ABSTRACT
Good partnerships with others don’t just happen unless you are very lucky - they have to be worked at. In a family, partnerships exist between the adults, between the adults and any children, and between those children. People often utter the slightly tired cliche that a general practice partnership is like a marriage. However, an important difference (other than the obvious one) is that usually in the practice you do work at it. As often as not, relationships within families are left to develop without attention to the bonds between members. It seems more difficult to stand outside a personal relationship and analyse its strengths and weaknesses and consider how things might need to be modified in order to keep it moving and functioning productively.
