What makes a family happy? Why do some marriages 'succeed' and others end in divorce? How can we free ourselves from the legacy of past mistakes and bring about positive change? Love, sex and marriage and parenthood, depression and sadness, independence and experience are just a few of the many issues explored in conversation by family therapist Robin Skynner and his former patient and comedian, John Cleese. Guiding us through the daily issues that confront us all, FAMILIES AND HOW TO SURVIVE THEM offers vital advice in helping each of us to maintain a happy, healthy family life. 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.

Written in an unconventional dialogue form, this book explores the inner workings of the modern family, and the interactions between couples and their children.

Brilliantly entertaining, enlightening and inspiring, Robin Skynner and John Cleese take on the big issue: life, and the challenge of living, in all its myriad forms. This book is an essential guide to surviving life's ups and downs - at home or in the workplace, as a member of a family or society. Presented in the same lively style as the best-selling Families and How to Survive Them, Life extends Skynner's and Cleese's study beyond the family to relationships and group interaction in life outside it. The book deals with such pithy issues as: -Why life gives you all the lessons you need -How grief can be good for you -Why work is essential to our psychological health -What mid-life crisis means for you We are all searching for healthier, happier, more satisfying lives, but it's the journey that matters, not the destination. Skynner and Cleese are the perfect travelling companions.

S. H. Foulkes was the founder of the group analytic school of group psychotherapy. This volume represents an introduction both to his work, and to the developments based on it. Amongst the subjects covered are the nature of the therapeutic process in the light of recent research in child development, the relationship of group analysis to psychoanalysis and the school of Lacan, and research into the results of group therapy. Included are the first three annual S. H. Foulkes lectures which explore his life, the historical significance of his work, and his advances in psychoanalysis, particularly in the realm of narcissism. Other papers explore the influence of Foulkes's ideas in Europe, showing how the systems of Jung and Freud can be integrated with group analysis. The book includes a clear and illuminating exposition of Foulkes's theories by Malcolm Pines.