Is it possible to pull oneself out of the mire by one's own hair, as Baron von Münchhausen once did? For both laypeople and professionals, a person's adjustment to reality is considered a measure of their mental health or illness. This assumes that there is such an objectively existing reality and that it is accessible to human understanding. But what if this is not the case? In his book, Paul Watzlawick addresses these and other central questions and illustrates through many examples how old worldviews dissolve through reinterpretations and how new realities emerge – allowing us to free ourselves from the mire by our own means. Paul Watzlawick also honors four individuals who have made significant contributions to this issue: the anthropologist G. Bateson, the psychiatrist Don D. Jackson, the hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson, and the bio-cybernetician.