Paul Watzlawick, a pioneer in family therapy, system theory and constructivist philosophy, died Saturday, March 31, 2007 at his home in Palo Alto, CA. He was 85 years old. Dr. Watzlawick’s contributions to system theory and family therapy were many, widely read, and influential. Internationally known for his contributions to Communication Theory and the practice of Brief Therapy, and in the fields of cybernetics applied to human interaction and constructivist theory, he was author of 22 books translated into more than 80 languages, including The Pragmatics of Human Communication (1967); Change - Principals of problem formation and problem resolution (1974); The Language of Change (1977); The Invented Reality (1984); How real is real? (1976), and The situation is hopeless but not serious (1983).

Dr. Watzlawick received his Doctorate in 1949 from the University of Venice (Ca Foscari) in Philosophy and Modern Languages. Trained at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, since November 1960 he served as a member of the staff at the Mental Research Institute (MRI). At the time of his death he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) a founding member of the MRI Brief Therapy Center team, and Clinical Professor Emeritus at Stanford University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Among the best known figures in the fields of communication and constructivist theory, family and brief therapy, Dr. Watzlawick was the receipient of numerous awards and honors including the Prix Psych 19719 Paris; Distinguished Achievement Award, American Family Therapy Association, 1981; Outstanding Teacher Award, Psychiatric Residency Class 1981, Stanford Univ. Med. Center; the Paracelsus Ring 1987, City of Villach (Austria); Lifetime Achievement Award, Milton H. Erickson Foundation, 1988; Distinguished Professor for Contributions to Family Therapy Award, American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy, 1982; Medal for Meritorious Service, City of Vienna, 1990. An extraordinarily humble, kind, and generous human being, he will be missed by the thousands of therapists and philosophers throughout the world whom he mentored.