PREVIOUS: DB – Options (Part 5a)

OPTIONS in dealing with DBs (cont)
1. DO LESS
2. INTERMEDIATE option

3. PICK ONE: Eventually, as you get emotionally stronger & with the right support, the most common option is to choose one of the 2 opposing positions presented to you, & stick to it – the one you prefer & can live with.

EXP : SO – between “I encourage you to go back to school” and “I discourage you from going back to school”
– YOU choose the one YOU want, even if you understand & maybe even sympathize with the other person’s needs & fears (of abandonment or envy) ….

4. “And now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT” (Monty Python): Look for a 3rd alternative which suits you but does not deal with either part of the DB, like cadet James T Kirk did on the Kobayashi Maru test.

There may be a middle way between compliance & escape, especially important when you’re in a relationship with a S you’re not ready or willing to leave (boss, spouse, parent, adult-child….).

a. It can be done by directing the S’s attention to a point outside the DB.
In the medical example from ‘Double Messages’ Part 4b, instead of getting angry, defensive or wounded, one could say: “Let’s just focus on understanding my present symptoms & how to treat them.”

b. It can come from noticing a missing part of the DB – a loophole – as a possible exit from the trap.
EXP: Carla on Cheers always turned an insult aimed at her – back on the speaker, by changing the meaning of their words. No matter how obvious the slur, her response would usually be “So what’s your point?” LOVE IT!

EXP: from the Calvin & Hobbs cartoon, using Tropes:
> Teacher: “Explain Newton’s First Law of Motion in your own words”.
> Calvin: (writing) Yakka foob mog. Grub pubbawup zink chumble spuzz. (to camera: “I love loopholes!”).

c. It can be done by changing one part of the pattern. Helping yourself to feel differently about an apparent double bind can be a starting point to escape the claustrophobic prison of a ‘no-win’ situation

EXP : An artist was commanded to paint a flattering portrait of his one-eyed king. He would be executed if he failed to show a faithful likeness, but would meet the same fate if it revealed any imperfections in his majesty. All was well when the royal portrait was finally unveiled. It showed the king taking aim with bow and arrow – with the bad eye firmly closed.

EXP : A woman wanting to stop smoking but not gain weight afterward, was encouraged to find a food plan that would ‘protect’ her. She re-tooled her diet & exercise style first – & then quit the cigs. Changing one part of her life-pattern made room for other parts to shift more easily.

5. SLIGHT of MOUTH** – If physical detachment is not possible, the pattern can be dented if not broken, by commenting on or questioning the essence of the D.Messages leading to the DB.
EXPs of what to say:
• “Thinking in no-win terms creates no-win results. Is that your goal?”
• “What are you trying to accomplish? You can’t have both, so which do you really want?”
• “You only believe that because you haven’t considering the impact or consequence of what you’re saying”
• “Have you noticed that your statements put me in a no-win situation?”
• “How do you figure out or explain the difference between those opposing ideas?”
• “If those ideas belong together, do they only apply to you or to everyone?” (More)

**Slight of Mouth, a cousin of the magician’s slight-of-hand, was created in the 1970s by founders of NLP as a tool for persuading people to change their beliefs or actions. It’s a powerful set of re-framing patterns, consisting of 14 precise ways to speak to others, which can create or force a particular outcome.
EXPs of “Sleight of Mouth” patterns

NEXT: DBs – Facing ourselves (#6a)

PREVIOUS: BDs – FRAMES (4a)

SITEs: 32 Double Binds

FOR the DATING Man : “Rock-Solid Frame Control with the Women You Like”

Framing ISSUES
Frames define / explain the immediate moment & overall interaction – NLP’s frame vs meta-frame. Whoever is setting the frame is controlling the interaction by creating the context for everything that happens within it.
Double Binds (DBs) are basically a way of forcing a frame on the R that the Sender (S) wants to exist in an interaction

❖ ‘Normal’ FRAME CONTROL : The S’s legitimate degree of expectation-setting (what they want), AND the degree of the R‘s understanding of those expectations.
🔸Frames take time to develop since they’re based on repeated experiences, which form our assumptions about how things will turn out or how we think they’re supposed to be.

The effects of normal framing are like optical illusions. Do we see the glass half full or half-empty? Did you & your ex ‘break up,’ or did he/she ‘dump you?’ You hear a noise at the front door – are you scared (you’re all alone) OR feel happy (expecting your lover)?….

◽️D.Binds rely on the Victim’s (R) desire to figure out & then try to obey what the Perpetrator (S) seems to want, who then thwarts that possibility

❖ PARTS : One of the ways we figure out our environment is by deciding what to include in each experience: which parts are relevant & which can or should be ignored?
◽️ D.Binds take away our ability to make those decision or have options

❖ WORDS : The specific words used, when combined with the setting (DMs – #1), create a feedback loop that guides & shapes our interaction with others. The choice of language for each type of basic frame is crucial, because its verbal images, story lines & emotions can evoke higher-level moral & theoretical frames.
◽️ D.Messages include lower level components but disregard logic & morality, leaving us at the mercy of the puppet master

❖ VALID frames are made up of a group of logical & related ideas, & all the pieces must be known in order to understand the whole. (If you only hear one side of a phone conversation you can’t know what it’s really about.)

• Equally – to understand any one piece of info, the whole system (context) has to be understood. (If you only hear the word ‘whore’ you don’t know if it’s an insult, a metaphor, part of a story, a religious reference….).

• On the other hand, individual words can represent a whole category of information, so introducing one idea (a past ‘moment’) can form a complete picture from our store of memories & experiences. But the words, phrases & images have to be understandable & logical.

EXP: ‘Dope’ can mean a narcotic in one frame, & “that’s great” in another. In one frame both meanings are positive (by who’s speaking), but in a completely different frame ‘dope’ is harmful, & using the word to mean ‘great’ makes no sense (to ‘straights’)

◽️ D.Messages juxtapose opposing concepts as if they belonged together, making them both irrational. This misuse of language sets the stage for confusing & then controlling another person

❖ INVALID frame: In group therapy Lina complains that after only one year of marriage, her husband ‘unfairly’ divorced her, even though they love each other, because his teenage daughter from a previous marriage violently objects to their union.
The group is confused. Why didn’t she fight for her marriage? Why couldn’t they work it out? Why is the father so affected by the girl?….

What Lena LEFT OUT of her story – is that:
a) her husband is an active alcoholic, & won’t get ‘help’ of any kind
b) his first wife is Lena’s older sister, so she’s known him for many years
c) her husband’s daughter is also her niece, whom she helped raise from infancy!
No wonder the girl is upset! AND why Lena was in a BD!

◽️D.Binds are neither meaningful nor valid, because they create unsound frames that violate the rules of logic, totally slanted to only suit the Sender. (“How we think…”)

NEXT:
 DBs (Part 5a) – Options

PREVIOUS: DBs, Part 2

💟 PROCESS in Childhood (Part 1)

🧩 REVIEW
♨️ SENDERS (S)
Ss create DB, some unconsciously or ‘accidentally’- copying their own early training, others quite aware & unscrupulous about using it on their targets. The key to controlling a person or group (cleverly) is not by overt domination, not forcing someone’s mind to do what it doesn’t want to do, the same as with hypnosis. (see DMs #2)

Rather, it’s by taking advantage of the paths the mind normally wants to go down – like teaching an animal to do tricks using what comes naturally to them. Once a person or group’s thinking is understood, DBs can be applied to making them compliant.

✦ DBs are designed to chronically bewilder, a devious way to control without having to be overtly forceful, in order to keep a Receiver (R) attached & do whatever the S wants.

This usually start with seduction – the carrot on a stick. The S offers some bait to set the trap in the form of a (short-term) benefit to the victim. Rs who are too trusting, ignorant or need to ‘believe‘ find out too late that the carrot is poisoned – the benefit comes with a blindfold & a gag! By then it’s much harder to get out of the snare – BUT not impossible.

• D.binding manipulation works because – while people feel an internal pressure to act on their survival instincts – yet they will follow powerful ‘others’ even when it’s at odds with those instincts.
External pressure can come from a peer group, an anonymous crowd, national leaders & laws, orders from superiors, expectations of family & friends, or blindly obeying someone’s personal version of God & Scripture.

We ‘allow’ ourselves to be swayed because of the Inner Child’s conflict between autonomy & attachment (DBs – Part 2). Any need or belief which compels people to feel locked into a particular course of action — leaves them open to being misled. IF there seems to be no choice, the pre-planned “fate” devised by someone else is accepted unchallenged.

• There are as many variations of the bind structure as there are unhealthy egos.
One way to categorize the game sequence is:
> conflict, dilemma, impasse, paradox (More….)
Another is:
> withdrawal, aggression, superiority/ inferiority, authenticity/ bullshit

🧩 LOGIC TYPES**
💢 RECEIVERS (Rs) of DMs are inevitably torn between the demands of conflicting ‘logic types’ in communication. They find themself in a painful & enraged state IF they try to understand & please a Sender, because no matter which way they turn, the R is not just continually mistaken, but also always bad

• All messages are made up of words + a context which modifies them (DBs, #1), so identifying the level of each statement becomes especially important when one can not tell if it refers to the whole set or some part of it.
EXP: When speaking of ‘man’ – is it about one male human (lower level = narrow focus), or humanity as a whole (higher = wide focus)? (LEVELS…..)

**Logic Types: a category of Bertrand Russell’s hierarchy, where any Class of objects (Animals) is identified as a higher logic type than the elements of that class or set (cat, horse, koala…. (DMs, #1)
Higher = INCLUSIVE – ocean / lower = a group in the overall idea – shoals / lowest =  individual parts of the whole – fish

EXP: ‘Context’ (the forest) is of a higher logic type than ‘Words’ (the trees). Likewise, the word ‘cat’ cannot scratch you but the animal can, so the word ‘cat’ & the actual cat are of two different logic types.

✦ According to Bateson, every organism is in its own specific “context”, not just as background, but shaping & shaped by it (family, education, religion….).
That context is embedded in a larger one (ethnicity, nationality, social class….), which in turn is related to its own context as well as still wider ones (country) – like stealthy Ninja Russian Nesting Dolls – into infinity. (‘Frames”, DBs #7).

Therefore D.Binds can be understood – but not embraced – if one steps back to look at the bigger picture.
EXP: We’re not just the genetic product of our 2 parents, but of their parents, & they of their parents…… as well as by the effects of environment on each family member who preceded us.

NEXT: DBs #3b