Paul Watzlawick  (1921–2007), Communications Theorist, Psychologist

Paul Watzlawick worked as a communications theorist, psychologist and family therapist and focused on communication within families. He developed the Interactional View, an interpretive theory based on five axioms of communication. Born in Villach, Austria, Watzlawick was educated at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, earning a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1949. He arrived in the United States in 1960 to conduct research at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA, where his research team introduced the "double bind" theory of schizophrenia. Watzlawick also taught psychiatry at Stanford University. He passed away in Palo Alto at the age of 85.