Although families can provide important support for individuals with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, the highly technological nature of critical care often limits opportunities for family involvement. While critical care nurses are seldom family specialists, they frequently provide support and assistance to patients' families. This paper describes four types of questions drawn from the family therapy literature that can be used by nurses who are not mental health specialists to support families and mobilize their problem solving skills. A case model of a head-injured child demonstrates the use of these questions with a family. These questions should be useful for the brief, problem-focused, family encounters which characterize critical care settings.