A child's school disorder can, and most often does, exist within the complexity of the family's transactional patterns and must be dealt with in this context. To do so, a conceptual model of family dynamics is needed. Minuchin (1979) offers a theoretical framework to help structure such a model. He and his colleagues identified five common transactional patterns among families of psychosomatic children and coined the term "psychofamilial" to describe the link which appears to exist between school disorders and family functioning. These characteristics are enmeshment, overprotectiveness, rigidity, lack of conflict resolution, and the child's intrusion into marital conflict. Psychoeducational therapy provided at the Center for Educational Development, Anahuac University, Mexico City, for children and adolescents diagnosed as having a wide assortment of learning and behavioral difficulties attempts to strengthen the marital dyad and to integrate the child's academic, cognitive, and affective experience. Applications of this model indicate that the therapist intervening with Hispanics should be sensitive to the family power hierarchy, the masculine ideal of machismo, and the respectful behavior of Hispanics in the presence of authority figures. Lack of attention to these transactional patterns may result in additional conflict between therapeutic efforts and family dynamics centered on the child's symptoms. (RH)