I wanted to say more about this book. I was overwhelmed by my physical illness, but it also led me directly to the topic.

There are many books and theories about how to change people. It is hard to see books that examine the theme of "change" with such a rigorous attitude, and explore how change happens naturally and how to promote it. I also try to understand and explore the theme of change in my own works. Psychotherapy is not only to let us know the past that cannot be changed, but also to change the unsatisfactory status quo, that is, to look forward to a better life in the future. Both patients and therapists don't know which direction and how much to change, but they all know that what needs to be changed is the patient's current situation. Once there is a need for change, no matter how small the change is, it will inevitably lead to other small changes; These small changes snowball and lead to more meaningful changes. Whether these changes will disappear, persist or turn into other changes, they are important for understanding human behavior. My own work is like accelerating the gradual change from subtlety to boiling in individuals and families-the parties need an "unexpected" and "sudden" experience to lead them into real change.

This book focuses on this changing phenomenon. For a long time, the theory about the type and essence of change has been ignored by various theories to explore how to change people. In this extremely important book, Paul Watzlawik, john wick Rand and Richard Fish study and change this phenomenon, and put it in a conceptual framework, supplemented by many different examples. Their efforts have broadened our horizons: understanding how people's own problems are intertwined with others' problems, and speeding up the resolution of the human deadlock. The framework they put forward goes far beyond the original field of "psychological" problems, and this achievement is fascinating and commendable. I think "Change" is definitely an excellent book, and it is a must for people who want to know many aspects of group behavior.

I am glad that my own work has contributed to the ideas put forward in this book, and I am also glad to have the opportunity to write this short article. Perhaps, such a small move needs to be "accelerated".

Milton H. Erickson

Phoenix Arizona, USA

1973 1 1 month

● Preface?

It is brave to explore the unknown; It takes more courage to question the known. -Caspar (Caspar)

In A.D. 1334, MargaretaMauhasch, Duchess of Tyrol, surrounded Hochosterwitz Castle in Kalinchu Province, because she knew very well that the castle was located on a very steep rock, which was enough to resist all direct attacks. Only a long siege can make it yield. Sure enough, after a while, the situation of garrison in the castle began to be tight, because the food was only the last cow and two bags of barley. Margarita's situation here is becoming more and more urgent, but it is because of other reasons-the troops have become uncontrollable, and when the siege seems to be over in the foreseeable future, while she has other military priorities elsewhere! At this time, the castle commander made a very stupid decision for the defenders. He ordered the soldiers to kill the last cow, stuffed the remaining barley into the cow's stomach, and then threw the body off the cliff and landed on the grass in front of the enemy camp. When the duchess received this contemptuous news, she was discouraged for a moment and immediately lifted the siege and went elsewhere.

Another very different situation happened on a British trawler in May 1940. The fishing boat is heading for the south of Doggel Shoal in the English Channel, ready to meet with German intelligence officer Major Ritter in secret. There are two British "double spies" on board, code-named "Snow White" and "Biscuit". Bai Xue once did excellent intelligence work for Britain, and Germany regarded him as their red card spy in Britain. Biscuit once committed many crimes and later became a reliable informant of the police. Now he will be introduced to Major Ritter as Snow White's deputy, trained in Germany and then sent back to England. For some reason, British intelligence agencies believe that Snow White and Biscuit should not know in advance that each other is also working for Britain, but hope that they will gradually guess this fact in the future, but it turns into a nightmare dilemma. Masterman (JC Masterman) in his book about the British double-faced spy system, had a wonderful description:

In this strange situation, both sides tried their best to do what they thought they should do at that time, but the harder they worked, the worse the situation got. Finally, for their own safety, and in order not to make the British intelligence organization suffer a fiasco, Biscuit locked Snow White in the cabin and decided not to meet Major Ritter and turned around and sailed back to Kriehmig, England. In this way, his cautious action to prevent failure led to the final failure.

These two examples illustrate the theme of this book, which is to discuss the old problem of "change" and "unchanging" of people and things. More specifically, this topic is to discuss how the problem arises, why the problem persists and how to solve it. It focuses on a paradox, that is, following common sense and "logic" leads to failure, while "illogical" and "irrational" actions (such as those taken by Hotch Hostaux Witwicz Castle) make the situation change as expected.

On the one hand, when logic and common sense work, of course, problems can be solved, but who has not experienced playing cards according to the rules, but has suffered setbacks and got deeper and deeper? On the other hand, when we are in a dilemma, we occasionally encounter some "illogical" but magical and beneficial changes. For abnormal things, both ordinary people and experts and scholars will use some concepts (human metamorphosis, the world, the devil, etc.) to explain. ). Similarly, the amazing situation that you can solve the problem without playing cards according to the rules mentioned above is indeed the basic material of folklore, fairy tales, jokes and many human dreams; However, it seems that few people have studied this situation seriously and systematically, so it is still full of contradictions and puzzling.

The three of us only came into contact with this problem indirectly at first, mainly because we made mistakes in practicing and studying psychotherapy. So many discussions and cases in this book are related to our best fields. Although we have adopted a special method, this book mainly discusses the common problems of change and invariance in human affairs and their roles in the formation and solution of problems.

In this book, even the most general views are closely related to specific experiences, so it will be helpful to briefly describe our work background. Like other therapists with formal training and years of practical experience, we are increasingly frustrated by the uncertainty of treatment methods, the delay of treatment and the limited effect. At the same time, we are also curious about the unexpected and unexplained success of some wonderful solutions blessed to the soul. What interests us more is that these methods are generally considered to be ineffective. 1966, Richard Fish, one of the authors of this book, proposed to establish a psychotherapy center under chInsti—tue (TUE), a psychiatric research institution in Palo Alto, California. We really can't think of a better name. Let's call it the Brif treatment center.

Under his auspices, we began to study the phenomenon of world change. Soon after this work was completed, we found it necessary to re-examine almost everything we once believed, studied and operated. ①

Another factor that prompted us to cooperate is that we used the same "language" from the beginning: we are all research colleagues in psychological research institutions and have accumulated several years of experience in interpersonal research and interactive psychotherapy (such as husband and wife and family). The treatment developed by the monarch of PaloAltoGroup is guided by GregoryBateson in theory and follows DonD. Jackson is at the clinic. Therefore, we are used to paying attention to the process, not the content; Focus on the here and now, not the past. Perhaps equally important, we are all trained in hypnosis and have practical hypnosis experience. This not only makes us feel quite comfortable when directly intervening with patients, but also gives us an opportunity to get in touch with Milton H. Eriksson's amazing new technology, which benefits us a lot.

From the beginning, we assumed that by exerting what we have learned and learning from each other, we can sort out and apply the interesting phenomenon of "change" mentioned above, and then find new ways to effectively intervene in the situation of human problems. This idea was later realized, but it also brought some unexpected discoveries: when designing the most suitable intervention form for a specific human dilemma, we all seemed to touch on some potential presuppositions, but we couldn't define them at that time. This often puts us in an awkward position, because more and more people are familiar with our operation mode through speeches, demonstrations and training courses, and are very interested. They want to know more about our basic conceptual framework, not just be confused by some strange technologies. In other words, they see the effects, but they really want to know what factors have caused them. Gradually, we can finally conceptualize our own methods. The writing of this book is an attempt to make a systematic introduction on the basis of testing our own presuppositions.

According to the past experience, we can fully expect that some people will attack our methods of dealing with human problems, whether practical or conceptual, which are "manipulated" and "insincere". "Sincerity" has recently become a slogan, but the slogan itself represents hypocrisy, because the caller actually thinks that there is only one "correct" world view, usually referring to his own point of view. They still seem to think that "manipulation" is not only undesirable, but also avoidable. But so far, no one can prove that he can do it himself without being manipulated. It is really hard for us to imagine how any behavior in front of others can avoid exposing our views on the relationship between them, so as not to affect that person. Psychoanalysts sit quietly behind the reclining patient, or when the "unsupervised" therapist "just" repeats the client's words. Although this kind of behavior is defined as "no influence", the specific behavior itself has already caused great influence. Therefore, the problem is not how to avoid influence and manipulation, but how to best understand and use it to benefit patients. This is a theme discussed from beginning to end in this book.

We are well aware that many of the contents described in this book have been said or done, but these contents are based on different contexts and premises. I hope readers can understand that we can't point out and explain these similarities and differences one by one, especially the superficial phenomena of behavioral therapy are quite similar. However, readers should remember that we have not adopted the hypothesis of behavioral therapy such as "wrong" learning, no learning, restriction and de-restriction.

The main purpose of this book is to present our general views and conclusions, so we will not trace back to the process of drawing these conclusions. As can be seen from the catalogue, the content order of this book is from abstract concepts to concrete examples. Therefore, Chapter 1 of Part 65438 will introduce two theories about "change" which are helpful to sort out and clarify at a very abstract level, namely, group theory and logical type theory. The second chapter expounds how these two theories are actually applied to our theme. The second part is all about the "difficulty of problem formation" caused by the interdependence of "change" and "unchanged". Part 3 discusses problem solving.

First of all, we would like to thank Dr. Don D Jackson, the first director of the Institute of Psychology (MRI). Tang's openness to new ideas supported our plan to finish this book. Next, I would like to thank our colleagues ArthunBordin and BarbaraMcLachlan, who have tirelessly coordinated many activities during the six years of streamlining the work of the treatment center. We would also like to thank many members of the streamlined treatment center from the past to the present: Lynn szeged, Jack Simon, Tom Ferguson and others.

In addition, we are especially grateful to the non-clinical work units and individuals who assisted us in our research: Allen Coffey and Santa Clara County Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Department, San Francisco Drug Therapy Ptoyam and so on.

We also want to thank Mrs. claire bloom, who helped us finish all the technical work of the first draft! Finally, from LukeB B. Hancock Foundation and T.B. Walker Foundation (T.B.? Walker Foundation) and Robert wheeler foundation's financial support for the first year of streamlining the treatment center enabled our research! Thank you!