{
  "id": "double-bind.contradictory",
  "term": "double bind",
  "sense": "contradictory",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "published",
  "level": 18,
  "domain": "agency",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "Two walls set by another, each with a window open alone and none open to both, while leaving and saying so are out of reach.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "wall.range-end",
      "set.fix",
      "window.range",
      "open.spatial",
      "alone.state",
      "leave.movement",
      "says.speech",
      "reach.action",
      "power.over",
      "dependence.condition",
      "none.quantity",
      "time.dimension",
      "contradiction.logical"
    ],
    "interaction": "Each demand can be kept by itself, so each looks fair; the window is empty only in the joint reading, and the two ways out, leaving the field or saying that the demands conflict, are walled by the same setter. Whatever the bound thing does crosses a wall, and the crossing is counted as its fault.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "a window that is empty only when read whole",
      "the exit and the comment walled along with the demands",
      "fault placed on the one who is bound"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Bateson and colleagues' 1956 paper describes a patient who put his arm around his visiting mother; she stiffened, and when he withdrew she asked, 'Don't you love me any more?'",
      "domain": "psychology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "catch-twenty-two.dependency",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "catch-22: two conditions each needing the other first, so no path in; double bind: two walls each keepable alone that exclude each other, with exit and comment barred"
    },
    {
      "id": "hobsons-choice.one-option",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "contradictory walls leaving no window vs walls leaving exactly one window open"
    },
    {
      "id": "contradiction.logical",
      "type": "contrasts-with",
      "note": "a contradiction is a claim; a double bind is a contradiction set as walls on someone who cannot leave"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "double bind",
    "double binds"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-09-28",
    "confidence": 0.85,
    "sources": [
      "schema/power-agency-phase.md"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-double-bind.contradictory"
}