Family Healing: Strategies for Hope and Understanding [Paperback]

Salvador Minuchin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0684855739 | ISBN-13: 978-0684855738 | Publication Date: April 1, 1998

At the centre of people's lives is the family, which can be and should be a haven from the harshness of the outside world. Unfortunately, the source of people's greatest hope for happiness often turns out to be the source of their worst disappointments. Now, the family therapist, Salvador Minuchin unravels the knots of family dynamics against the background of his own odyssey from an extended Argentinian Jewish family to his innovative treatment of troubled families. Through the stories of families who have sought his help, the reader is taken inside the consulting room to see how families struggle with self-defeating patterns of behaviour. Through his confrontational style of therapy, Dr Minuchin demonstrates the strict but unseen rules that trap family members in stifling roles, and illuminates methods for helping families untangle systems of disharmony. In Dr Minuchin's therapy there are no villains and no victims, only people trying to deal with various problems at each stage of the family life cycle. Minuchin understands the family as a system of interconnected lives, not as a "dysfunctional" group. Each story of a therapeutic encounter brings a new understanding of familiar dilemmas and classic mistakes, and recounts Dr Minuchin's creative solutions. At a time when so many families are stressed to the breaking point by economic and social pressures, this book shows the reader the hidden resources to be found at the heart of the family itself. Dr Minuchin has also written "Families and Family Therapy", "Family Kaleidoscope", "Family Therapy Techniques" and "No Place to Hide".

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Minuchin, family therapy pioneer and author of the classic text Families and Family Therapy , and Nichols ( No Place to Hide ), professor of psychiatry at Albany Medical College, provide an engrossing, lively account of Minuchin's work with families in crisis. His analyses and interventions reported here are dazzling: part science and part intuition, his portrayals of his clients are drawn with an artist's eye for detail. We observe him ferret out the roles family members lock themselves into as they interact in his office; we follow his thinking as he tests hypotheses and observes the effects of his interventions. A family's pain, he shows, may not lie in the apparent cause--the depressed father or the hyperactive child--but in the way all members relate. Including his own family history, Minuchin describes his approach so lucidly that readers will take a new look at their own families.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684855739
• ISBN-13: 978-0684855738
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Salvatore Minuchin family healing for the lay person at a good price, May 30, 2010

By 

domino113 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Family Healing: Strategies for Hope and Understanding (Paperback)

I studied Salvatore Minuchin and became thoroughly convinced of the accuracy of his theories. A friend recommended this book to me. I gave this book to another friend as a gift. Her husband quickly snagged it. She reports that they both are obtaining benefit.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Family Therapy Pioneer, August 26, 2009

By 

Anne Arbor "Desert Wolverine" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Family Healing: Strategies for Hope and Understanding (Paperback)

Salvador Minuchin, MD is one of the pioneers of family therapy and systems thinking. I use this book as an adjunct to journal articles and text's on family therapy. This book is the story of Dr. Minuchin's life and includes several cases which reflect his systemic thinking. The book is easy to read, inexpensive and something that busy graduate students in mental health fields or psychiatric residents may actually read! In this day of "evidence-based medicine", it is refreshing to review a master clinican who knows the "evidence" but also the "art".

13 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars since it's by minuchin, it's a winner...but..., December 9, 2000

By 

Daniel Mackler (on the road) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Family Healing (Hardcover)

i read this about two months ago, so take this with a grain of salt. then again, maybe it's better, cause here's what's stuck with me. it was a good book, but it really helped that i was into salvador minuchin already before reading it. if you don't know him, he's quite an icon, and i recommend watching some of his videos, because they really point to his genius, and for me, were the inspiration to want to delve deeper into his work.

this book tells a lot of minuchin's history, his development as a doctor and therapist, some early strengths of his as well as foibles and weaknesses (interesting stuff!), and just a fair amount of stuff you'd expect in any 3/4ths of the way decent autobiography.

anyway, my mind is shot so i'll leave this book in your hands. if you're interesting in minuchin, i don't think you'll regret reading this book, but i wouldn't recommend it as an intro to him or his work...