Historical Figures

Cybernetics and Systems Theory

The earliest yearts of family therapy were dominated by cybernetic and systems theory. Much of the early research began with Gregory Bateson and his research team. Later, the Mental Research Institute was founded and became a hub of research and training in Family Therapy. Today much of the early knowledge that was gain by the founders of this new way of thinking has been lost in the politics of universities and the push of a medical model than an approach based on the complexity and interrelatedness of human experience.

William Fry, John Weakland, Gregory Bateson, Jay Haley

Family Therapy Historical Figures

Mind For Therapy promotes the tradition of family therapy that is rooted in a cybernetic and systemic tradition. Some of the major contributors are listed below. Please follow the links to find more information about each.

Gregory Bateson

" For everbody who would work in the sciences of man, every new discovery and every new advance is an exploration of the self. When the investigator starts to probe the unknown areas of the universie, the back end of the probe is always driven into his own vital parts." (1957)

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Milton Erickson

"Until you are willing to be confused about what you already know, what you know will never grow bigger, better, or more useful."

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation

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Read about Erickson's Utilzation Approach Click Here

Don Jackson

"Both common sense and clinical observation argue for the organized nature of family interaction. If there were not some circumscription of the infinity of possible behaviors in which its members might conceivably engage, not only the daily chores but the very survival of the family unit would be in question."

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Carl Whitaker

“Whatever comes of it will be unforeseen and unexpected. This is what I look for in my therapy all the time. Events that occur out of nowhere, which I haven’t pre-planned, which I’ve never had happen before.” (1967)

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Virginia Satir

“We must not allow other people's limited perceptions to define us”

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R. D. Laing

For more on Laing Click the Photo

“The human race is a myriad of refractive surfaces staining the white radiance of eternity. Each surface refracts the refractions of refractions of refractions. Each self refracts the refractions of others’ refractions of self’s refractions of others’ refractions…

Here is glory and wonder and mystery, yet too often we simply wish to ignore or destroy those points of view that refract the light differently from our own.” (1966)

Laing's connection with Family Therapy includes historical documents (letters between Laing and Bateson).

Jay Haley

“We should all keep in mind that society grants permission to therapists to impose their help on people to relieve suffering, not to create it.” (1984)

Salvador Minuchin

“Only a person who has mastered technique and then contrived to forget it can become an expert therapist.” (1981)

Paul Watzlawick

Paul Watzlwick

“It often happens that the most immediately obvious is most difficult to grasp.” (1978)

John Weakland

“There is no simple message. There are messages about messages which qualify their meaning.” (1995)

Tenth Conference on Cybernetics 1953

Participants of the Tenth Conference on Cybernetics, April 22-24, 1953, Princeton, N.J. Sponsored by the Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation.

1st row: T.C. Schneirla, Y. Bar-Hillel, Margaret Mead, Warren S. McCulloch, Jan Droogleever-Fortuyn, Yuen Ren Chao, W. Grey-Walter, Vahe E. Amassian. 2nd row: Leonard J. Savage, Janet Freed Lynch, Gerhardt von Bonin, Lawrence S. Kubie, Lawrence K. Frank, Henry Quastler, Donald G. Marquis, Heinrich KlŸver, F.S.C. Northrop. 3rd row: Peggy Kubie, Henry Brosin, Gregory Bateson, Frank Fremont-Smith, John R. Bowman, G.E. Hutchinson, Hans Lukas Teuber, Julian H. Bigelow, Claude Shannon, Walter Pitts, Heinz von Foerster.

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