ABSTRACT
Recently, there has been an increased recognition of the importance of addressing the therapy needs of couples and families where there is a chronically-ill member, signaling the need for couple and family-oriented approaches to address the complex needs of couples and families coping with chronic illness. Chronic illness refers to a chronic, progressive, and degenerative disease. It is the purpose of this chapter to address some of the issues and problems that couples and families with a chronically-ill member may experience, taking life cycle issues into consideration. A distinction is made between the illness experience and the illness behavior. To this we add, the illness meaning, the social and psychological definitions given to the illness and the resultant scripts taken by the ill member, the couple, and by other family members. Implications for therapy are considered throughout.
