Axiom paul watzlawick biography
- Paul Watzlawick (July 25, 1921 – March 31, 2007) was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher.
- Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American philosopher and psychologist.
- Paul Watzlawick (1921 – 2007) has been one of the best-known thinkers about communication.
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Paul Watzlawick
| Born: July 25, 1921 in Villach, Austria |
| Died: March 31, 2007 (at age 85) in Palo Alto, CA |
| Nationality: Austrian-American |
| Fields: Family psychologist |
| Famous For: Communication theory |
Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American philosopher and psychologist. As a theoretician in radical constructivism and communication philosophy, Watzlawick has worked in family therapy and general psychotherapy. He was also among the most influential figures at the Mental Research Institute.
Watzlawick’s Early Life
Paul Watzlawick was born on July 25, 1921, in Villach, Austria. In 1949, he obtained his doctorate in modern languages and philosophy at the University of Venice. He then trained in psychotherapy at the Carl Gustav Jung Institute in Zurich and attained a diploma the following year.
Cultivating a passionate interest in Buddhist philosophy, especially for Zen philosophy, Paul went to India where he lived for one year. Philosophical concepts of oriental philosophies infused in his works without reducing his scientific rigor, enabling him to
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How Does Communication Work?
If we look back in our communication biographies, we often remember particularly well the moments when communication did not work. Whether in private or in professional life, misunderstandings, conflicts, and confusions remain in our memory. In situations where communication works smoothly, it is usually not even noticed. In order to understand how communication works (whether well or badly), it is worthwhile to look at communication theory models, such as Paul Watzlawick's Five Axioms of Communication.
Paul Watzlawick’s Five Axioms of Communicatio
1. One cannot not communicate.
The first axiom shows that everything that one does or does not is a message. Let us take a situation in a waiting room, for example. In the waiting room, one person is already sitting and looking out of the window when a second person enters. The first person does not react, but continues to look out of the window. And although she may not be actively or consciously communicating at that moment, she is still sending a message to her counterpart. How this is interpret
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Watzlawick’s Axioms of Communication
July 12, 2021 AURELIS Syllabus, CommunicationNo Comments
… in relation to AURELIS.
Paul Watzlawick (1921 – 2007) has been one of the best-known thinkers about communication. His central tenet was that a lot of communication is carried on below the level of consciousness. It happens automatically.
I put his five ‘axioms of communication’ in a table and comment on them from an AURELIS standpoint, not in the sense of a ‘discussion’ but as what they spontaneously make me think of when musing about them. Would Watzlawick have agreed?
| WATZLAWICK | AURELIS |
| Axiom 1: “One cannot not communicate.” | The deeper self is always present and active, in many ways at once: in ‘parallel processing’. |
| Axiom 2: “Every communication has a content and relationship aspect such that the latter classifies the former and is, therefore, a meta-communication.” | Apart from the ‘relationship,’ many other elements play significant roles in a multidimensional happening. One can never consciously grasp this complexity. |