Meeting with a therapist can help people in different ways:

• Counselling can reconnect you to your sense of competency. 

• Hope can be restored, even in the midst of difficult times. 

• It provides a place to talk about the complexities in a family's life: the joys and sorrows (particularly if your family has been touched with a unique challenge such as a medical concern or special need). 

• Couples are able to look at the patterns in their relationship and notice when they start growing apart. Noticing these patterns allows them to take steps that bring them closer together, become better friends, and closer intimate partners. 

• Parents are able to take time for their own needs without feeling guilty. 

• By examining how much their family has come through, people feel more hopeful that they can take on whatever the future brings. 

• Counselling conversations can help people realize how strong and resilient their family really is.  Standing on those strengths helps them see the unique perspectives they have on life and how they can stand on these unique strengths when facing difficult times. 

• Families have been able to put "illness in it's place" recognizing that although chronic illness is a reality in their family, it is not the only thing that defines them. 

• Because their family is functioning better, their family member with special needs is doing better. 

• Families move from "surviving" to "thriving".