BIOGRAPHY

Jürgen Kriz  is a professor at the University of Osnabrück both in the faculty of psychology (topic: clinical psychology / psychotherapy) and in the faculty of social sciences (topics: statistics, research methods and the philosophy of science). This strange combination is due to Kriz' interest concerning the question of how reality is created and transformed. Accordingly, statistics, methods and the philosophy of science look at the construction of reality by "scientific subjects", while clinical psychology has to do with the question of how people create a reality which differs in some aspects from that of the everyday world ("psychopathology") and how this can be transformed ("psychotherapy").
In the last decade, Kriz' research and teaching is focused on psychotherapy and the relationships between modern theories of self-organization (Synergetics, chaos theory) and psychotherapy / clinical processes. His special approach, the "Person-Centered Systems Theory", stresses the links between humanistic appraoches (especially Carl Rogers Person-Centered Psychotherapy), systems therapy (like family therapy), "old" holistic, systems- and dynamical thinking in psychology (especially Gestalt Theory") and "modern" systems thinking in the natural sciences. In addition to his work at the university, Kriz is active in the practice of client-centered psychotherapy, and lectures in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the integration of humanistic and systemic pychotherapy. He is executive editor of GESTALT THEORY, editor of System Familie, and member of the advisory boards of some German journals in the field of humanistic, existential and integrative psychotherapy.

Born in 1944, Kriz studied psychology and astrophysics at the Universities of Hamburg and Vienna. 1969 PhD. From 1967-70 he was working at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Vienna, in the Computer Center. 1970-72 teaching at the University of Hamburg, Dept. of Social Sciences. 1972-74 Associate Professor in Statistics at the University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Sociology. Since 1974 full Professor at the University of Osnabrück, Faculty for Social Sciences and, in addition, since 1980, also at the Faculty for Psychology. Guest professor at the Institute for Advanced Stdies, Vienna, (1977) and, several times, at the University of Vienna.

Kriz has published numerous articles in scientific journals and books, and is the author of books on statistics (1972), computers (1975), content analysis (1978, together with Ralf Lisch), research methods and their critique (4 books: 1981, 1988, 1989 and 1994), psychotherapy (1985), philosophy of science (1987, together with Helmut Lück and Horst Heidbrink), and is editor of some other books (especially concerning systems and family therapy). In the last decade, the focus went to topics concerning systems- and chaos theory in relation to psychotherapy (3 books and about 50 articles in books and journals).