The Philosopher

Paul Watzlawick

The face

The background

Nationality:
Austrian-American
Schools:
Constructivist epistemology, Analytical psychology
Branchs:
Communication theory, Radical constructivism, Family therapy, Psychotherapy
Period:
20th century

The synopsis

Paul Watzlawick (July 25, 1921 – March 31, 2007) was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher. He was a theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, making significant contributions to family therapy and general psychotherapy. Watzlawick's core belief was that individuals often exacerbate their own emotional problems through their attempts to resolve them. He was a highly influential figure at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, California, where he lived and worked. Born in Villach, Austria, he studied philosophy and philology at the Università Ca' Foscari Venice, earning a PhD in 1949. He further pursued analytical psychology at the Carl Jung Institute in Zürich, obtaining a degree in 1954. His career in research began at the University of El Salvador in 1957. In 1960, he moved to Palo Alto to join the MRI, following in the research path of Gregory Bateson. From 1967, he also taught psychiatry at Stanford University. At MRI, Watzlawick was part of the team that developed the "double bind" theory of schizophrenia. His 1967 work, "Pragmatics of Human Communication," co-authored with Don Jackson and Janet Beavin, became a foundational text in communication theory. His other key contributions include work on radical constructivism and his influential theory on communication. He was a co-founder of the Brief Therapy Center at MRI, and in 1974, the center published "Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution." Watzlawick was a licensed psychologist in California from 1969 to 1998. He was married and had two stepdaughters, and he died in Palo Alto at the age of 85 due to cardiac arrest.

The works

The quotes

The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions.
Paul Watzlawick
In other words, what is supposedly found is an invention whose inventor is unaware of his act of invention, who considers it as something that exists independently of him; the invention then becomes the basis of his world view and actions.
Paul Watzlawick
Above all, in comedy, and again and again since classical times, passages can be found in which the level of representation is interrupted by references to the spectators or to the fictive nature of the play.
Paul Watzlawick
This is the secret of propaganda: To totally saturate the person, whom the propaganda wants to lay hold of, with the ideas of the propaganda, without him even noticing that he is being saturated.
Paul Watzlawick
A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own 'accuracy.'
Paul Watzlawick
Radical constructivism, thus, is radical because it breaks with convention and develops a theory of knowledge in which knowledge does not reflect an 'objective' ontological reality.
Paul Watzlawick
It is difficult to imagine how any behavior in the presence of another person can avoid being a communication of one's own view of the nature of one's relationship with that person and how it can fail to influence that person.
Paul Watzlawick
The suicide arrives at the conclusion that what he is seeking does not exist; the seeker concludes that what he has not yet looked in the right place.
Paul Watzlawick
The counterpart of the suicide is the seeker; but the difference between them is slight.
Paul Watzlawick