Katharina Anger, PhD
Katharina is among the few remaining first-generation practitioners who trained directly with the founders of Brief Therapy. She was a Research Associate and a member of the MRI’s Brief Therapy Center training faculty. Based in New York, Katharina organizes and participates in national and international training events, workshops and conferences.
Founder & Director
Training Faculty
Steven Friedfeld, LCSW
Steven is a highly sought-after child therapist in New York City with over 40 years of experience. He incorporates Brief Therapy principles into his work with children and their families.
Training Faculty
Wendel Ray,
PhD
Wendel is a Senior Research Fellow and former Director of the MRI. He is Director of the Don D. Jackson Archive of Systemic Literature. He is an international lecturer and the author of numerous books on systemic and family therapy. Wendel recently retired as Professor of the Marriage and Family Therapy PhD program at the University of Louisiana, Monroe.
Training Faculty
Juliet Hawkins,
MA
Juliet is a long-time practitioner and trainer of Brief Therapy. She used the model to inform a crisis intervention program for people with developmental disabilities and their families. Juliet authored a book on toilet training that uses key principles to help parents navigate this challenging activity. Juliet sees families in NYC.
We wish to express our gratitude to all those who made this work possible who are no longer with us.
Barbara Anger-Diaz
We studied the teachings of the MRI Brief Therapy approach together and developed our ideas over many years of conversation and collaboration. We taught together, wrote together, traveled together and shared together in our appreciation of this life. Our work is proof that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
She was a Senior Research Fellow at the MRI, long-time member of its Brief Therapy Center, co-founder of the MRI’s Latino Brief Therapy & Training Center and former adjunct professor at Barry University in Miami where she shepherded countless counseling students in Brief Therapy.
Co-Founder
John Weakland
John remains the most remarkable therapist I have ever had the privilege of watching. A crystal-clear thinker and mentor to whom I am eternally grateful.
Mentor
Richard Fisch
Dick’s extraordinary clarity. pragmatism, sense of humor and love of horrifically cheap cigars will always be remembered.
Mentor
Paul Watzlawick
Paul had the uncanny ability to find the perfect example to explain anything. His conversations were filled with them and many have been preserved in his writings for others to discover and appreciate.
Mentor
Manuel Diaz
Having made his mark in Silicon Valley, Manuel recognized early on the value of these ideas and their utility in a business context. He was a champion of us and this work. Reaching the highest levels of Hewlett Packard, he also served for a time as the Chairman of the Board for the MRI.
Collaborator
Teacher
Teresa Garcia Rivera
Co-founder of the Gregory Bateson Institute in French-speaking Europe and later founder and director of CIRCE, Teresa was a fellow purist in the MRI Brief Therapy model. We spent many hours discussing ideas, new applications of the model and eating well.
Collaborator
Heinz von Foerster
His contributions to the field of constructivism are epic. Heinz was enormously generous with his ideas and his feedback. Any visit was accompanied by xeroxes of relevant material as gifts or starting-off points to a conversation. His work helped us understand more fully much of the philosophical underpinnings to this work.