The Bateson Project (1953-1963) was the name given to a ground-breaking collaboration organized by
Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropology, anthropologist, social sciences, social scientist, linguistics, linguist, visual anthropology, visual anthropologist, semiotics, semiotician, and cybernetics, cybernetici ...
which was responsible for some of the most important papers and innovations in communication and psychotherapy in the 1950s and early 1960s. Its other members were
Donald deAvila Jackson,
Jay Haley,
John Weakland
John H. Weakland (8 January 1919 – 18 July 1995) was one of the founders of brief and family psychotherapy. At the time of his death, he was a senior research fellow at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, California, co-director o ...
, and Bill Fry. Perhaps their most famous and influential publication was ''Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia'' (1956), which introduced the concept of the
Double Bind
A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more mutually conflicting messages. In some scenarios (such as within families or romantic relationships), this can be emotionally distressing, creati ...
, and helped found
Family Therapy
Family therapy (also referred to as family counseling, family systems therapy, marriage and family therapy, couple and family therapy) is a branch of psychotherapy focused on families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and ...
.
One of the project's first locations was the
Menlo Park VA Hospital, which was chosen because of Bateson's previous work there as an
ethnologist
Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology).
Scien ...
.
The initial research, which was funded by a
Rockefeller grant,
focused on "strange communication" and nonsensical language among the patients of the institution who had
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...
. The group studied this within the context of
double bind communication in family dynamics.
Bibliography
*"Development of a theory: A history of a research project", in C. Sluzki & D. Ransom (Eds.). ''Double bind: The foundation of the communicational approach to the family''. NY: Grune & Stratton, Publishers.
*"One thing leads to another", by John Weakland, in C. Wilder-Mott & J. Weakland (Eds.) ''Rigor & Imagination: Essays from the legacy of Gregory Bateson''. NY: Praeger.
*''Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution'', with Paul Watzlawick and Richard Fisch (WW Norton, NY, 1974).
*''The Interactional View: Studies at the Mental Research Institute'', Palo Alto, 1965–1974, edited with Paul Watzlawick (WW Norton, NY, 1979).
References
{{reflist
External links
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080211090234/http://www.mri.org/dondjackson/brp.htm
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070813225924/http://www.mri.org/dondjackson/toward.htm The front page of the historic article, Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia
* Pape
''Gregory Bateson: Cybernetics and the social behavioral sciences''by Lawrence S. Bale, Ph.D.: First Published in: ''Cybernetics & Human Knowing: A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics & Cyber-Semiotics'', Vol. 3 no. 1 (1995), pp. 27–45.
* Articl
by Patrice Guillaume: Excellent introductory article about Double Bind
* Articl
by Matthijs Koopmans, 1997.
* Articl
by Matthijs Koopmans, 1996.
*https://www.behavenet.com/double-bind
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080215124155/http://laingsociety.org/cetera/pguillaume.htm
Psychotherapy