A Teacher

"What is it, this love? The love which flows through us and beyond us?"

"Whitaker the man and the teacher will continue to flow into the story of our knowledge about human beings. His life, his thought, and his rapport with human suffering will continue to be appreciated by new generations of family therapists. As they grow tired of the endless models, new approaches, and supertechniques, in the end, they will yearn to find human beings and their qualities in the real world and not in the microscope. Whitaker's legacy will be revalued even by those who kept their distance during his lifetime, labeling him as "bizarre" and "irrational." Carl was a pioneer in family therapy, a giant, who did not allow himself to be seduced into creating a myth around his personality. He died without any official disciples, but he trained a multitude of therapists around the world, sometimes unbeknownst to them, with the power of integrity and coherence. He taught us more about life than about techniques. He taught us about the search for ourselves and our own spiritual essence, through the experience of suffering and solitude. "

-Excerpt from JMFT-1996 - Andolfi Maurizio after the death of Carl Whitaker