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Title: Families: And How to Survive Them by Robin Skynner, John Cleese, Bud Handelsman ISBN: 0195204662 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.38
Rating: 5
Summary: Laugh at yourself - then understand!
Comment: 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!
Rating: 3
Summary: Useful, but weirdly dated
Comment: 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.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great, with one health warning
Comment: Very helpful book for understanding the mysteries of family dynamics, how they contribute to making you what you are, and how you are passing them on. Dialogue style is very different, (they recap at the end of every chapter), but this saves the text from become dry. Health warning?-beware using this book as fuel for blaming your parents/family for everything that's wrong with you! We all go through that stage, but the real value here is self-awareness that can be then be used to take control of your own life going forward.
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Title: Life and How to Survive It by A. C. Robin Skynner, John Cleese, Bud Handelsman, Robin Skynner ISBN: 0393314723 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: How to Manage Your Mother : Understanding the Most Difficult, Complicated, and Fascinating Relationship in Your Life by Alyce Faye Cleese, Brian Bates ISBN: 0060988339 Publisher: Regan Books Pub. Date: 24 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Human Face by Brian Bates, John Cleese, British Broadcasting Corporation ISBN: 0789478366 Publisher: DK Publishing Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel by Alain De Botton, Alain De Botton ISBN: 0679779159 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 1998 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Passionate Marriage: Love, Sex, and Intimacy in Emotionally Committed Relationships by David Schnarch ISBN: 0805058265 Publisher: Henry Holt (Paper) Pub. Date: 1998 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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