- John Weakland
John H. Weakland (1919 - 1995) was one of the founders of brief and family psychotherapy. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5D6143BF935A25754C0A963958260&scp=1&sq=john+f.+weakland&st=nyt New York Times Obituary] At the time of his death, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the
Mental Research Institute (MRI) inPalo Alto, California , Co-Director of the famous Brief Therapy Center at MRI, and a Clinical Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine [Propagations: Thirty Years of Influence From the Mental Research Institute,The Haworth Press, Inc., 1995, p xiii] .A brief biography
John was a native of Charleston, W.Va. He was a brilliant student who entered
Cornell University at the age of 16 and received a degree inchemical engineering . He worked as a chemical engineer with theDuPont Company before a chance encounter withGregory Bateson led him to pursueanthropology atColumbia University while working on the Cultures at a Distance Project withMargaret Mead andRuth Benedict . John never obtained his doctorate from Columbia; rejecting his adviser's criticisms of his thesis, he refused to rewrite it. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5D6143BF935A25754C0A963958260&scp=1&sq=john+f.+weakland&st=nyt New York Times Obituary]At Bateson's invitation, John moved to California with his wife, Anna Wu Weakland to participate in research. John was the fist person Bateson asked to join a research project that would become known as the
Bateson Project that helped to give birth to family therapy and co-authored the seminal paper, [ [http://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/index.php?category=magazine&sub_cat=articles&type=article&id=The%20Accidental%20Therapist&page=2 Psychotherapy Networker - Magazine > Articles > The Accidental Therapist ] ] "Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia" [Bateson, G., Jackson, D., Haley, J., & Weakland, J. (1956). Toward a theory of schizophrenia. Behavioral Science, 1, 251-264)] John was also an early student and researcher ofMilton Erickson [Haley,J. (1993) Jay Haley on Milton Erickson. Psychology Press, p. 43] .Joining the
Mental Research Institute in the early 1960's, John was a founding member and Co-Director of MRI's Brief Therapy Center (along withPaul Watzlawick and Dick Fisch). This center helped to inspire many of the more influential psychotherapy approaches in brief and family therapy. John mentored and befriended many therapists who would go on to make major contributions to the field. [ [http://www.sikt.nu/cades_obituary.htm Cades obituary ] ]Quotations
John's final appeal to the field was published weeks before his death from ALS. He wrote in a letter to the Family Therapy Networker that:
While not always easy, one of the strengths of the field from its earliest days has ben constructive reflection and discussion of its diversity. The emphasis on having things "my way" and needing something new each year has distracted us from serious and useful dialogue about what aids people in distress and facilitates change. [as quoted in Eron, J., & Lund, T. (1996)Narrative Solutions in Brief Thearpy. Guilford, Ny. p. vii]
Books
*Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution, with Paul Watzlawick and Richard Fisch (WW Norton, NY, 1974)
*The Tactics of Change: Doing Therapy Briefly, with Richard Fisch and Lynn Segal (Jossey Bass, SF, 1982)
*The Interactional View: Studies at the Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, 1965-1974, edited with Paul Watzlawick (WW Norton, NY, 1979)
*Rigor and Imagination, Essays from the Legacy of Gregory Bateson, edited with Carol Wilder-Mott (Praeger, NY, 1981)
*Propagations: Thirty Years of Influence From the Mental Research Institute,edited with Wendel Ray (The Haworth Press, Inc., 1995)References
External links
*http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE5D6143BF935A25754C0A963958260&scp=1&sq=john+f.+weakland&st=nyt New York Times Obituary
*http://www.mri.org The Official Website of the Mental Research Institute
*http://www.mri.org/dondjackson/toward.htm The front page of the historic article, Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia
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