ABOUT
Our Focus
The Mental Research Institute’s (MRI’s) objective is to strengthen its impact and leverage advances in the social sciences to promote widespread positive changes in human systems. To achieve this goal we are supporting and promoting the work of creative researchers.
Anxiety, constant stress, peer pressure, economic uncertainty, and social media shape our world today in ways our founders could never have anticipated. Improving human relationships and communication in the 21st century requires breakthrough thinking, and innovative research.
Our grants fund projects and programs that investigate interactional human systems. We welcome applications from groups or individuals whose goals are to understand the processes that strengthen advances in psychology, social systems, and interactional approaches to improving human relationships.
We encourage and facilitate collaboration among researchers and practitioners working in social science fields. We support new, research based innovative, virtual and in-person platforms and programs that advance the understanding and application of interactional systems-based approaches.
Our Past
Founded in 1959 by Don Jackson, the Mental Research Institute (MRI) was one of the leading sources of ideas and research in interactional/systemic studies, brief psychotherapy, and family therapy. The Mental Research Institute became the go-to place for cutting edge psychotherapy research and practice and an incubator to explore innovative directions for projects focused on interactional systemic approaches. Their legacy compelled us to look forward.
How did Don Jackson influence the field of family therapy? How did Watts influence the steam engine? He made it. Others have refined the steam engine into a better, more efficient machine. I'd say that is what Don did for family therapy, he established the discipline. Others have gone on to refine it.
— Richard Fisch
Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Mental Research Institute started the first formal training program in family therapy, producing seminal research, papers, and books in the field. It soon became a place where some of the field's leading figures came to work and completed residencies. Among the Institute’s internationally recognized innovators were Gregory Bateson, Richard Fisch, Jay Haley, Jules Riskin, Virginia Satir, Paul Watzlawick, and John Weakland.
Throughout its many years at the Palo Alto Middlefield Road location, the founders presented creative models to explore and develop innovative interactional systemic approaches to understanding and improving human relationships. Their work is revered throughout the world. The MRI’s archives can be accessed through Stanford University Librarie’s Special Collections and Archives. These records include over 1900 audiovisual items.