Bradford Keeney's Cybernetic Project and the Creation of Recursive Frame Analysis

Abstract

The major focus of this paper is on Bradford Keeney's (e.g., 1983) Cybernetic Project in the context of systemic family therapy and how this juxtaposition has led to the creation of a new method called Recursive Frame Analysis or RFA (e.g., Chenail, 1991b; Keeney, 1991). But, before that story can be told, another tale must be heard -- and that is a narrative on clinical qualitative research or, to paraphrase Warren McCulloch (1961/1965), "What is a world, that it may know therapists, and therapists, that they may know a world?"