Don Jackson. Biografia (da MRI.org)

Don Jackson was rated one of the top ten Psychiatrists in America in the late 1960s just before his untimely death in January 1968 at the age of 48 (Rogow, 1970). He is best remembered as having been a brilliant therapist, teacher, and for his leading part in the development of such ground breaking theoretical concepts as family homeostasis, family rules, relational quid pro quo, and, with Gregory Bateson, John Weakland and Jay Haley, the theory of the Double Bind. Jackson's theoretical and clinical contribution to the understanding of human behavior is phenomenal for its breadth and scope. Many leaders in the fields of family and brief therapy acknowledge Jackson as the principle founder of Interactional Theory and Conjoint Family Therapy. Interactional Theory places emphasis on what is transpiring in the present between people as the primary data relevant to understanding human behavior. Context and relationship are the focus of attention. Little or no emphasis is placed on the past, genetic, or biochemical explanations of behavior. Conjoint Family Therapy is a term coined by Jackson to characterize therapy in which two or more people who are vitally important to one another are seen simultaneously (i.e. conjointly) in psychotherapy. In a career that spanned a brief 24 years (1944-1968) Jackson was one of the most prolific authors of his time, publishing more than 125 articles and book chapters and seven books including two classic texts that remain in print today - Mirages of Marriage (Co-authored with William Lederer, and Pragmatics of Human Communication (co-authored with Paul Watzlawick and Janet Bevin Bavelas). He co-founded with Nathan Ackerman and Jay Haley the journal Family Process. He helped found the publishing house Science & Behavior Books. Jackson won virtually every honor available in the field of Psychiatry, including the Frieda Fromm-Reichmann Award for contributions to understanding Schizophrenia, the first Edward R. Strecker Award for contributions to in-patient treatment of hospitalized patients, and the 1967 Salmon Lecture from the American Psychiatric Association and the New York Academy of Medicine. Working from within the paradigm that is now known as a cybernetics of cybernetics or second-order cybernetic position, Jackson was the first clinician to uncompromisingly maintain a higher order cybernetic and constructivist position in the actual practice of therapy. The essence of this model is that the client is seen as a "family-surrounded individual with real problems in the present day" (Jackson, 1964a, 1967). Brief in its orientation, the primary focus of the model, the questions asked, assignments and task given, is always on the relationship between members of the family.

Phoenix