Jay Haley, 83, a psychologist recognized as a pioneer of family therapy and a co-founder of the Family Therapy Institute in Chevy Chase. At the time of his death, he was a research professor at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University.

Haley was a proponent of brief therapies that focused on solving concrete and immediate problems rather than delving into the past for root causes. Developed by Mr. Haley’s mentor, Milton H. Erickson, the approach also shifted the focus from the client in isolation to the social context, particularly the family unit. Haley once wrote that “my most significant contribution is breaking therapy down to a practice of specific skills — of simple ideas, skills and techniques. This is quite different from the non-directive ideology the field had when I first got into it.” Jay Douglas Haley was born in Midwest, Wyo., and grew up in California. After serving in the Army, he graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1948. He also received an undergraduate degree in library science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1951 and a master’s degree in communication from Stanford University in 1953.

At Stanford, Haley worked with linguist and anthropologist Gregory Bateson on a team project investigating schizophrenia. The team developed the double bind theory of schizophrenia, which attributed the mental illness to a young person’s participation in dysfunctional communication patterns within the family. Although the theory is now discredited as a cause of schizophrenia, it provided Haley with a model for exploring communication in families. Haley was director of family experimentation at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., before becoming director of family research at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, where he worked with Salvador Minuchin, a major figure in family therapy. With Minuchin, he did pioneering work in training lay people to work as family therapists. He also encouraged therapists to focus on the needs of underprivileged and ethnically diverse families. In 1974, he co-founded the Family Therapy Institute, based in Chevy Chase. Under his leadership during the next two decades, it became one of the nation’s leading training institutes. He also taught at the University of Maryland, Howard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

He was the author of more than 100 scholarly papers and 21 books, including “Strategies of Psychotherapy” (1963), “Uncommon Therapy” (1972), “Leaving Home: The Therapy of Disturbed Young People” (1981) and “The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ and Other Essays” (1999). His marriages to Elizabeth Kuehn Haley and Cloe Madanes ended in divorce.