The influence of the Bateson Project on Family Therapy

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Some have considered the ‘Bateson Project’ to be the birthplace of family therapy. Discuss whether this is a fair comment and outline other important influences in the birth and development of family therapy.

Gregory Bateson’s study into psychotherapy and communication was fundamental in the development of family therapies. Bateson, an English anthropologist, setup the collaborative study intending on uncovering different styles and levels of communication using a psychotherapeutic framework. His team, consisting of; John Weakland a chemical engineer turned anthropologist, Jay Haley who went on to develop the finding of the study toward brief family therapy and strategic therapy, Don Jackson a trained psychiatrist, and William Fry also a psychiatrist, uncovered a theory focusing on the development of schizophrenia as direct result of the families involvement. Their studies resulted in a deepened understanding of levels of communication or, “Levels of Message”, as termed in ‘Toward the Theory of Schizophrenia’, a key research paper published as a result the Bateson Project. The aforementioned publication is also seen as possibly the most influential publication of the Project. These Levels of Message can be divided into what is being said, and what is being understood. This distinction led to the discovery of what was termed the ‘Double Bind’. Broken down the Double Bind is “a situation in which no matter what a person does, he "can't win”(Gregory Bateson, 2007). The idea of meta-communication was revolutionary “ ‘Meta-communication’ was originally cast as a broadly based term with wide applicability, but it was not until the publication of ‘Pragmatics of Human Communication’ (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967) that ‘meta-commun...

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5. Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice.(2009). What is Family Therapy. Retrieved 6 May, 2014, from http://www.aft.org.uk/SpringboardWebApp/userfiles/aft/file/Information%20Sheets/WhatIsFamilyTherapy.pdf
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8. Evans, T. D. & Milliren, A. P. (1999). Open-forum family counseling. In Watts, R. E. & Carlson, J. Interventions and strategies in counseling and psychotherapy. Levittown, PA: Accelerated Development, pp. 135-160. (retrieved from http://www.carterandevans.com/portal/index.php/adlerian-theory/69-adlerian-theory

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