Counselling that makes room for the stress, grief, uncertainty, and relationship strain that can come with trying to build a family. Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Certified Canadian Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. Psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP). Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW), and Certified Canadian Counsellors (CCCs) are regulated by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). In-person in Edmonton and St. Albert, and virtual across Alberta. 50-minute sessions, daytime, evening, and weekend availability.

Book a Session | Match with a Therapist

You Might Be Wondering Whether Infertility Counselling Is Right for You

You may be questioning whether this counts as a real reason to see a therapist. Nothing has technically gone wrong. There was no accident, no diagnosis you can point to, and from the outside your life probably looks fine. It can be hard to justify booking an appointment for something that feels like waiting.

Some of this may sound familiar. Bracing yourself before opening a group chat in case there is another announcement. Answering a well-meaning question about your plans with a short reply, then feeling flattened for the rest of the day. Finding that you and your partner have stopped talking about it, not because things are settled, but because every conversation seems to end somewhere painful.

These are common reactions to a situation that involves repeated uncertainty, medical appointments you did not plan for, and a future that keeps moving. They are not signs that you are handling this badly or that something is wrong with you. Fertility difficulty asks people to hope and prepare for disappointment at the same time, and that is genuinely hard to hold.

You may wish to read on and see what this kind of support actually involves before deciding whether it fits.

Who We Help

Infertility counselling at Wholesome Psychology may be a good fit if you are:

• Trying to conceive and finding the uncertainty difficult to carry
• Going through fertility investigation or treatment and feeling worn down by it
• Grieving losses that other people may not recognize, including changed expectations
• Noticing strain in your relationship, at work, or with family and friends
• Weighing decisions about next steps, pauses, or other family-building options
• Supporting a partner and unsure where to put your own reactions
• Reading this for someone you care about and trying to understand what might help

This service may not be the right fit in some situations:

• If you are in crisis or immediate danger. Please use the resources below rather than waiting for an appointment.
• If you need medical fertility care. Counselling does not include fertility testing, diagnosis, or medical treatment. Your physician or fertility clinic remains the right place for that care.
• If you need a psychological assessment or a report for legal, court, or insurance purposes. Assessments are a separate service at this clinic and are not part of infertility counselling. Forensic and legal needs sit outside this therapy service.
• If you are looking for a guaranteed outcome. No therapist can promise a particular result, and this page does not make claims about conception.

If You Need Help Right Now

Wholesome Psychology is not an emergency or crisis service. If your safety or someone else's safety is at risk, please use one of these instead of booking an appointment:

• Call 911 or go to your nearest emergency department if there is immediate danger
• Alberta Mental Health Help Line: 1-877-303-2642 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)
• Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741

Wholesome Psychology is not an emergency or crisis service.

What This Service Is

Infertility counselling is talk-based mental health support for people affected by fertility difficulty. It gives you a private, structured place to say the things that are hard to say elsewhere, and to work on coping, communication, grief, boundaries, and decision-making at a pace you set.

It is also useful to be clear about what this service is not. Counselling is not a legal service, an investigative process, or crisis intervention. It is not fertility testing, diagnosis, or medical treatment, and it does not replace the care you receive from your physician or fertility clinic. Psychological assessments are a separate service at this clinic and are not included in infertility counselling.

Your therapist will not decide what you should do about treatment, timelines, or family-building options. Sessions may focus on coping skills, relationship and communication support, grief, boundaries with family and social pressure, and thinking through choices when the next step is unclear. What gets discussed, and how quickly, is led by you.

What you share is confidential within legal and ethical limits, and those limits are explained in detail further down this page. If something comes up that sits outside what counselling can offer, your therapist will say so and can suggest where else to look.

Signs Fertility Stress May Be Affecting You

These are experiences people often describe. You do not need a diagnosis, and you do not need to recognize all of them, for counselling to be worth considering.

• Dread before appointments, test results, or the end of a cycle
• Sadness or anger that arrives suddenly and feels out of proportion to the moment
• Difficulty being around pregnancy news, baby showers, or friends with young children, followed by guilt about that difficulty
• Trouble sleeping, or lying awake running through options and timelines
• Feeling disconnected from your body, or resentful toward it
• Less interest in sex, or sex that has started to feel like a task
• Withdrawing from people who have not done anything wrong
• Trouble concentrating at work, or a sense that life is on hold until something is resolved
• Tension with a partner about how much to talk about it, spend on it, or keep going

Responses like these are common reactions to a stressful and uncertain situation, not permanent features of who you are. They tend to shift when there is somewhere to put them and some structure for working through them. Support does not require you to be at your worst before it is worth having.

How Treatment Works Here

• Find your therapist. You can browse Our Therapists to read individual profiles, or use the Match with a Therapist tool if you would rather be pointed in a direction. Our admin team can also help by phone at 780-904-4880.
• Book your first session. The first appointment covers confidentiality and consent, what brought you in, what supports and stressors you have right now, and what you would like to work on. You do not need to arrive with a plan or a full account of your history.
• Build your plan together. You and your therapist agree on goals and how to approach them. The plan is co-created, and you can say when something is not working.
• Ongoing sessions. Sessions are 50 minutes and are often weekly or bi-weekly at first, then adjusted to suit you. Frequency is not fixed.
• Progress check-ins. Your therapist reviews progress with you regularly, and the plan changes as your needs change.

There is no fixed number of sessions and no required endpoint. Some people come for a short, focused piece of work. Others stay longer, or return during a specific stage of treatment. Your voice matters at every stage of this, including decisions about pace, focus, and when to stop.

Evidence and Approaches

The research base for counselling in fertility contexts is genuinely mixed, so the summaries below describe what the available sources support and where they fall short. Which approach a therapist uses depends on the clinician and on your goals rather than on a fixed protocol.

Counselling Alongside Fertility Treatment

What it helps with: The emotional strain of fertility problems and of being investigated and treated for them.

Evidence summary: Clinical quality standards recommend that people having difficulty conceiving be offered counselling before, during, and after investigation and treatment for fertility problems (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2026). The stated reasoning is that fertility problems and their treatment can themselves cause emotional stress (NICE, 2026).

Limitations: This is a service standard describing what should be available, not a measure of how well any approach works. It was written for the United Kingdom health system, so the surrounding care pathway differs from Alberta.

Psychological Support for Infertility-Related Distress

What it helps with: Anxiety, low mood, infertility-related distress, and strain on wellbeing during fertility difficulty.

Evidence summary: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials of psychological interventions for people with infertility found an overall benefit for combined psychological outcomes (Dube et al., 2022). Effects varied considerably by region, and outside the region contributing nearly half the trials the improvements were small (Dube et al., 2022).

Limitations: The review authors rated the overall quality of evidence as low to moderate, and most included trials were judged to be at high risk of bias (Dube et al., 2022). Findings describe averages across studies and do not predict how any individual will respond.

Individual, Couple, and Family Formats

What it helps with: Communication, shared decision-making, and the differences in how two people can experience the same situation.

Evidence summary: Canadian patient education material describes psychotherapy as talk-based work that can be delivered individually, with a partner or family member, or in a group, with the choice depending on the problem a person wants help with (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health [CAMH], n.d.). In the infertility review noted above, therapy format was not found to change the size of the treatment effect once study region was accounted for (Dube et al., 2022).

Limitations: Format comparisons came from indirect analysis rather than trials designed to compare formats. Not every clinician offers every format.

Grief, Loss, and Decision-Making Support

What it helps with: Grief that others may not acknowledge, and the weight of choices about continuing, pausing, or changing direction.

Evidence summary: Canadian public health guidance notes that people who need help conceiving may face significant emotional and financial stress, that this can affect their mental health and relationships, and that counselling can support informed choices about assisted reproduction (Public Health Agency of Canada [PHAC], 2017). The same guidance reports that up to 1 in 7 Canadian couples experience infertility (PHAC, 2017).

Limitations: This is public health guidance rather than outcome research, so it does not establish how effective grief-focused counselling is. Prevalence figures describe the country, not any individual.

One point deserves stating plainly. This page makes no claim that counselling improves the chance of pregnancy. Counselling is emotional and psychological support that can sit alongside medical fertility care, and it does not replace medical diagnosis or treatment.

What Results to Expect

Progress in this kind of work is rarely a straight line. People often notice a difference in one area while another stays hard, and difficult weeks can follow good ones, particularly around test results, appointments, or anniversaries.

Some people find relief from just 2-3 sessions, especially when there is one specific pressure they want help with. Others notice shifts over a few months, and some choose longer-term work or return at particular stages. Several things influence how this goes, including how long the situation has been going on, what else is happening in your life right now, what support you have outside therapy, and how well you and your therapist work together.

No therapy guarantees outcomes, and anyone who promises you a result is overstating what is known. Research on psychological support in fertility contexts suggests benefits for mental health that vary in size across studies, which is a real finding but not a prediction about you.

Therapeutic fit matters more than most people expect. If the fit is not right, changing therapist or changing approach is always an option, and saying so will not offend anyone here.

Confidentiality and Privacy

What you share in therapy is confidential. Your therapist will not tell your family, your employer, or your fertility clinic what you have discussed without your consent.

Psychologists at Wholesome Psychology are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP) and practise under the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. Two pieces of Alberta legislation are relevant to your information. The Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) is the legislation that generally applies to private practices and private clinics in Alberta, including this one. The Health Information Act (HIA) governs health information held by designated custodians such as public health bodies and certain regulated professions, so it becomes relevant if information is shared with one of those organizations with your consent.

There are limits to confidentiality, and they are set by law rather than by the clinic. Your therapist may be required to disclose information when:

• There is a risk of serious harm to you or to another person
• There is suspected abuse or neglect of a child, which carries mandatory reporting obligations under Alberta law
• A court orders the release of records or testimony

Your clinician will explain these limits clearly in your first session, before you get into anything personal. You are welcome to ask questions about how your information is stored, who can access it, and what happens to your file, and you can ask them before you share anything you are unsure about.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to describe everything that has happened?

No. You decide what to share and when. Some people want to talk through the full history of appointments, results, and losses, and find that helpful. Others would rather work on what is happening now, such as sleep, a conversation with a partner, or how to handle a family gathering next month. Both are legitimate ways to use therapy, and your therapist will follow your lead on pace.

Is what I share kept private?

Yes, within limits set by law. Your therapist will not share what you discuss without your consent, except where there is a risk of serious harm, suspected abuse or neglect of a child, or a court order. The Confidentiality and Privacy section above explains this in more detail, including the Alberta legislation involved, and your clinician will go through it with you in the first session.

How many sessions will I need?

There is no fixed answer. Some people find relief from just 2-3 sessions when there is a specific pressure they want help with. Others prefer ongoing support through a course of treatment or a period of decision-making. Your therapist reviews progress with you regularly, and you can change the frequency or stop at any point.

What if the therapist is not the right fit?

Fit is a normal thing to assess, and it is not a reflection on you or the clinician. If it is not working, tell us or tell your therapist, and the admin team can help you move to a different clinician at 780-904-4880. You can also use the Match with a Therapist tool or read profiles on the Our Therapists page. New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Can I access therapy online?

Yes. Virtual sessions are available across Alberta and are often easier to fit around treatment schedules, travel, and work. The same confidentiality standards apply as they do in person. Some people prefer virtual for this topic specifically, since it avoids a waiting room.

Can I come with my partner, or does it have to be individual?

Either is possible, depending on your goals and the therapist's availability. Some couples attend together throughout. Some alternate, and some people prefer individual sessions and share what they want to share at home. You can also start one way and change later. Mention what you are hoping for when you book, and the admin team can help match you appropriately.

Will counselling improve my chances of getting pregnant?

This service does not make that claim, and you should be cautious about any service that does. What the available research more clearly supports is that psychological support can be relevant to mental health and coping during fertility difficulty, with effects that vary across studies. Counselling here is offered as emotional support that can sit alongside medical fertility care, not as a fertility treatment.

Do I need a referral or a diagnosis to book?

No. You do not need a referral from a physician or fertility clinic, and you do not need a medical diagnosis of infertility. People book for stress, grief, uncertainty, relationship strain, and decision-making, including while investigations are still underway or if they have chosen not to pursue medical care at all.

Meet Your Clinicians

Our team includes Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Certified Canadian Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. All psychologists at Wholesome Psychology are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP), the regulatory body responsible for setting standards of practice and protecting the public in Alberta. Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW), and Certified Canadian Counsellors (CCCs) are regulated by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA). Registered Provisional Psychologists practise under the supervision of a senior registered psychologist.

Clinicians work within their own scope of practice and areas of training, and many have experience with grief and loss, relationship and couples work, anxiety, and low mood, which are the areas that most often come up alongside fertility difficulty. Training and current availability vary by clinician, so the most reliable way to check whether someone is a fit for your situation is to read their profile or ask.

You can browse individual profiles on the Our Therapists page, use the Match with a Therapist tool, or call the admin team at 780-904-4880 for help choosing. More about how the clinic works is on the Our Unique Approach and About Us pages.

Children and Youth

Fertility difficulty affects family systems, not only the person or couple at the centre of it. Canadian public health guidance notes that this kind of stress can affect the relationship between parents and their relationships with any other children in the family (PHAC, 2017). Children sometimes pick up on tension, absence, or changes in routine without being told what is happening.

Wholesome Psychology offers counselling for children, adolescents, and young people. Therapists working with younger clients use age-appropriate approaches suited to the child's stage of development, and they work with caregivers to support the environment around the child rather than treating the child in isolation.

If you are wondering how to talk to an existing child about what is going on, that is a reasonable thing to bring to your own sessions. You can also read about child and youth counselling, family issues, couples counselling, and grief and loss if those feel closer to what you need.

Taking a Next Step

If you would like to start, you can book a session online through our booking system. If you are not sure who to see, the Match with a Therapist tool will narrow it down for you, or you can call 780-904-4880 and talk it through with our admin team.

You can also email info@wholesomepsychology.ca with questions before booking anything. If you would like to know what the process looks like from start to finish, the Getting Started with Therapy page walks through it.

New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Starting the conversation is enough.

References

• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. (n.d.). Psychotherapy.
• Dube, L., Bright, K., Hayden, K. A., & Gordon, J. L. (2022). Efficacy of psychological interventions for mental health and pregnancy rates among individuals with infertility: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Human Reproduction Update.
• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2026). Fertility problems: Quality standard.
• Public Health Agency of Canada. (2017). Family-centred maternity and newborn care: National guidelines. Chapter 2: Preconception care.
• World Health Organization. (n.d.). ICD-11 for mortality and morbidity statistics