A unique psychoanalytic perspective on family patterns and cultural educability, originally commissioned by the Organisation for Economic and Cultural Development as part of a project to develop policies and programmes that would support families in their educational task. The book integrates a psychoanalytical theory of learning with an ecological conception of how the various systems involved in the educational process are interconnected, and as such is still of great present-day relevance, both to clinical and educational practitioners and to policy-makers. It has been extensively used in many countries by therapists, teachers, teacher-trainers and social workers.