ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to acquaint readers with strategic family therapy-strategic in the sense that the therapist designs specific strategies to create change. Strategic family therapy is an approach that is associated with more than one individual or group. Although these schools of strategic therapy have many similarities, they also have a number of differences. This chapter focuses on two of these schools: the Mental Research Institute (MRI) approach, which was founded on the West Coast by Fisch, Weakland, and Watzlawick in the 1960s, and the Washington School, which was founded by Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes at the Family Therapy Institute on the East Coast in the 1970s.
