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Key points
- Conflict-avoidant people often have an extreme fear of disappointing or being abandoned by others.
- Devaluing themselves in order to get along will only lead to others devaluing them as well.
- Despite the urge to avoid conflict, differences of opinion have the potential to expand people's thinking.
- On the other hand, likeminded thinking has little to offer in terms of growth.
A double bind is a predicament in which a person receives conflicting messages from a single source that allow no appropriate response to be made. Does conflict itself send conflicting messages? Is conflict a double bind?
Consider the person who avoids conflict. Something or someone is pushing them toward confrontation, but they resist the urge to respond. They have successfully avoided the conflict, right? Or have they?
When we avoid external conflict, have we created an internal battle? After all, we have suppressed our emotions, possibly anger, some frustration, our thoughts, and maybe even our beliefs. Our external conflict has been resolved but, unfortunately, only to be replaced by our own internal conflict.
Now, the double bind settles in. By suppressing our external conflict and becoming internally conflicted, we are promoting the inevitable dilemma. The dilemma is that our internal conflict, which is now building, may lead us full circle back into unleashing our own need for conflict. We are now in a double bind.
“Avoidance has never been a great tactic in solving any problem. For most situations in life, not addressing what's going on only makes matters worse.” —Luvvie Ajayi
Avoiding Avoidance
Avoidance prevents you from confronting your anxiety or the thing you fear that’s holding you back and growing past it. When continuing to avoid it, anxiety and fear will grow. Phobic reactions are an excellent example of how avoidance can create unmanageable situations that only get worse over time.
Conflict-avoidant people have an extreme fear of disappointing or being abandoned by others, so they’ll figure out ways to deny or minimize problems so they don’t have to discuss them. Avoiding the discussion only magnifies the fear and anxiety because the problems are still there and unresolved.
Fear of Disappointing Others
Atelophobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by an obsessive fear of imperfection and disappointment. By avoiding conflict, there is a false belief that you are not disappointing others. However, are you now left feeling some internalized disappointment yourself?
Your avoidance has not solved the problem of external conflict but rather created the issue of internal conflict. The double bind between external and internal conflict seems to promote an ineffective response to conflict. Avoiding your fear of disappointing others has not worked.
Fear of Being Abandoned by Others
Fear of abandonment is a type of anxiety that some people experience when faced with the idea of losing someone they care about. Avoiding the fear of abandonment by others may work temporarily. However, you have, to some degree, abandoned yourself. Your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and frustrations have been ignored to protect your relationship with others, but at what expense? Your self-esteem will not escape unscathed.
What happens to your relationships when you continue to deny yourself? Most likely, devaluing yourself will lead to others devaluing you as well. Your fear of abandonment may come full circle. That is, by protecting others through avoiding conflict, you may still be abandoned anyway.
“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” —Helen Keller
Confronting Your Fear of Conflict
By now, you may have come to the realization that avoiding conflict does not actually work. What needs to be done to confront your fear of conflict? Resisting the urge to respond to conflict only creates more internal issues that may even be more problematic. The carte blanche avoidance of conflict does not work. What works?
Conflict is an opportunity for growth. Differences of opinion always have the potential to expand our thinking. We can approach the conflict with curiosity rather than anger. For example: “That’s an interesting viewpoint. How did you come up with that idea? Let’s talk about that. Maybe I can add something to that idea.”
Meanwhile, your anxiety and the other person’s anxiety are diffused. And it is the anxiety that is trying to light the fuse. It’s better to diffuse than fuse. Growth has already started to happen when you have learned how to diffuse your anxiety and turn it into a productive exchange of ideas.
Another awareness that may surface during a potential conflict is to reveal what triggers your confrontation anxiety. To learn your triggers is to be more informed in the future. Everyone will have triggers, but they do not have to identify who we are or how we will respond to conflict.
Once you have started to experience success in dealing with conflict, you will begin to elevate your self-confidence. And that leads to an awareness that you do not have to avoid conflict. The conflict may offer a valuable growth experience that you would have missed through avoidance. Remember, avoiding external conflict will not work anyway. Your internal conflict is waiting to displace it.
The more you challenge yourself to face rather than avoid conflict, the greater potential for your personal growth. Your attempts will be respected by even your adversaries when you open up the dialogue of alternative thinking. Likeminded thinking has little to offer in terms of growth. Un-likeminded thinking, on the other hand, opens up new windows of clearer vision and new opportunities for understanding. The fictitious reality of conflict is that it is not what you think it is, but rather, a potential gift wrapped in unlimited surprises.
References
Business@Pepperdine (2019). Positive Conflict Can Lead to Positive Outcomes. From Pepperdine University’s Graziadio Business School, April 26,2019.
