| Sumario: | A study was conducted to describe a method for identifying how families organize and proceed through the process of problem solving. The method employs new behaviors as markers to locate the start and end of qualitatively different periods of problem-solving interaction. Data were obtained from a sample of 40 family groups, each of which contained a father, a mother, and an adolescent child who was living with diabetes. The usefulness of the marker method was assessed by testing a phasing hypothesis that proposes that family problem solving proceeds in a rational, stepwise way. Two different tests—one employing aggregate data from all family groups and one employing the family as the unit of analysis—lent support to an orderly rather than a random sequencing of problem solving, although patterns did not completely match the ideal problem-solving model.
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