allowed me (and others like me) to suffer through my own try-harder issues for just this reason. When caught in the Chinese handcuffs, we discover new depths in a God able to do in and for us what we can never do in and for ourselves. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). Therapeutic indeed.
Reflection Questions
1. Have you ever found yourself caught in a double bind? What was it?
2. Do you agree that Christians might be especially susceptible to such double binds? Have you seen any examples in your experience?
3. Do you think the author is going too far in suggesting that some paradoxical double binds might be therapeutic?
4. Are there certain conditions that might make some double binds therapeutic for Christians, while other double binds will never have any redeeming qualities?