Our History

The collaboration between Giorgio Nardone and Paul Watzlawick becomes ever closer until the joint foundation of the Strategic Therapy Center of Arezzo as a research, training and psychotherapy institute, for the development and evolution of the Palo Alto School model towards a therapeutic technology more advanced.

The first results of an intervention research on 42 cases of panic attacks with agoraphobia are published showing that more than 90% of patients had completely overcome their disorder within 10 sessions. (Nardone G., in "Propagations: Thirty Years of Influence From the Mental Research Institute", edited by Wendel Ray, Weakland, 1995).

The modern evolution of Brief Strategic Psychotherapy without trance hypnotherapy is born and presented to the general public through the publication of the manifesto of the evolved approach, The art of change, written by the two authors, translated into over ten languages ​​and become a best / long seller of the Psychotherapy in which specific treatment protocols for phobic and obsessive-compulsive disorders are presented for the first time

The intervention research on phobic and obsessive disorders Fear, panic, phobias, a study with 152 subjects with problems of panic attacks, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and hypochondriac fixations is published. Positive outcomes amounted to 86% (79% cases resolved and 7% cases much improved) with an average of 10 sessions.

Following a prolonged study conducted not only in the clinical setting but also in institutional school and family contexts, modern models of family dynamics are identified, in particular it is highlighted for the first time how the Western family rests above all on relational dynamics of overprotection and permissiveness. Based on this, indirect therapy techniques have been developed, namely: treating the disease without the presence of the patient.

Evolution Therapy of Panic Attack Disorder. The insights and therapeutic formulations of the previous decade find confirmation in Neuroscience.

Presentation of the results of a longitudinal study based on the evaluation of the results relating to the efficacy and differential efficiency of all the treatment protocols for the different forms of psychopathology developed and applied in the previous decade on a total of 3484 patients. Results: 86% of cases resolved with an average of 9 sessions.

The first European conference on Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy is organized in Arezzo with the participation of over 700 specialists from all over the world. Following the event, the network with the most important international exponents was born and Giorgio Nardone became the coordinator by direct election. The Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy European Review Journal is born.

After a path of research, clinical application and consultancy carried out over more than fifteen years at the Strategic Therapy Center in Arezzo, the Strategic Dialogue is formulated, that is the advanced technique for conducting a single "therapeutic" interview capable of inducing radical changes the interlocutor, making the first session an effective therapeutic intervention

In the text the mind against nature the treatment techniques for both male and female sexual problems are presented, demonstrating the applicability with extremely high positive results of the model also to this area of ​​psychological and relational distress.

After the success of the first conference, the second edition of the European conference in Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy is organized in Arezzo with the participation of over 1000 people from 32 different countries.

In 2005, the two texts, directly in American / English, Knowing through changing, were published at the same time. The evolution of brief strategic therapy and Brief strategic therapy. Philosophy, techniques, and research. International manuals of the Arezzo model, teaching texts in the most important universities of the 5 continents.

The Strategic Therapy Center organizes, also in Arezzo, the third European conference of Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy in which more than 1000 specialists in the sector participate.

On the basis of the study through follow-up of the actual healings from restrictive and compulsive eating disorders, the idea of ​​a paradoxical diet is formulated which represents the point of arrival for these pathologies, at the same time the starting point for the search for a psychophysical balance in binge eating problems, bulimia, obesity.

By virtue of the work carried out by Giorgio Nardone in the field of problem solving logic, which underlies the strategies and therapeutic stratagems, the model of strategic / non-ordinary logic is exposed in its formulation as an evolved logical / applicative model.

Between 2010 and 2012 a systematic study was conducted on a sample of 636 subjects on the results of therapies performed at the Strategic Therapy Center in Arezzo conducted with the direct participation of 60 Psychologists and Doctors. Results: 88% of cases resolved, with an even higher efficacy for the areas of pathology: panic attacks (95%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (88%), eating disorders (83%).

The first world conference of Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy is organized in Chianciano Terme where the evolutions of the theoretical and applicative aspects of brief strategic therapy are presented, with an even higher number of participants from all 5 continents.

The systematic study of obsessive-compulsive disorders and their therapy leads to distinguish a particular type: pathological doubt, or the perversion of intelligence that leads the subject to build real mental labyrinths of which he remains a prisoner trying to rationally give answers to irrational questions. It follows the development of a specific treatment protocol.

Following the review of the work carried out by the numerous official collaborators in the previous two decades regarding indirect therapies, not only on children and adolescents but on the whole span of the family life cycle, a review of the therapeutic strategies and tricks tested is presented. as the most effective for the numerous difficulties that parents have to encounter in their relationships with their children as well as later children with their parents.

The collaboration between the two experts, Matthew Selekman regarding self-injurious behaviors, Giorgio Nardone regarding compulsive eating disorders, has given rise to the formulation of a type of therapeutic intervention that was decidedly effective in this clinical area so intimidating for psychotherapists.

Following the need to give Psychotherapy an image of a rigorous scientific-applicative discipline, Giorgio Nardone and Alessandro Salvini, with the collaboration of over 360 leading figures in the world of the various forms of Psychotherapy, edit the first and only International Dictionary of Psychotherapy published in Italian, Spanish and English.

On the basis of a longitudinal research of over twenty years, on a sample of over 1000 cases of obsessive-compulsive disorders in their variants, the evolved strategic brief therapy of this disorder differentiated by its different forms is presented, with validated therapeutic outcomes that the make the best practice in the clinical field.

“The magic of words and gestures. The power of relationship and communication ”is the title of the second world conference of the Brief Strategic and Systemic Therapy world Network held in Florence with over 150 speakers and over 1000 participants from all over the world.

In collaboration with the most representative scientists of Italian nutrition, Giorgio Nardone and Elisa Valteroni curate a text in which the most advanced nutritional models and the psychological dynamics behind the individual difficulties in keeping fit are presented.

The collaboration between Luca Speciani and Giorgio Nardone, by virtue of their prolonged clinical experience, highlights the importance for every therapeutic approach of leading to the acquisition by the subject of a persistent "lifestyle" that guarantees not only its effectiveness of the therapies to which he has been subjected but also his individual well-being.

Based on an analysis of the results of a sample of over 15.000 cases of panic disorders treated by Giorgio Nardone and his collaborators, the treatment protocol is presented which has proven to be the most effective and efficient therapy for this type of disorder.

Publication of “Anorexia giovanile” dedicated to the presentation of the latest developments in the advanced therapeutic model for eating disorders, the result of the evolutions and new therapeutic formulations resulting from the incessant clinical and research activity conducted at the Strategic Therapy Center of Arezzo and its branches around the world. Also available in English

Thirty years after the foundation of the Strategic Therapy Center, founded by Giorgio Nardone and Paul Watzlawick, the institute has decided to celebrate this important anniversary by organizing a Symposium on an ancient theme but at the same time perpetually present in our private and professional life entitled "The dialogues of change"

Paul Watzlawick defined "hypnosis without trance" as a form of communication—verbal and nonverbal—capable of generating a state of profound suggestion in the recipient. Applied to psychotherapy, it is called hypnotherapy without trance. Descended from the ancient art of persuasion, these techniques, refined and validated over 40 years of clinical practice, have proven extraordinarily effective in Brief Strategic Psychotherapy.