His passing should not go unremarked.
In psychology circles, he was known for breaking with Freudian psychoanalysis, after having studied at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. A native of Austria, Watzlawick became known in the United States for his brief therapy, a behavioral approach that often involved reverse psychology, "reframing," and stepping outside of the system. I am not certain, but I believe he made famous the nine dot problem as an archetype of creative problem solving, which later became the basis for the idea of "thinking outside of the box." He emphasized the need to look at relationships rather than individuals, pioneering family therapy and the kind of approach that later was associated with the concept of co-dependency.
In the field of communication, his work was foundational, a synthesis of logic and mathematics (along the lines of Russell and Whitehead), the study of language and symbols, psychology and the study of relationships, cybernetics and systems theory (Gregory Bateson was a major influence on his work), and communication. He provided a basis for communication theory that served as a paradigm from the late 1960s on. It seems to have faded a bit in recent years, due to the turn away from psychology and towards cultural studies, but his was a communication paradigm that was far from exhausted. And he remains central to the study of relational communication, family communication, and interpersonal communication. Moreover, his work is more relevant now than ever, in the age of the internet, digital technologies, and the like.
Watzlawick's influence can be seen in the work of Kenneth Gergen, noted especially for his well known work The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life
Paul Watzlawick's work was required reading in the first semester of Neil Postman's doctoral program in media ecology, and was used in other classes as well (Postman and Watzlawick admired each other's work). Watzlawick's distinction between analogic and digital forms of communication, which paralleled Susanne K. Langer's contrast between presentational and discursive symbolic forms as discussed in Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art
Here are some books of his worth checking out that are still in print:
Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes
Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution
The Situation Is Hopeless, but Not Serious (The Pursuit of Unhappiness)
The Language of Change: Elements of Therapeutic Communication
And no longer in print, but also worth looking at:
How Real Is Real?
Ultra-Solutions: How to Fail Most Successfully
Munchhausen's Pigtail, or Psychotherapy & "Reality"
And Watzlawick also edited an anthology:
Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know?
Watzlawick is best known for his "first axiom of communication," namely that "one cannot not communicate." This is a formulation comparable to Korzybski's "the map is not the territory" and McLuhan's "the medium is the message," and was a shibboleth repeated religiously in introductory communication courses and texts. The idea is that all behavior functions as communication, that even a decision to remain silent has meaning value, that inaction sends a message as much as action does. In fact, silence, inaction, and treating someone as if they do not exist is the most powerful message of all, one that Watzlawick refers to as disconfirmation (a concept I incorporated into my essay on The Sopranos). In sum, communication is a matter of behavior, not intention.
In this sense, Watzlawick may be gone, but he continues to communicate. Through his scholarship, and the published works he has left us, he cannot not communicate.
And one cannot not recognize his contributions to media ecology, communication, psychology, cybernetics, systems theory, and many other fields and disciplines. One cannot not recognize his contributions to human knowledge and understanding. And one cannot not say that he will be missed.
1 comment:
I appreciate your comments on Paul Watzlawick and have been so detached from Communication academics that I didn't know he had passed on untl I read your blog entry. But his truly fresh ideas have stuck to the ribs of my brain like a good bowl of oatmeal.
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