This book is probably the worst textbook I've used in my college career. Not only is the layout extraordinarily simple and uninteresting, but the writing is a pain to read. I found this text very stuffy and repetitive, with many sentences based on formulaic constructions as, "Implicit in our discussion of 'x', we shall introduce topic 'y,'" and "'x' delineates 'y.'"As for the content, it seemed to me to be a presentation of many theories without any supporting evidence. The authors present many psychoanalytic-like theories using hypothetical examples, but few real world examples. If you have to use this book, good luck, if not, there are much, much better texts on family psych.