But if you ever wanted to know why some families get along and others don't, in broad terms, I'd recommend this book highly. As the book itself explains, change takes time to cope with and too much change can be dangerously stressful.

And notice the parts you most strongly disagree with - what might be behind the screen that's making you act that way? When I first read this, I found it extremely helpful in understanding my sons (who were then around eight and six) rather better, and seeing what stages they had reached. But a few years later, I was aware of some behaviour from my children (I had two by this time) that kind of rang a bell with me, but I couldn't remember why it was happening.Looking candidly at everything from our relationships with our parents to why and how we choose our partners, no emotional stone is left unturned: jealousy, rage, fear, envy, love, obsession, hope and despair - all are featured-with practical advice on how to turn round a negative situation and bring about change for the better. This book looks at psychiatry for the layman, in terms of why some people are happy while others aren't; why some people have repressed emotions, and what happens to them; what can cause people to become 'stuck' in their development from babyhood. Robin Skynner was a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot who flew the Mosquito twin-engined bomber, and was also a psychiatric pioneer and innovator in the field of treating mental illness. In the mid-1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers.

Skynner opens with a classic folk tale motive - his great uncle relating how Skynner's mother said that her son would either be a genius or end up in the madhouse. Some reviews pick up on the old fashioned family roles and strict parenting style advocated by Skynner, who of course argues this just reflects his years of clinical experience, but then again, this is a book from the early 80s, so his experience was from working with couples and families in the 60s and 70s, so the adults will have reached maturity in the 40s and 50s, and only a few in the 60s, so unsurprisingly the feedback from Skynner's practise will seem to the younger reader rather conservative. Foulkes was a pioneer, and quickly attracted the attention of others keen to change the way mental health patients were dealt with.This book contains a bunch of unconventional ideas, though without solid proof of them, therefore my rating is only 3*.

The book has a nice title but **spoiler alert** there are no strategies here on how to best avoid unwanted family events or embarrassing in-laws, or to be the last one left alive after a terrible squabble over the Christmas dinner. I've been reading a lot of books on psychology to help me better understand myself and the people around me. Even now, as an empty-nester, I can see a lot of value in this for self-help, working out how people tick, and why some are so much easier to get along with than others. Robin Skynner will be remembered for his prolific writing; he authored One Flesh: Separate Persons, Principles of Family and Marital Psychotherapy (1976), Explorations with Families: Group-Analysis and Family Therapy (1987), Institutes and How to Survive Them: Mental Health Training and Consultation (1989), Family Matters (1995), Families and How to Survive Them (1975), and Life and How to Survive It. Families and How to Survive Them may be said to have arisen from two sources – an earlier book, One Flesh, Separate Persons: Principles of Family and Marital Therapy (1976) by Skynner, and work carried out by Skynner at the Institute of Family Therapy in London in the 1970s.Everyone needs a little bit of psychotherapy and I feel like this book can offer you a lot of information about why we are the way we are. This book, along with Lise Bourbeau's "Five injuries" are the best thing I've read on the topic of why we do what we do, we fear what we fear, we love what we love and we act in ways we normally don't understand. Skynner admits he fulfilled the prophecy by entering the madhouse, but through the staff door, this is the kind of thing I so much enjoyed in reading Herodotus.