This study investigated if the terms "families at risk", "poor families", "families of popular class" and "low income families" could be related to the concept of "families in social vulnerability", when used by family therapists. It was performed a documental survey on the proceedings of six Brazilian scientific conferences and of one international conference about family therapy that occurred in Brazil. A quantitative analysis was conducted in order to verify how often these terms were used. A qualitative analysis was also performed in order to identify their definition. From 1994 to 2006, there was an increase from nine to 21 works using the investigated terms. The bibliographic material showed that these different terms are complementary and generally related to families in social vulnerability.
family therapy; socioeconomic status; vulnerability; resilience
