The Bateson Project was definitely one of the biggest influences in Family Therapy to date, because of the incredible ideas that the brilliant minds at Palo Alto came up with. In 1952, Gregory Bateson assembled a young research team in Palo Alto, California, to study human and animal interaction. Each member ended up years later becoming key figures in family therapy: John Weakland, Jay Haley, Virginia Satir, Don Jackson and later Paul Watzlawick. They started studying hypnosis, films, dogs and psychotherapy. In 1956, a major contribution to family therapy today occurred with the paper that provided the initial examination of interaction in families. This was the phenomenon that was called the double bind. "The essential hypothesis of the double