A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted event to occur and thus confirms its own 'accuracy.'

Paul Watzlawick (July 25 1921 – March 31 2007) was an Austrian-American family therapist psychologist communications theorist and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism he has commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy. He was one of the most influential figures at the Mental Research Institute and lived and worked in Palo Alto California until a cardiac arrest at his home in Palo Alto caused his death at the age of 85.