Munchhausen's Pigtail: Or Psychotherapy and "Reality"

by Paul Watzlawick

Overview

Citing the mythical Baron von Munchhausen's method of rescuing himself and his horse from drowning by hoisting himself up by his pigtail, Paul Watzlawick, in this collection of essays and lectures, asks: do we – by choosing to see the world in a particular way – blind ourselves to seeing it another way? Is it possible to pull oneself (or others) out of some untenable situation and see life from the outside with new eyes?

With his usual insight and wit, Dr. Watzlawick shows us how we can change our perspective of reality to suit our needs rather than adhering to a fixed view, and thus avoid the consequences of self-imposed limitations. Along the way he pays homage to such seminal thinkers as anthropologist Gregory Bateson, psychiatrist Don D. Jackson, hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson, and bio-cybernetician Heinz von Foerster, whose writings have influenced his own work and the collective work of the Mental Research Institute at Palo Alto.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393333862
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/17/1970
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Paul Watzlawick was an associate at the Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, and clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford University Medical Center. An internationally known psychologist, Watzlawick died in 2007.

Editorial Reviews

The quotation marks in the title matter; for systems therapist Watzlawick of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., reality is no absolute, but a construct, or ``interpersonal convention,'' built of ``first-order'' facts and the ``second-order'' meaning ascribed to them. Thus, in his example, the first-order reality of a red traffic light is the combination of the color we call ``red'' and the thing we label ``traffic light''; its meaning is ``stop and wait.'' Quoting philosophers Wittgenstein and Epictetus, anthropologist Gregory Bateson, cybernetician Heinz von Foerster and hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, among others, Watzlawick ( The Invented Reality ) takes a hard line against ``classic, linear-causal'' psychiatry while presenting his case for a behaviorist approach to psychotherapy, in particular, systemic therapy with its focus on what is happening within a relationship rather than on why it is happening. Though Watzlawick's prose can be convoluted and vocabulary obtuse (``scientificity,'' ``enantiodromy''), his controversial arguments, especially when illustrated by case studies, are provocative and frequently persuasive. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly