Human Development

Therapeutic double bind

Description:
A situation imposed upon a client by a therapist, in which any response by the client will be an experience, or reference structure, which lies outside the client's current model of the world. Such double binds thus implicitly challenge the client's model by forcing him into an experience which contradicts the impoverishing limitations of his own model. The experience then serves as a reference structure which expands the client's model of the world.