<P> Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch - 22 , which describes absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II . The term is introduced by the character Doc Daneeka , an army psychiatrist who invokes `` Catch 22 '' to explain why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity -- hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions -- demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus can not be declared insane . This phrase also means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions . </P>
<P> Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch - 22 , which describes absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II . The term is introduced by the character Doc Daneeka , an army psychiatrist who invokes `` Catch 22 '' to explain why any pilot requesting mental evaluation for insanity -- hoping to be found not sane enough to fly and thereby escape dangerous missions -- demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus can not be declared insane . This phrase also means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions . </P>
where did the catch 22 phrase come from
where did the catch 22 phrase come from
Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch - 22
Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch - 22