The Family Business School is located on the Mediterranean Coast of Turkey, at The University Estate at Amos, Nr. Kumlubük, Marmaris.

Stephen BRAY: Principal, The Family Business School.

The earliest known settlement at Amos dates back to the Hellenistic period (330 - 30 BC), and its ancient amphitheater is largely intact. Much later the Knights of St. John built a small citadel here in the fourteenth century.

Although our heritage is ancient, 'The Family Business School' is completely up-to-date in so far as we have eschewed permanent physical classrooms in favour of delivering our face-to-face courses directly into existing education and training establishments, as well as using web 2.0 for distance learning.

For six years we have delivered training in family therapy to medical practitioners, psychologists, counselors, pedagogues, nurse-therapists, and others. We will shortly be extending our programs to include other disciplines.

Family Therapy: Why Bother?
By Irem and Stephen BRAY, 'The Family Business School'

Let’s face it, although family therapy dates back to the 1930s for many it’s still the bête noire of psychotherapy. There are many reasons for this, and if you want to practice family therapy you need to recognise them, and then move forward and understand why family therapy is such an important discipline.

Seven Reasons why clinicians avoid practicing family therapy:

In order to make it easier for people to access The Family Business School's web site we have acquired the shorter domain name FamBusCo.ac. This additional domain points directly to our main pages so there is no difference between typing 'TheFamilyBusinessSchool.com', or 'FamBusCo.com', or Fambusco.ac into your browser window.

The abbreviation also opens up a number of additional possibilities for us, for example:

How To Conduct Family Therapy Research, (Part 1.)
By Irem BRAY, Senior Tutor, 'The Family Business School'

When people ask questions about how to undertake research in Family Therapy I always say something like this:

It's no good doing research that examines topics such as: "Is Family Therapy Effective?", or "Is Family Therapy A Good Thing?" These are fine as titles of articles in newspapers and magazines but are practically impossible to examine using scientific research methods. Instead we need to look at much narrower topics. Only then we may we produce a testable hypothesis, that is possible to examine scientifically using precise refined data.

Family Therapy: A Checklist For Good Practice
By Irem and Stephen Bray, ‘The Family Business School’
This article is also available as a .PDF, right click here and download it.

Whenever we go people ask us for more skills to enable them to practice more effectively as therapists. Surprisingly many have already received substantial training in Family Therapy but are failing to use what they have learned.

Family Business: How To Prosper In A Recession
By Joe Sinclair, for 'The Family Business School'

In good times, from a business perspective - in other words when business is buoyant and the orders are coming in without too much prompting and being filled with relatively little hassle - there seems to be no point in looking beyond the bottom line of the balance sheet.

The Family Business School today issued a 'Statement of Purpose', following consultations between the Founders and Fellows.

This statement is a core document, which will underpin both our overall strategy, and also be the bedrock of our products and services.

The full document is available here.

Rich Schefren: Portrait Of A Family Business Entrepreneur
By Stephen BRAY, Principal, 'The Family Business School'

Rich Schefren is an entrepreneur with an education in accountancy and strategic planning. He has a proven track record of business development and marketing excellence.

This brief biography covers his education and business achievements since the early 1990s.

Schefren is a graduate from Case Western Reserve University and seemed set on a career in strategic planning with the prestigious Arthur Anderson firm, from whom he had won college scholarships. It was an opportunity that many would have appreciated but in 1994 he left Arthur Anderson to rescue the ailing family clothing business.

Family Business: How To Deal With Family Feuds
By Stephen BRAY, Principal, 'The Family Business School'

Every family has its share of disagreements but feuds are very destructive and are best avoided. In family businesses feuds frequently spill over into the family business and affect the way the business is run. Studies indicate that family feuds are one of the major factors that affect the survival rate of a family business.