MANIPULATING CHILDREN AND VOTERS

[OR ADULTS IN THE ETERNAL CHILD EGO STATE]

MANIPULATING CHILDREN AND VOTERS
[OR ADULTS IN THE ETERNAL CHILD EGO STATE]
by Milton H. Erickson M.D

Perhaps the simplest example is provided by my childrens' reluctance about going to bed. Instructed that they must go to bed at 8:00 P.M., they have the feeling of being coerced.

If, however, those same children are asked, "Do you want to go to bed at a quarter of eight or at eight o'clock?" the vast majority respond by selecting by their own "free will" the latter (which was actually the intended time).

Regardless of which specified time the child selects, he commits himself to the task of going to bed.

Of course the child can say that he does not want to go to bed at all, whereupon another double bind can be employed, "Do you wish to take a bath before going to bed or would you rather put your pajamas on in the bathroom?"

This latter example illustrates the use of a non-sequitur in a double bind.
The lesser of the two evils is usually accepted.

SLAVERY BY CHOICE IS NOT PERCEIVED AS SLAVERY
Either choice, however, confirms the matter of going to bed which long experience has taught the child is inevitable.

He has a sense of free choice about it, but his behavior has been determined.

HOW FEDS GET YOU TO TALK
Psychiatric patients are often resistant and withhold vital information indefinitely.

When I observe this I emphatically admonish them that they are not to reveal that information this week, in fact, I am insistent that they withhold it until the latter part of next week.

In the intensity of their subjective desire to resist, they fail to evaluate adequately my admonition; they do not recognize it as a double bind requiring them both to resist and to yield.

If the intensity of their subjective resistance is sufficiently great they may take advantage of the double bind to disclose the resistant material without further delay. They thereby achieve their purpose of both communication and resistance.

Patients rarely recognize the double bind when used on them, but they often comment on the ease they find in communicating and handling their feelings of resistance.

In the cases that follow the critical reader may question the effectiveness of double binds because he is actually on a secondary level when he reads about them. The patient, who comes to therapy with many emotional needs, however, is on a primary level when he is exposed to the double bind; he is usually unable to analyze them intellectually and his behavior is thereby structured by them.

The uses of the double bind are greatly facilitated by hypnosis and it adds greatly to the multitude of ways in which it can be used.

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NO LEVEL OF INTELLIGENCE IS IMMUNE TO THIS SPELLBINDER