Each family is a single entity, characterized by specific relations between family members, and other characteristics of family life. During the life cycle, every family meets a variety of sources of stress that encourage in families the action of mechanisms to adapt and operate whether in violation or establishment of a new equilibrium. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the functioning of the family as a system, and deepen the understanding of how families cope with stress and crisis. In the first part, after defining the concepts of stress and crisis, different theoretical concepts and research in the field of strategies to cope with the crisis are shown, indicating that the family resilience, cohesion, well-organized family structure, meanings that the family adds to stressful events and support which it receives from its surroundings are fundamental aspects that determine the degree of success of the family in dealing with the crisis. The second part of the paper presents the effects of various sources of stress on the family. By doing so, economic adversity, illness, birth of a child with disabilities, as well as risks within single parent families were separately analyzed. The final part of the work focuses on the various forms of professional support for families in crisis, with a special highlight on the importance of strengthening families through family therapy. Finally, the need to further develop effective programs of support for families in crisis is crucial, so that they could be more accessible and more effective for all the families which face difficulties through their functioning.