A developmental assessment of the ego capacities of the children and parents of disorganized families gives one a basis for understanding the family members' adaptive capacities and areas of psychosocial malfunctioning. The assessment also permits a task-oriented approach toward helping family members attempt to remediate individual and family conflicts. The co-therapists' work and the close monitoring of the family's efforts at task completion are described. A developmental task-oriented approach has been successful in effecting durable behavior changes in members of a number of disorganized families.