The family, the source of our greatest hope for happiness, sometimes turns out to be the source of our greatest disappointment. Now, in the culmination of his lifework, world-renowned family therapist Salvador Minuchin reveals how his own personal experiences shaped his understanding of the family and his ability to cut through the knots of family dynamics. The grandson of Russian Jewish Emigrants to Argentina, Minuchin grew up secure in a closely knit extended family within a larger society of outspoken anti-Semitism and dictatorial politics. The impact of his formative experiences - anti-Peronist revolutionary activities which landed him in jail, service in the Israeli army in 1947-48, work with displaced children of the Holocaust and with poor black and Puerto Rican delinquents - helped forge his development as theorist and famed clinician. Where others saw only chaos and confusion, Minuchin found structure: members of families shadow dancing within invisible boundaries and systems. As he tells the dramatic stories of families who have sought his help, Minuchin reveals the hidden rules that trap family members in stifling roles. His confrontational yet compassionate style of therapy unlock the self-defeating patterns which foster marital conflict, difficulties with children, problems adjusting to old age and retirement, and other crises at each stage of the family life cycle. Each therapeutic encounter is a compelling dialogue between Minuchin's wisdom and a family struggling with pain but resistant to change. His creative and daring solutions to familiar family crises offer insight into the workings of all families. In this book of inspiration and hope, Minuchin shows us the hidden strengths to be found in the heart of the family itself.