double bind

double bind

A no-win situation. When both of Sally's jobs scheduled her to work on the same day, she was put in a double bind. She needed both incomes and could not afford to lose either position.
See also: bind, double
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

a double bind

If you describe a situation as a double bind, you mean that the situation is impossible, because you have a problem that you cannot solve without causing another problem. It is the absent dad's double bind: abandon your children and you are attacked as irresponsible; fight to keep contact with them and you are accused of disrupting the child's new family life. Note: You can also say that you are in a double bind or are caught in a double bind. Women are in a double bind: they are expected to act like men, but are criticized when they do.
See also: bind, double
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.
See also:
  • a double bind
  • a shoulder to cry on
  • appear to
  • a change of heart
  • a mystery to (one)
  • a turn of phrase
  • able to do
  • able to do it
  • a piece of the action
  • a piece/slice of the action
References in periodicals archive
Although Kofman's writing repeatedly invokes a seemingly closed image of a double bind, her texts remain open, undecided.
This sampling is not exhaustive--officers could frame each injunction as contradictory, complementary or paradoxical in a number of different ways.) Framing Technique Tension Framing the tension Framing the tension Framing the as a double bind: To as a contradiction: tension as obey is to disobey The two actions complementary: and to disobey is to cannot be done at Viewing the obey (most once, but can tension not potentially alternate or one or as a tension debilitating).
It is only proper, therefore, that I begin with a look at the positive side of the reader's double bind in confronting this prodigious achievement.
It must be said, however, that it is not obvious how radical pedagogy can help employees of the manufacturing and service organizations mentioned in parts 1 and 2 to cope with their own paradoxes and double binds of empowerment.
Wood and Conrad succinctly summarized the idea of the double bind in interpersonal relationships as introduced by Gregory Bateson and applied to interpersonal communication by Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson.
What Margaret Waller terms the double bind of liberalism (1993)--that is, individual freedom in tragic conflict with collective welfare--is depicted by various literary devices, like the sentimental blazon and the tableau, which Cohen discusses in some detail.
Quentin's Double Bind "it will be better for me for all of us"
It is not surprising, therefore, that the bishop has been able to comprehend fully the double bind that church teaching imposes on pay Catholics.
The "hard call or double bind" has to be balanced by the fact that the people at Philip Morris are so knowledgeable and enthusiastic.
Jamieson points out that double binds are often reinforced by "newsbinds." Kim Campbell was criticized for her verbosity in a Montreal Gazette article that called her mouth her "Achilles heel." The femininity/competency double bind was certainly apparent in a Toronto Star article that said, "Maybe we are asking for the impossible.
They are all interrelated one way or another."(1) Sandra Adell's Double-Consciousness/ Double Bind: Theoretical Issues in Twentieth-Century Black Literature and Craig Hansen Werner's Playing the Changes: From Afro-Modernism to the Jazz Impulse probe deeply and constructively into the dialogic relations between black and white, Afrocentric and Eurocentric articulations of the literary in modern and postmodern periods of thought.
And when playing against the computer you are in a double bind because the computer knows where everything is but you don't.
Professional sales agents are taught to close a sale by asking the prospect, "Would you like us to install it on Monday or Tuesday?", or "Do you want to use my pen or yours to sign the agreement?" This kind of persuasive language represents a "double bind" device.
Second, the applicability of Bateson, Jackson, Haley and Weakland's (1956) double bind hypothesis to teenage suicidal behavior is explored to assess whether teenage suicide can be seen as an indication that the youngster is caught up in contradictory interactive patterns in the family.