Coping Strategies
Part 15 - Recognising when you have limited options

Being in a double-bind situation can be really tough and destructive, because whatever you do will be wrong, since you are in a no-win position. It could be that you are given two instructions that conflict or contradict one other. It could be that you are going to be told off no matter what you do.

Sometimes, whether consciously or unconsciously, people use double-binds to control others: to confuse them and manipulate them. Often the most damaging time to have to deal with a double-bind is as a child, when your parents give you an impossible mixed message:

They may say, “Come and give me a kiss.” Yet, when you go to give them a kiss, they pull away from you.
They may say, “If you love me you will do as I say.”
They may say, “You have to go to the toilet now” (when you do not need to go).

Gregory Bateson, an anthropologist, looked into this and saw that being trapped in a double-bind environment can lead to schizophrenia – that is to say, confusions and distortions in the way we think and communicate.

Damned if you do

Damned if you don't

Yet there is a way out of a double-bind.
It comes when you stop seeing it as a big deal.
It comes when you stop buying into the reality of other people.
It comes when you remove other people’s goal posts and start to move through life using your own set of rules, your own internal compass and your own codes.

If you are a square peg in a round hole, it means you will never fit into the hole, no matter what you do (unless you are able to bend your shape and become something that is no longer you). Accepting that you do not fit into a social gathering may save you a lot of trouble. However, if you have to fit in, because there is no other choice, then maybe it is important to be aware of who you really are and where you started from, so you can go back to being you when the environment is less hostile.

A paradox is a statement that at first sight may appear to make sense but which is actually illogical, incorrect, contradictory or may contain truth and falsehood at the same time.

Catch 22 is a paradox from which you cannot escape, because you are blocked by impractical or unfair rules and regulations.

Joseph Heller published the novel Catch 22 in 1961. The book is full of crazy paradoxes that highlight the absurdity of war, the military and bureaucracy, as well as abuses of power that hide in plain sight.

Here are some quotes from the text:

A classic example of a catch 22 is being encouraged to do whatever you want, so long as the powers-that-be agree with it.

[Similarly, Hobson’s Choice is when you are free to make the choice – even though there is only one choice that is on offer. Another way of setting out the choice is to say ‘Take it or leave it’ or ‘It’s my way or the highway.’]

The definition of this German word is a situation where you have to undertake an action that is to your own disadvantage. It is often associated with games, such as chess.

Sometimes we are forced to move, even though we do not want to, as doing so would result in a negative impact on our lives. For example, we are told to move out of a house because the landlord does not want us there anymore, or because a relationship has broken down, yet we do not want to leave.

When no progress can be made between two opposing factions, they can be said to be in deadlock. Other words to describe this situation may be stalemate, standstill or stand-off.

Are you obliged to do things out of a sense of duty and loyalty? Are your values unquestionable?
For some, it would be unthinkable to put their own needs before others.

A situation or problem that just gets worse and worse when the elements that create the hostile environment continue to rub up against other, without hope of an end or respite. Or where solving one part of the situation creates a new problem or reactivates the original trouble.

For example: You suffer from chronic pain. You are given some medicine to help to alleviate the pain. The medicine gives you unpleasant side effects. You try another medicine. This seems to work, until its potency weakens. You stop taking the medicine because you are in pain. Now you are left with even more pain than before. So, you try some new medication...

Q: Can you think of times in your own life when you may have encountered some of these situations?

Q: Can you take the time to write down the story of what happened at the beginning, during and how it ended (or how it is likely to end)?

If you have suffered pain, hurt or distress on multiple occasions and it seems as though there is no chance of a change or an end in sight, at what point would you abandon all hope and resign yourself to defeat?

Learned helplessness is about giving up, because that is a better option that continuously trying in vain. For some people giving up can lead to symptoms of long-term depression, while for other people it is seen as a positive, since they can now focus on other aspects of their life where they can realistically hope for change.


The American psychologist Martin Seligman conducted a number of questionable experiments on dogs in the late 1960s. Using different groupings of dogs and electric shocks, he found that the dogs who had a history of being shocked and who had been led to believe that nothing they did could stop the discharge of electricity, lay down and gave up, whereas the groups of dogs that did not have such a history, found it within themselves to escape the shocks.

If you had been continuously rejected for positions of employment, at what point might you give up looking for work?

If you were kidnapped, on what day might you give up hope of ever being freed?

If you are in an abusive relationship, at what point might you decide to stop hoping that things will improve?

Can you give some examples in your life where you gave up or resigned yourself to defeat? What happened next?