The term ‘Catch-22’ was coined by Joseph Heller in his 1961 masterpiece of the same name. Partway through the satirical war novel, the author describes the absurd position in which pilots found themselves through the character Doc Daneeka, an army psychiatrist.
The problem was this: crazy people obviously cannot be allowed to fly planes but anyone requesting mental evaluation for insanity – hoping to be found not sane and therefore avoid dangerous missions – has by definition proved their own sanity and is therefore fit to fly. Daneeka sums it up thus: “Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.” You can watch the scene from the 1970 film here.
