Luigi Boscolo & Gianfranco Cecchin as a team

They traveled together and separately for seminars, congresses and performances while the post-Milan teams all over the Western world were experimenting with their ideas and were meeting to play out new procedures: collaborative working groups, positive connotation, not knowing positioning, the equal stance from every member of the family called neutrality – that meant not to take sides, questions as interventions …

Robin Routledge: Luigi and Gianfranco crossed the Georgia Strait on my sailboat.  The weather went rough, and we were tossed about by the sea.  Luigi was in 7^th Heaven because he was fishing off the back of the boat.  Gianfranco went below and got seasick.  One of the crew cleaned that up and brought the bucket up on deck telling us we should bottle this because we could sell it for a fortune – it was Gianfranco’s.

Umberta Telfener: Boscolo and Cecchin were soul bodies. They had an incredible non verbal connection that made them always get away with what they wanted. As second generation sometimes we were trying to get through some plan or some innovation in the procedures at the Center. Everytime one would say yes and the other no, even if they were in different places and did not consult. I remember as students we were amazed at how coordinated they were in order to make only the changes they particularly wanted.

Speaking about the two together, we need to mention the Virgilio Bar near the Center in Milano. Every single day, after training or consulting with families, whoever was at the Center was invited to join them both at the bar Virgilio where, with a beer or a glass of wine, many speculations were taking place: how the day had been going, how the families were proceeding, but also how Milano could be governed better, what solution could the Government of Italy find to solve a disadvantage. The Virgilio Bar became every afternoon a think-tank of complexity and hypothesizing, a fun place to play with one’s ideas. Even very absurd ideas, since the game was one of experimenting with complexity and creativity. Each one singularly would then pay for what s/he had consumed.

Jackie Pereira Boscolo: Boscolo e Checchin had a conference in New York. Maurtizio Andolfi as well, at the same time. The two conferences were publicized, but the addresses had been confused. Gianfranco and Cecchin found themselves in a place with the wrong title, the title Andolfi had given; and vice versa. Gianfranco and Luigi  had to perform on the subject chosen by Maurizio and Maurizio performed on their title and subject. We are approximately around the ‘80’s of 1900.

Marilena Tettamanzi: We are speaking about the first Congress in Family Therapy in Florence, the one organized by Andolfi and Saccu. We are in 1975. B&C were invited, they were young, they spent the night wondering around and heavily drinking. They had fun. At dawn Luigi tells Gianfranco: “It is already dawn!” they felt desperate but they had to go to the Congress. “Let’s do like this,- Luigi  tells the other – at the beginning you speak and I translate, so you rest”. Here the narrative of Boscolo: “While I was speaking my head went turning around “VRUUUUM”, “VRUUUMMM”, “VRUM”, . I was not understanding what was going on. I turn towards Cecchin and I saw his eyes, red, wide, confused. “OH my God, I am lost!” I thought, but I had to continue. We went on, taking turns , neither understood what the other was saying but we managed to say things that interested the public that was listening”.

Fabio Sbatella: When B&C were young they used to be very connected and together, they knew each other from the gymnasium in Padua. Together they followed med school and psychiatry and together they left for New York for their internship. They did pranks together. Boscolo told me that one night they climbed the bell tower and rang the bells of the small town of Boscolo, Sottomarina, or in the village of Cecchin near Vicenza . Another time they went on a trip to the lake and borrowed a 500 Fiat car that was parked nearby that they parked in the identical spot when they came back. Nobody noticed.