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Abstract
The counselling needs of a large sample of patients (843 couples) attending an infertility clinic between 1975 and 1985 were investigated by postal questionnaire. The central issues addressed were the clients' perceived needs in terms of therapeutic support and whether there were psychological and/or medical factors which differentiated couples needing help from those who did not. About one third of the couples felt the need for more psychological support and gidance. These couples could not be differentiated from the remainder of the sample on any medical factors although they did report significantly more distress associated with the failure to have children. The implications of these results for the provision of counselling services and for future research are discussed.