The Lineage
Jay Haley spent a decade on Gregory Bateson’s communication research project at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, California. From 1952 to 1962, Haley worked alongside Bateson and John Weakland studying paradox in human interaction, producing over seventy publications on schizophrenia, hypnosis, and therapeutic communication. That research project gave rise to the double-bind theory, a framework for understanding how contradictory messages within relationships produce symptomatic behavior.
During the same years, Haley trained under Milton H. Erickson, traveling regularly to Phoenix to study Erickson’s methods of hypnosis and directive therapy. Where most clinicians at the time treated symptoms as expressions of unconscious conflict, Erickson treated them as behavioral patterns that could be redirected. Haley absorbed this orientation and built on it.
In 1963, Haley published Strategies of Psychotherapy, the book that established strategic therapy as a distinct clinical discipline. The premise was simple and disruptive: every therapeutic interaction is a contest over who defines the relationship. Symptoms serve a tactical function. The therapist’s job is to design interventions that shift the relational structure, not to help the client achieve insight. Haley later moved to the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic, where he worked alongside Salvador Minuchin and Braulio Montalvo, and then founded the Family Therapy Institute in Washington, D.C. His subsequent books, particularly Problem-Solving Therapy (1976) and Ordeal Therapy (1984), refined the strategic approach into a systematic clinical method.
The founder of this institute, Shlomo Vaknin, trained directly under Haley in the 1990s and served as his teaching assistant for several years before Haley’s retirement. That relationship was not a weekend workshop or a certificate program. It was years of close supervision, direct clinical training, and intellectual apprenticeship with one of the originators of brief behavioral therapy. The work published under the iAST name carries that lineage forward.
What “Applied” Means
Strategic therapy has two traditions. The academic tradition produces papers, symposium presentations, and tenure portfolios. The clinical tradition produces results in the room with clients. These traditions occasionally intersect, but they operate by different standards. The academic tradition asks whether an idea is defensible. The clinical tradition asks whether an intervention works on Tuesday afternoon with the person sitting across from you.
This institute sits in the clinical tradition. “Applied” means the methods have been tested against real clients with real presenting problems over 25 years of full-time private practice. The resources here reflect that clinical testing, not theoretical frameworks derived from research populations.
The Team
Shlomo Vaknin
Founder & Director
Clinical director and creator of the institute's methodology. Trained directly under Jay Haley in the 1990s as his teaching assistant. Twenty-five years of full-time private practice specializing in PTSD and psychosomatic pain. Developed Pain Resolution Therapy as an independent certification focused on nervous system resolution.
Ben Schwartz
Operations Manager
Two decades working alongside Shlomo to ensure the training scales without compromising quality. Oversees curriculum development, certification logistics, and program delivery. Built the systems that make professional training accessible to practitioners worldwide.
Elle Applebaum
Admin & Students Coordinator
Twelve years of experience in educational program coordination. Manages student enrollment, communications, and certification pathways. Ensures practitioners have clear guidance and organized access to training materials throughout their certification journey.
What the Institute Produces
Books Practical clinical guides on specific presenting problems and techniques, published under the iAST name and available on Amazon. Each book is written for practitioners who want usable tools, not theoretical background.
Rapport7 A membership platform for therapists, coaches, counselors, and HR professionals. Over 1,500 articles organized by situation and presenting problem, printable directives, audiobooks, and interactive clinical tools.
Pain Resolution Therapy A complete practitioner certification in psychosomatic pain, designed for therapists, coaches, and career changers. Built on the strategic and Ericksonian methods at the core of this institute.
This website. A public record of the methodology, the lineage, and the intellectual foundations of the work.
The Methodology in Brief
Strategic therapy is a behavioral approach to clinical work. The practitioner focuses on what the symptom does within the client’s relational system rather than on where the symptom came from. A panic attack is not a neurochemical event to be medicated or an unresolved trauma to be processed. It is a behavioral pattern that serves a function in the client’s relationships, routines, or self-concept. Identify the function, and you can design an intervention that makes the pattern unnecessary.
The primary instrument of change is the relationship between the practitioner and the client’s presenting problem. The practitioner does not wait for insight to accumulate. The practitioner assigns directives, behavioral tasks designed to shift the structure of the problem. Some directives are straightforward. Some are paradoxical. The format depends on the client’s pattern of compliance and resistance.
Every resource the institute produces extends from this clinical stance. The books break down specific techniques for specific presentations. Rapport7 organizes interventions by the problems practitioners face in session. The Pain Resolution Therapy certification applies strategic and Ericksonian methods to one of healthcare’s most persistent clinical populations. The intellectual coherence is deliberate: one methodology, tested over decades, delivered through multiple channels.