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Paradox and Counterparadox introduces the English-speaking public to the first results of a research plan drawn up my the Milan Center for Family Studies at the end of 1971 and put into practice at the beginning of 1972. The book reports the therapeutic work carried out by the authors with fifteen families, five with children presenting serious psychotic disturbances, and ten with young adults diagnosed as schizophrenics in acute phase. Though accepting the Bleulerian term schizophrenia, by now in general use, the authors have used it to indicate not the sickness of an individualDas in the traditional medical modelDbut a peculiar pattern of communication inseparable from the other patterns of communication observable in the natural group (in this case, the family) in which it manifests itself. Starting from the position that modern sciences concerned with communication emphasize the central role of paradox as the source of paralyzing disturbances as well as of creative transformations, the authors demonstrate that it is possible to intervene in a family in schizophrenic transaction by devising original and paradoxical methods in order to release the action-pattern from disturbance to transformation. The counterparadoxes generated in this process, illustrated through a great number of examples, are rigorously analyzed in accordance with the conceptual models provided by general systems theory, by cybernetics, and by the pragmatics of human communication. The reader will recognize, in the cases presented, the stimulating originality and efficacy of this approach, one whose interest exceeds the purely clinical and which offers new points of departure for an ecologic vision of human relationships. A Jason Aronson Book
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PARADOX AND COUNTERP ARADOX
PARADOX AND
COUNTERP ARADOX
A New Model in the Therapy of the Family in Schizophrenic Transaction
MARA SELVINI PALAZZOLI, M.D. LUIGI BOSCOLO, M.D. GIANFRANCO CECCHIN, M.D. GIULIANA PRATA, M.D. translated by Elisabeth V. Burt
A JASON ARONSON BOOK ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Oxford
A JASON ARONSON BOOK
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly.owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com POBox317 Oxford OX29RU, UK
THE MASTER WORK SERIES English translation copyright © 1978 by Jason Aronson Inc. First softcover edition 1994 First Rowman & Littlefield edition 2004 Originally published in Italy by Feltrinelli Editore, Milan, 1975. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: 0-87668-764-8 (hardcover) l-56821-305-0 (softcover) ISBN 978-1-56821-305-7 Library of Congress Catalog Number: 84-45862 Printed in the United States of America
8"'The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSIINISO Z39.48-1992.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Helm Stierlin
Vll
Preface
xi Part One
Introduction
3
2 Working method
9
I
Part Two 3 The couple and the family in schizophrenic 4
transaction
21
The identified patient
35
Part Three 5 Therapeutic interventions: a learning process
through trial and er