Strategic Therapy is rooted in ancient history, originating in the Hellenic tradition of Sophists, masters of rhetoric and persuasion, and in the Art of Stratagem of ancient China.
Recently, the prolific tradition of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, generated the Brief Strategic Therapy Model. This innovative model stems from Gregory Bateson (a famous anthropologist) interactional communication studies, the constructivist approach (Heinz von Foerster) and Milton Erickson’s studies on suggestion and hypnosis.
Paul Watzlawick then organized the theory and principles of therapeutic communication in a fundamental textbook, “Pragmatic of human communication” (1971).
Giorgio Nardone, with Paul Watzlawick, pioneered the model in Italy, establishing the Strategic Therapy Center in Arezzo: in the past 40 years Giorgio Nardone and his associates treated successfully thousands of people and a huge variety of disorders.
Since “it is the solution that explains the problem”, all outcome data were collected and analyzed to further improve the model (“action- research”), perfecting strategies, implementing protocols for specific disorders, and refining communication techniques (strategic dialogue).
Data and results of this vast research are published in numerous books in several countries, which are fundamental texts of the strategic approach to psychotherapy.

Brief Strategic Therapy is the art of “solving complicated problems with seemingly simple solutions”, promoting rapid changes even in long standing disorders.
Abandoning the notions of “sanity” and “insanity” and moving from looking for causation to searching for solutions, the strategic approach focuses on “how I am functioning here and now”.

The intervention is brief and focused on extinguishing symptoms, and reframing the relationship we have with ourselves, others, and the world.  A successful therapy will replace the patient rigid and dysfunctional point of view with a more functional and flexible one.
The initial change, always goal oriented, is achieved rapidly through sophisticated communicative stratagems and simple tasks (prescriptions) to be performed between sessions. The intent is to make the person “feel” differently, so he/she will replace his/her dysfunctional reactions with more appropriate ones, without any direct pressure from the therapist, thus creating his or her own reality.
After the initial change, the person is progressively guided to develop new abilities and shape a new reality. This way, besides being symptom-free, the person will  be started on a virtuous cycle, with enduring beneficial effects in different areas of life.

Brief Strategic Therapy combines a rigorous  problem solving model with a flexible intervention, always modelled on the person. A complete intervention usually lasts less than 10 session, with follow-up encounters at 3, 6 and 12 months. Its great efficacy and efficiency stems from more than 30 years of rigorous action-research, led by Giorgio Nardone and his associates at the Arezzo Strategic Therapy Center, with 88% of patients cured in an average of 7 sessions.

The strategic model has been successfully implemented in different fields: medicine, business, sports, education. Brief Strategic Therapy is evidence based and recognized as best practice in several important psychopathologies.