ABSTRACT

The originating model in this group, the Mental Research Institute model of family therapy, derived its name when the MRI Brief Therapy Center was founded in 1965 by Richard Fisch, John Weakland, and Paul Watzlawick (Fisch, Ray, & Schlanger, 2009). The MRI model is based on the communication theory earlier created by what is known as the Palo Alto research team: Gregory Bateson, John Weakland, and Jay Haley. Haley would go on to found his own school of family therapy, together with Cloe Madanes (Chapter 20). The MRI model was also very much influenced by Milton Erickson, a prominent hypnotherapist (Chapter 28), and by Don Jackson, a creative psychiatrist and prolific writer who became interested in the MRI ideas (Fisch, Ray, & Schlanger, 2009). These MRI ideas, the foundation of the brief therapy models, represent a dramatic break from conventional mental health notions of pathology and health. The goal of therapy becomes to assist the client in becoming unstuck from overly rigid patterns of behavior and communication in a brief and noninvasive manner. The emphasis on noninvasiveness comes from Bateson; the emphasis on efficiency and efficacy comes from Erickson. The original Milan team studied the MRI model and the work of both Bateson and Erickson, and the influence is clear in their work (Piercy et al, 1996). The MRI model was also the original inspiration for what became solution-focused brief therapy; in fact, the husband/wife originators of that model, Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, met each other while training with John Weakland at MRI (Yalom & Rubin, 2003). We have grouped these models together due to their common history and their common focus on solutions—stuck solution behavior on the part of individuals, which is to be interrupted (MRI, Chapter 29); spontaneous solutions (again, of particular individuals) that are working and should be encouraged (SFBT, Chapter 30); and stuck solution behavior on the part of the family as a whole, which is made overt and thus neutralized (classic Milan, discussed in Chapter 31). It should be noted that the original Milan team split in 1979, and two of the original group, Luigi Boscolo and Gianfranco Cecchin, went in a less formulaic direction, well described here by Paul Rhodes (Chapter 31); the other two, Selvini Palazolli and Giuliana Prata, moved more toward the structural/strategic model (Piercy et al., 1996). We have also included in this section a chapter on Ericksonian therapy (Chapter 28), which is a model of its own as well as a considerable influence on these brief therapy models of family therapy.