Dysfunctional families (Topical Term)

Reaching high-risk families: intensive family preservation in human services, c1990.

Families at risk: treating the multiproblem family, c1989.

Thesaurus of psychological indexing terms (dysfunctional family)

Wikipedia, Nov. 12, 2009 ("A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior and even abuse on the part of individual members of the family occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal. Dysfunctional families are primarily a result of co-dependent adults, and also affected by the alcoholism, substance abuse, or other addictions of parents, parents' untreated mental illnesses/defects or personality disorders, or the parents emulating their own dysfunctional parents and dysfunctional family experiences.")

LC database, Nov. 12, 2009 (dysfunctional families; troubled families)

Wilson Web thesaurus, Nov. 12, 2009 (Dysfunctional famlies UF Problem families)