Family Therapy may be short term if the issues are minor. Families typically attend weekly counseling sessions unless they prefer to attend less often. The frequency of counseling is often determined early on in your meeting with a family counselor. Sometimes more long term counseling is needed due to the nature of the problems and how long they have been present within the family. During the counseling sessions the family will often be together for counseling. There may be some counseling sessions where certain family members meet with the counselor alone or just with one other family member. During counseling, the therapist will work to evaluate how the family cooperates together and how they express their thoughts and feelings to one another. Counseling also helps families to discover and evaluate roles in the family, family rules and patterns of relating to one another. Doing this can help uncover and resolve sources of conflict within the family. Counseling also assists families in understanding and maximizing their strengths. Counseling can help to address specific concerns or conflicts within the family and reflect upon how well issues are being handled and conflict is being resolved. Through counseling, families learn healthier ways to relate, interact and communicate; they learn to better solve problems together and resolve old conflicts and wounds. A great deal of healing and reconnection can occur through family counseling.