ABSTRACT
Founded in 1958, the Mental Research Institute is the birthplace of numerous contributions to communication theory and innovations in the application of these ideas to the practice of family and brief therapy. In 1965, when Richard Fisch, John Weakland, and Paul Watzlawick created the MRI Brief Therapy Center (BTC), they were determined to break away from an almost exclusive focus on individual pathology that then dominated psychotherapy. Inspired by Don Jackson (1961), Milton Erickson (1967), and Jay Haley (1963), the model is based on the communication theory created by the Bateson Research Team (Fisch, Ray, & Schlanger, 2009; Ray, 2005, 2009; Ray & Nardone, 2009). Discarding presuppositions not useful in the actual practice of effective brief therapy, BTC researchers created a nonpathological/nonnormative brief therapy approach explicitly focused on making therapy more effective and efficient. Pioneering numerous conceptual and intervention strategies that have permeated virtually all other models of brief therapy practice and training, some of the BTC’s noteworthy contributions include the following: the first routine use of therapy teams, recording of all sessions to encourage analysis and to enhance effectiveness, use of one-way mirrors, telephone and in-session breaks for consultation with a team of observers, and limiting the number of sessions (10 with an actual average of 6.5) to encourage accountability on the part of client and therapist.
