Blackwell Reference Online

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Haley (1963) first used the term ‘strategic therapy’ to describe the work of Milton H. Erickson. The term was, for a considerable time, used synonymously with the tactical and pragmatic focus of the brief therapy approaches of, for example, the Mental Research Institute (Watzlawick et al., 1974; Weakland et al., 1974). More recently, the term has come to be associated with the approach developed by Haley and Madanes (Haley, 1976, 1980; Madanes, 1981, 1984, 1990). This approach concentrates predominantly on hierarchy and structure. Some confusion still remains, however. Haley eas an original member of the Gregory Bateson project studying the paradoxes of abstraction in communication. His earlier concerns were very much with process and his earlier writings, especially his seminal work Strategies of psychotherapy (1963), had a profound influence on the development of the brief apporaches. After nearly a decade with the MRI, Haley moved to the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic in 1967 and joined Salvador Minuchin and Braulio Montalvo. He became increasingly concerned with structure and hierarchy, with form rather than process. He began less and less to use the hypnotic and the more indirect and paradoxical techniques that had been a major feature of his earlier work and his earlier writings. This is not to say that they are never used in his more recent work, but thier use is always ... log in or subscribe to read full text