Gregory Bateson at 100

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) was a founding figure of family therapy. The centenary of his birth offers a chance to look again at his life and work for ‘the patterns that connect’. Family therapy may have turned out to be a receding part of that pattern, but it remains important to place Bateson and his thinking in the larger contexts of knowledge; the 19th century history of Darwin and evolution, and 20th century developments in genetics, anthropology, cybernetics and psychotherapy. Bateson swam in all these vast currents, moving towards new aesthetic, holistic and contextual forms of systemic wisdom. His ideas are still very relevant to therapists, but even more, they may be vital to our very survival as a planet in this new century.