Virginia Satir

Virginia Satir (26 June 1916 - 10 September 1988) was a noted psychotherapist, known especially for her approach to family therapy. Her most well-known books are Conjoint Family Therapy, 1964, Peoplemaking, 1972, and The New Peoplemaking, 1988.

Her work was extensively studied by Richard Bandler and John Grinder who used it as one of the three primary models of NLP. However Virginia herself was known to be rather uneasy about the distillation of her work - best summed up by Jerry (Gerald) Weinberg who studied directly with Virginia Satir for over a decade after investigating NLP and deciding that he "wanted the chicken, not the chicken soup."

Prior to her untimely death, Virginia Satir worked extensively with Jerry Weinberg and Jean McLendon. Virginia is quoted as saying of Jean "It is a pleasure to experience Jean work. She has that rare capacity to be able to 'sit in the airport control tower position' and at the same time to be aware of all the 'planes' in her vision and to be able to help them find out about themselves and their relationship to each other."

AVANTA is an international organization that carries on her work and promotes her approach to family therapy.