Kafka offers a critique and a reformulation of the double-bind theory. Clinical observations are drawn upon to illustrate the relative lack of ambiguity in the patient's life during the phase of individuation. The author links parents' fear and intolerance of ambiguity with the child's inability to integrate paradoxes. This is contrasted with the double-bind theory which assumes a superabundance of paradoxical communications. Although the essay works within the context of descriptive, 'etiological' concepts, the psychoanalyst interested in intrapsychic structures of the separation-individuation phase will find this paper of interest and value.