carmenkm
Joined: 08 Apr 2007
Posts: 2
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 Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:53 am Post subject: Family Therapy Pioneer Paul Watzlawick Dies |
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AUTHORIZED OBITUARY:
Paul Watzlawick, PhD, Dies, Philosopher-Family Therapy Pioneer was 85
Paul Watzlawick, a pioneer in family therapy, system theory and
constructivist philosophy, died Saturday, March 31, 2007 at his home in
Palo Alto, CA. He was 85 years old.
He died of heart arrest, a spokesperson at the Stanford University
Medical
Center said. In late 2006, primarily due to ill health related to age,
after 46 years he gave up his office at the Mental Research Institute
(MRI)
entered into full time retirement. Dr Watzlawick donated his body to
science. There will be no services held.
Dr. Watzlawick's contributions to system theory and family therapy were
many, widely read, and influential. Internationally known for his
contributions to Communication Theory and the practice of Brief Therapy,
and in the fields of cybernetics applied to human interaction and
constructivist theory, he was author of 22 books translated into more
than
80 languages, including The Pragmatics of Human Communication (1967);
Change - Principals of problem formation and problem resolution
(1974); The
Language of Change (1977); The Invented Reality (1984); How real is
real?
(1976), and The situation is hopeless but not serious (1983).
Dr. Watzlawick received his Doctorate in 1949 from the University of
Venice
(Ca Foscari) in Philosophy and Modern Languages. Trained at the C.
G. Jung
Institute in Zurich, since November 1960 he served as a member of the
staff
at the Mental Research Institute (MRI). At the time of his death he
was a
Senior Research Fellow at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) a founding
member of the MRI Brief Therapy Center team, and Clinical Professor
Emeritus at Stanford University School of Medicine Department of
Psychiatry
and Behavioral Sciences.
Among the best known figures in the fields of communication and
constructivist theory, family and brief therapy, Dr. Watzlawick was the
receipient of numerous awards and honors including the Prix Psych 19719
Paris; Distinguished Achievement Award, American Family Therapy
Association, 1981; Outstanding Teacher Award, Psychiatric Residency
Class
1981, Stanford Univ. Med. Center; the Paracelsus Ring 1987, City of
Villach
(Austria); Lifetime Achievement Award, Milton H. Erickson Foundation,
1988;
Distinguished Professor for Contributions to Family Therapy Award,
American
Association of Marriage & Family Therapy, 1982; Medal for Meritorious
Service, City of Vienna, 1990; Doctor honoris causa, University of Liege
(Belgium), 1992; Doctor honoris causa University of Bordeaux-III, 1992;
Fonorary Medal, Province of Carinthia (Austria), 1993; Author's Award
(Nonfiction), Donauland Book Association, Vienna, 1993.
An extraordinarily humble, kind, and generous human being, he will be
missed
by the thousands of therapists and philosophers throughout the world
whom he
mentored. His wife, Vera; stepdaughters Yvonne and Joanne; sister, Maria
Wunsch and nephew Doctor Harald Wunsch of Villach Austria, and nieces
and
other relatives survive him.
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