Bigger Than Both of Us—Double Binds, Conflicting Interests, and the Inherent Paradoxes in Human Relating: Commentary on Paper by Ringstrom

Clearly, it has been immensely helpful for Philip Ringstrom to make use of the double bind paradigm through the repeated, frustrating “damned if you do, damned if you don't” dilemmas in his inspiring, devoted work with Charles. Thinking in terms of the double bind seems to have enabled him to achieve a way of steering a course through those wrenching moments which, above all, repeatedly challenge the therapist's sense of hope. In the struggle to maintain both his and Charles's sense of hope—while respecting both their separate identities and needs—we believe we can sense the outlines of how the use of the double bind paradigm enabled Ringstrom to steer his own therapeutic course, a course that is informed by, yet does not fall readily into, the waiting categories of self-psychologically, relationally, or classically oriented technique. The double bind paradigm seems to have enabled Ringstrom to sustain the ongoing negotiation of a problematic relationship when theoretical loyalty failed to provide adequate guidance and, above all, to reach for a sense that he and Charles were struggling with something together, something that, perhaps in several ways, was bigger than both of them.

What are some implications of using the double bind model as the conceptual means to arrive at the sense of being part of a larger process? We approach this question by looking closely at the clinical material—the set of clinical experiences that Ringstrom describes in terms of the double bind. We consider what seems to be taking place in