Jay Haley

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Jay Haley

Jay Haley (born July 19, 1923 in Midwest , Wyoming , † February 13, 2007 ) was an American psychotherapist . He was a student of Gregory Bateson and Milton H. Erickson , in 1959 one of the founders of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto and from 1967 a close collaborator of Salvador Minuchin in Philadelphia . In 1976 he founded the Family Therapy Institute in Washington, DC with Cloe Madanes, where Haley taught and influenced several generations of psychotherapists and family counselors. He is considered a "pioneer of strategic family therapy " and took a directive approach.

biography

Palo Alto

Haley studied communication science with Gregory Bateson at Stanford University in the early 1950s and was invited to Palo Alto to work on his research project on human communication. Haley stayed in this small town in Silicon Valley until 1967, first in the so-called Bateson Project , which developed and published the double bond theory, from 1959 as co-founder of the Mental Research Institute , where he continued to work intensively on schizophrenia research and, together with Richard Fisch , Lynn Hoffman , Don D. Jackson, and John Weakland established the theory and technique of family therapy.

Jay Haley also became known for working with representatives of different and contradicting schools, on the one hand with Gregory Bateson and representatives of systemic therapy in Palo Alto, on the other hand with the hypnotherapist Milton Erickson or the behavioral therapist Richard Stuart . His integrative and cross-school view of psychotherapy was primarily shaped by the question: “What works?” And at that time had a major influence on research and teaching. In 1962, Jay Haley founded the Family Process magazine , which has become one of the world's leading journals on family therapy.

Philadelphia

In 1967 Jay Haley went to the Child Guidance Clinic in Philadelphia . There was Salvador Minuchin director, the founder of structural family therapy , which refers to psychosomatic , anorexia and diabetes mellitus had specialized. The structure, subsystems and boundaries of families were at the center of Haley's understanding of therapy. He named recurring transactions within the family as patterns from which a family structure could be diagnosed. In 1967 he published The perverse triangle (perverse triangle), which as a basic model of triangulation from the family therapy was taken. Haley referred to subsystems as subsystems, for example father / son or grandmother / granddaughter. Jay Haley cultivated this intensive intellectual exchange during his time at Minuchin and he was able to try out and formulate his own approach - parallel to Minuchin. In 1973 his tribute to Milton H. Erickson was published under the title: Uncommon Therapy. In 1976, Haley published his own résumé of twenty years of therapeutic work with families: Problem-solving therapy. It runs a direct line from Brief Therapy in Palo Alto to Problem Solving in Philadelphia to Solution Focusing in Milwaukee , where Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer opened their Center for Brief Family Therapy ( BFTC ) in 1978 .

In 1975 Minuchin resigned as director of the clinic and remained as director of the training institute for six years. Jay Haley was also looking for a new field of activity.

Washington

In 1976 he founded - together with Cloe Madanes, his wife - the Family Therapy Institute in Washington DC There he dealt with Leaving Home , published in 1980 - with the detachment problems of adolescents and developed ordeal therapy: the therapist creates even worse alternatives existing problematic behaviors. There is a certain proximity to the provocative therapy of Frank Farrelly . Symptoms, according to Haley, arise from a specific incongruity between overt and covert levels of communication with others, and they serve to make the individual feel in control of their relationships. Therefore, Jay Haley sees it as the primary task of the therapist to move the patient to take responsibility and to take positions. Haley postulated two important demands on family therapy:

  • When assessing a problem, the appropriate organizational sequence must be taken into account.
  • When observing changes, the respective stages must be observed.

Haley endeavored to clarify hierarchical boundaries within the family system, "probably pointing out the risk that psychotherapists could also contribute to organizational abnormalities in family processes." Systemic therapy owes its central methods to Jay Haley, for example paradoxical interventions, ordeals and homework.

In 1995 Jay Haley retired and lived and published in La Jolla , California. He continued his teaching activities unchecked, including at four US universities. In 2003 he published a substantial book: The art of strategic therapy.

Family Therapy Directive

Haley's research with communication scholars such as Watzlawick and Bateson and many others had shown that problems of an individual should appropriately be viewed as problems of the group 'family'. Instead of treating the individual, Haley found nuclear family therapy to be more effective in solving individual problems. From this point of view, a symptom is a crystallization point, a section from a social structure.

Basically:

“ A skilled therapist knows that he always has to proceed differently depending on the personal or social situation of the client. "

He uses a number of general, strategic guidelines that he varies for the specific case and problem. For this he needs knowledge, u. a. about the dynamics of family relationships, and experience with a variety of methods that can be effective. He also has to react flexibly and spontaneously.

The therapist intervenes in the relationships in the group in order to change them. He determines z. B. the seating arrangements, intervenes (interferes) through his comments on what the members say. He asks about changes in the problem, about advances in everyday life. If everyone agrees, it sets tasks that have to be solved jointly or by individuals. These tasks, also called directives, can also have the character of an ordeal , e.g. For example, clients are asked to repeat actions (e.g., arguing) that they want to change. The latter has become known as 'ordeal therapy'. In addition, tasks are set that have to be done at home. All interventions and tasks are factors of therapy and - in addition to knowledge - conclusions from observations in the sessions. This way of working supports the therapist's desire to work problem-oriented.

An alternative plan is pursued for families in which the directive approach does not work. With this, the family should be won over to a directive approach. If this does not work either, another alternative plan is necessary. In any case, changes in behavior are brought about and the structure between parent and child is changed. Every change in strategy triggers the solution to a problem.

Training as a therapist

The aim is to train therapists who have learned to plan behavioral changes, to work problem-oriented and to practice action as an occasion for change. This is not finally achieved through the training. The therapist must always optimize his working method according to the requirements if he wants to enable his clients to orientate themselves to problems and to make changes .

Suitable for the education are students who have experience in various social areas, who are already married, have a wide range of behaviors and have good intelligence.

Haley's family therapy cannot be learned from books or by watching. It is learned by treating others. The trainee learns best when he conducts therapy under the supervision of a supervisor and with the cooperation of the students in his study group. In preparation for a first session with a family, the aspiring thepeut practices initial contact techniques in his training group with simulated families. Each of his sessions is followed by the supervisor and also by the others in his training group behind a one-way mirror. In this way, the students are introduced to a wide range of problems and also receive comments on the behavior of the prospective therapist. In the subsequent joint case discussion, the focus is on the case, the problem and the behavior. That way you can learn efficiently. Psychiatric and group therapeutic interpretations are not used. Personal problems of the students are also not discussed. If someone can make alternative suggestions, it is permissible to express criticism.

It is always about training to become a therapist capable of acting and learning. This also means that the student can rethink what he is doing and explain it to others. To learn this, video recordings of your own sessions, which you show and explain to each other and later to outsiders, are suitable. The trainee should also be familiar with the

"The whole spectrum of problems that he will encounter in practice afterwards ."

This helps make him flexible.

At the end of the training it is checked whether the student has learned to work successfully. The video recordings are used to check whether changes have occurred. For this purpose, the fellow students are included observingly and the families receiving treatment are also asked how they B. have cope with everyday life after therapy. The benefit of this final control of success consists in reflecting on your own actions. Reflecting enables the therapist to continue to experiment and improve his way of working in the future.

German-language publications

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stumm / Pritz: Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy , Vienna and New York 2005, p. 200.
  2. ^ The perverse triangle. In: J. Zuk & I. Nagy (Eds.), Family therapy and disturbed families. Palo Alto 1967, CA: Science and Behavior Books.
  3. ↑ Cf. Fritz B. Simon, Ulrich Clement, Helm Stierlin: The language of family therapy. Stuttgart 2004, p. 257.
  4. ↑ Cf. Kirsten von Sydow: Systemic psychotherapy with families, couples and individuals. In: Psychotherapy. A textbook for doctors and psychologists. Berlin and Heidelberg 2000, p. 303.
  5. ^ Stumm / Pritz: Personal Lexicon of Psychotherapy , Vienna, New York 2005, 201.
  6. ↑ http://www.jay-haley-on-therapy.com/ , January 1, 2008
  7. ↑ Haley: Family Therapy Directive. Munich 1979, 2nd edition, p. 13
  8. ^ Haley: Family Therapy Directive , p. 19.
  9. ↑ Cf. on the whole section especially the 2nd chapter "Giving directives" in: Jay Haley: directive family therapy . Munich 1979, 2nd edition, pp. 54-88.
  10. ↑ Family Therapy Directive , p. 190.
  11. ↑ See above all the 7th chapter "Problems of the training of therapists" in: Jay Haley: directive family therapy. Munich 1979, 2nd edition, pp. 175-198; ibs. Pp. 185-191.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Haley, Jay
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American psychiatrist and family therapist
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Midwest , Wyoming
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 2007