Families and How To Survive Them

by Robin Skynner (Author), John Cleese (Author), Bud Handelsman (Illustrator)

20 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0195204667

ISBN-10: 9780195204667

Why is ISBN important?

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Condition: Used - Good

In Stock. Sold by zaza42, Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

70 Used from $4.99

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Select delivery location

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Only 6 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it tomorrow, Oct. 24? Order within and choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

List Price: $34.95
Save: $3.50 (10%)

20 New from $31.45

FREE Shipping.

Select delivery location

Turn on 1-Click ordering

More Buying Choices

20 New from $31.45 70 Used from $4.99 1 Collectible from $24.00

91 used & new from $4.99

See All Buying Options

Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

Frequently bought together

Total price: $62.24

These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:Families and How To Survive Them by Robin Skynner Paperback $31.45
Only 6 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping. Details
Life and How to Survive It: An Entertaining and Mind-Stretching Search for What Really Matters in… by A. C. Robin Skynner Paperback $17.71
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Families and How to Survive Them by Robin Skynner Paperback $13.08
Only 2 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by Wordery Specialist.

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Robin Skynner

12

Paperback
$13.08
A. C. Robin Skynner

17

Paperback
$17.71
John Cleese

552

Paperback
$5.61

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Marvelous...witty, insightful, and fascinating....I recommend it to all."--J. Framo, Family Process

"Monumental...extraordinarily comprehensive....We all have something to learn from this synthesis."--J. Byng-Hall, Tavistock Clinic Gazette

"This refreshing and clever book immediately engages the reader by its informal, familiar style. It is amusing much of the time, but filled with wisdom based on recent research and professional writings."--Group

"An excellent introduction to the basic dynamics of marital and family dysfunction with a developmental approach to change and therapy."--Leonard Solomon, Boston University

"Useful to students wanting to understand the family using a Freudian perspecitve."--Sue Blumel, Ambassador University

From the Back Cover

'It achieves what it set out to do- explaining in ordinary language to ordinary people just how relationships work.' -Sun

See all Editorial Reviews

Product details

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press (November 29, 1984)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780195204667
ISBN-13: 978-0195204667
ASIN: 0195204662
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 0.6 x 5.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 20 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,058,553 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3098 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Social Psychology & Interactions
- #4227 in Books > Self-Help > Relationships > Interpersonal Relations
- #10457 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Family Relationships

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

20 customer reviews

2 star (0%)

Review this product

Write a customer review

Showing 1-8 of 20 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Music Pen

Don't overlook this!

October 25, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a wonderful work about how families work and don't work. I'd call it indispensable for the amount of information presented compactly and with great wit and good humor. Anyone interested in family dynamics can benefit from the wisdom presented in totally accessible manner. Brilliant, as one would expect from John Cleese, and the family psychiatry expert Robin Skynner.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Ignore the flaws and grab hold of the gems of insight in this one!

May 9, 2007

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This isn't a stereotypical self-help type of book and that makes it THE book that could save your marriage and/or the way you relate to your children.

One warning - much of this book goes against the common wisdom of the day and the authors don't propose that parents mollycoddle their children. The focus is on teaching people to live in the real (NOT ideal) world and to learn to deal with it, to develop some backbone and realistic expectations.

In short, this is a book which will keep you from seeing yourself as a victim and teach you to accept the inevitable unfairness in life - and to help your children develop similar strengths.

5 people found this helpful6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Joshua Barkey

Excellent perspectives on the development of the self.

July 16, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Some of the material in here is a bit dated, with cultural references that don't make sense to someone who didn't live in England in the Eighties, as well as psychological theories that have fallen quite out of vogue (and some, I believe, quite justifiably so). But there is a lot of great insight here into how we become the people we are, and I've found it quite useful in my own self-examination. Plus, John Cleese is the frickin' MAN.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Ms. Standfast

Useful, but weirdly dated

December 3, 2001

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a useful, humorous, non-pompous book for people seeking insight into the workings of (please note) Western, nuclear-style, fairly conventional families. Skynner is a genial, compassionate man who has obviously enjoyed his career in family therapy and doesn't have much of an ax to grind, while Cleese's wry interjections help give perspective. Particularly praiseworthy are vignettes from Skynner's practice in which he shows how a malfunctioning family system can be nudged toward better health by precipitating very small changes in behavioral styles, without excess angst or struggles with dragons. I also appreciate his focus, common also to Eric Berne and Michele Weiner-Davis (see their books), on finding and embracing what works rather than dwelling on what does not. For people trying to enjoy the best about their families and especially younger children, this book could solve a number of frustrating mysteries. Likewise, it's useful for grasping the ways that certain behaviors and types of people feel attractive and comfortable, and why some situations "push the buttons" of an individual or within a relationship.
I do have some caveats. While not Freudian in any strict sense, Skynner occasionally seems to share the reductionist attitudes of "the Master," leaving you with the feeling that every human interaction and achievement is no more than the search for fulfilment of a parlayed (and frustrated) infant or toddler. True as this can be in everyday situations, I feel that it is not the whole picture and should be balanced by writers examining the human urge to evolve to a more aware, creative and functional state. Thwarting of this urge seems to me a source of a significant number of human conflicts, in or out of the family context, not to be resolved solely through reflecting on one's (non)progress through various developmental stages. Maslow, James Hillman and Robert Anton Wilson come to mind.
Especially, my jaw drops when Skynner sets forth his views on the development of homosexuality. I can't remember the last time I heard any otherwise credible and humane writer ascribe homosexual orientation to problems in bonding or detaching with a parent of whichever gender. The more gay people I know, and the longer that gay people are free to live openly in various pockets of American society without fear of crippling social sanctions, the more apparent it seems to me that a few gay people within a straight majority are just part of nature's plan. Studies of animal behavior, brain structures and potential genetic links support this view. So I'm dead amazed to see Skynner, otherwise not terribly doctrinaire, still discussing homosexual orientation, certainly not with any kind of punitive moralizing, but as if it were a kind of arrested development that could/should be "treated" for maximum happiness.
But then, no book on human behavior is the perfect answer to all your dreams of insight. Nothing is drearier than the person who has read one book looking beneath the surface of human conflicts and believes he/she has found the guru with all the answers, so take this book for what it's worth--kind, commonsensical and applicable to many families you probably know--and don't stop investigating.

67 people found this helpful68 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Mark Handy

One of the best family therapy books on the street

December 7, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

One of the best family therapy books on the street. A bit dated in language, but insightful and funny. The dialog between Sinner and Cheese is wonderful.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Tiffany S.

Five Stars

October 27, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Good book

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Patricia Nichols

Laugh at yourself - then understand!

March 27, 2002

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book was recommended to us by a psychotherapist when we came to discuss family problems. It was a great help through the first few weeks of therapy - and progress followed rapidly. Psychoanalysis never had such a coherent explanation!And the voice of John Cleese makes a great delivery for the info. Bravo!

7 people found this helpful8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

TSB

A must have

February 22, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book has been on my shelf and read countless time for over 2 decades. It has helped me grow as a person, in my relationships, and now as a mother.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Families and How To Survive Them

Set up a giveaway

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

A. C. Robin Skynner

17

Paperback
$17.71
A. C. Robin Skynner

17

Hardcover
$24.13
Robin Skynner

12

Paperback
$13.08
John Cleese

552

Paperback
$5.61

Families and How To Survive Them

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Back Cover

Product details

Related Video Shorts (0)

Be the first video

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

20 customer reviews

Review this product

Filter by popular topics in reviews

Showing 1-8 of 20 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Customers who bought this item also bought

Families and How To Survive Them

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Buy used On clicking this link, a new layer will be open $8.09 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Buy new On clicking this link, a new layer will be open $31.45 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the Back Cover

Product details

Related Video Shorts (0)

Be the first video

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

20 customer reviews

Review this product

Filter by popular topics in reviews

Showing 1-8 of 20 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Customers who bought this item also bought

Buy used On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

$8.09 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

Buy new On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

$31.45 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open