A tribute to Jay Haley (1923–2007)

Abstract

Jay Haley (1923-2007), one of the major figures in the pantheon of deities in the field of family therapy, died on 13 February 2007. His entry into the field of mental health was far from typical: Jay, a slow-moving, slow-talking, sharp-minded, cowboy-looking enfant terrible from Wyoming, with an undergraduate degree in library sciences and working towards a Masters in communications, had presented a creative communicational analysis of a Nazi propaganda film at a local conference. Haley became fascinated with the process of hypnosis, and established a close professional relationship with the psychiatrist and hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, up until then only known in the restricted field of medical hypnosis. Haley was a rather caustic man. He enjoyed confrontational polemics rather than smooth conversations, was extremely ironic and ingenious - the articles that comprise his masterful Power Tactics book being a sample of his wit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)