No relationship is perfect – every couple experiences rough patches at one point or another. Whether you’re going through a short-term crisis or you think there are deeper, underlying issues in your relationship, you might find couples counseling helpful for you and your significant other.
In this article, we’ve looked at how to find the right couples counselor, near you or online, and explained how couples counseling works in practice.
Want to skip right to the suggestions for couples therapists? Here are our 7 recommended therapy solutions:
- ReGain
- Ritual
- Find-a-therapist.com
- Online-therapy.com
- Calmerry
- TalkSpace
- Family and Marriage Counseling
Couples Counseling Near Me
In this part of the article, we’ve looked at seven places you can find a licensed, experienced couples counselor, who can help mend and improve your relationship.
| Provider | Good for | Location | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| ReGain | Quick match with the right couples therapist for you | Online therapy | $65 to $90 per week (billed every 4 weeks) |
| Ritual | Couples guidance through proven interventions | Online service | $100 to $260 per month |
| Find-a-therapist.com | Find and contact the right couples counselor for you and your partner | Online and in-person therapy | Varies depending on the counselor fee |
| Online-therapy.com | Finding licensed and experienced therapists with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approach | Online therapy | $40/week to $88/week (including our 20% discount first month) |
| Calmerry | Individual relationship counseling | Online therapy | $49.50 to $73.75 per week (billed monthly) |
| TalkSpace | Relationship counseling, marriage counseling, premarital counseling | Online therapy | Varies according to insurance coverage or self-pay options |
| Family and Marriage Counseling | Locate the right couples counselor for you and your partner | Online and in-person therapy in the U.S. and Canada | Varies depending on the counselor fee |
1. ReGain
Tailored for individuals and couples navigating relationship or marital issues – ReGain is your online relationship therapy solution. Starting at $65/week, you can schedule one weekly live session and message your therapist anytime. Start your path to healthier connections with ReGain – fill out their online assessment form.
- Good for: Quick match with the right couples therapist for you.
- Location: Online therapy.
- Pricing: $65 to $90 per week (billed every 4 weeks).
- Features: iOS and Android app available, message your therapist anytime, live sessions are scheduled weekly and done via live chat, phone, or video call.
ReGain is an online therapy platform that specializes in couples and relationship counseling. A ReGain subscription includes one therapy session per week, which lasts from 30 to 45 minutes, and can be attended over a video or phone call.
2. Ritual
Ritual assists you in healing and transforming relationship issues into opportunities with the aid of their experienced Relationship Experts and science-backed methods. Complete the Ritual assessment to begin rekindling your relationship with 1:1 sessions with experienced professionals, personalized in-app content, guided reflections, and activities between sessions.
- Good for: Couples guidance through proven interventions.
- Location: Online service.
- Pricing: $100 to $260 per month
- Features: 1-1 sessions with relationship experts, online activities and personalized skill-building content, option to join together as a couple or on your own.
Ritual offers one of the most accessible relationship support with 1:1 expert sessions. This service offers weekly videos personalized for your needs and guided reflections and activities you can practice between sessions.
3. Find-a-therapist.com
- Good for: Finding and contacting the right couples counselor for you and your partner.
- Location: Online and in-person therapy.
- Pricing: Varies depending on the counselor fee.
- Features: Filter your search, find accessible and effective online and in-person therapy, find guides on different types of therapy.
Find-a-therapist.com has a comprehensive directory where you can find licensed and qualified couples therapists such as Katlyn Maves or James Norwood. There you can check therapists’ profiles and contact them directly via phone or email.
4. Online-therapy.com
Discover transformative online therapy with Online-therapy.com. Through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Online-therapy.com offers individual and couples support starting at $45/week. Engage in sessions via video, voice, or text for maximum flexibility. Fill out their online questionnaire to get started.
- Good for: Finding licensed and experienced therapists with a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approach.
- Location: Online therapy.
- Pricing: $40/week to $88/week (including our 20% discount first month).
- Features: Unlimited messaging with your therapist, including a daily journal and activity plan, yoga and meditation videos, and tests to see your progress.
Online-therapy.com provides a range of therapeutic resources and tools for couples, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) programs, worksheets, journaling exercises, and live therapy sessions with licensed couples therapists.
Read our online-therapy.com review here.
5. Calmerry
Embark on a journey of mental wellness with Calmerry. With diverse subscription options, starting at just $50, Calmerry makes prioritizing your mental health simple and accessible. You can message your therapist any day or schedule a live therapy session from the comfort of your home from any device.
- Good for: Individual relationship counseling.
- Location: Online therapy.
- Pricing: $49.50 to $73.75 per week (billed monthly).
- Features: Message to your counselor anytime, text therapy and video therapy according to the plan you choose, free counselor switching.
Calmerry offers individual relationship counseling, which means you can work with a qualified counselor with experience in couples therapy to address trust issues, communication gaps, and conflict resolution.
Read our comparison between Calmerry and BetterHelp here.
6. TalkSpace
Tailored to individuals, couples, teens, and offering psychiatry services, Talkspace plans kick off at a wallet-friendly $69 per week. What’s more, many health insurances also cover their services, enhancing accessibility and affordability. Complete a questionnaire and get matched with the right therapist for you.
- Good for: Relationship counseling, marriage counseling, premarital counseling.
- Location: Online therapy.
- Pricing: Varies according to insurance coverage or self-pay options.
- Features: Accepts insurance, pick your therapist from a list of recommendations, live video sessions and unlimited messaging with your therapist.
TalkSpace has a network of therapists including licensed professionals with expertise in couples therapy. These therapists are trained to address a wide range of relationship issues, including communication problems, conflict resolution, intimacy issues, trust issues, and more.
Read our TalkSpace review here.
7. Family and Marriage Counseling
Family and Marriage Counseling offers a nationwide directory that can help you find a nearby couples counselor. You can select your state and your city, and the platform will then list therapists near your location.
What is Couples Counseling?
Every couple goes through rough periods sometimes, usually during highly stressful periods or big transitions in the relationship. Finding the right couples counselor can help you and your partner mend your relationship, and strengthen your bond.
Couples counseling is a type of counseling that focuses on the dynamics between partners. It aims to address their issues, such as conflicts and disagreements, and improve the overall health of the relationship.
Couples counseling teaches you a range of different techniques, such as communication strategies, problem-solving skills, and reflective and active listening, and teaches couples how to use these techniques in their relationship.
The goal of relationship counseling is to help couples find more productive, healthier ways to resolve conflicts, learn better communication strategies, and become more responsive to each other’s needs.
Some of the common problems couples counseling can help with include:
- Communication issues
- Emotional issues, such as anger and resentment
- Conflict resolution
- Addiction or substance abuse
- Intimacy issues and sexual difficulties
- Financial challenges
- Dealing with infidelity
- Dealing with transitioning familial roles
- Infertility issues
- The stress of daily life, such as from work and raising children
Some couples look for counseling to help them through a rough period, while some look to unravel deeper, underlying issues in their relationship. Couples counseling can help mend broken relationships, although this isn’t always easy to do.
However, not all couples who attend couples counseling have relationship issues. Some couples attend counseling to learn better ways to communicate, such as better listening skills, and to discover how to resolve problems more proactively, before they escalate into conflict.
If you and your partner decide to split up or divorce, couples counseling can help make the breakup more peaceful and less toxic.
Therapists Specializing in Relationship Issues
Online vs. Face-to-face Couples Counseling
In the busy world we live in, finding and attending therapy can be challenging, even more so if you’re seeking counseling as a couple. Couples sometimes have trouble fitting therapy into their schedules, which is something online counseling can help with.
Online therapy offers a lot of convenience for many couples. By attending counseling online, you can reduce the amount of time you’ll spend traveling to counseling, and book in your counseling sessions at a time that’s most suitable for you and your partner. Also, if you’re on a business trip or vacation, you can still attend counseling sessions when getting help online, if you want to.
Furthermore, attending therapy from your own home can sometimes be much more comfortable. Some people feel more relaxed talking about their issues from a familiar location, instead of going to a counselor’s office.
On the other hand, there are some downsides of online therapy, such as the possibility of a bad internet connection and other technical issues making for a poor-quality counseling experience.
There’s also the issue of the extent to which you will form a client-therapist connection online. Some couples say that getting counseling over a video call greatly impaired their therapy experience, while others had no issues with it, and were able to form a strong connection with their online relationship counselor.
However, research shows that online therapy can be just as effective as face-to-face therapy, meaning that when choosing a therapy mode, the most important thing to consider is your personal preference, and the type of therapy that you and your partner would be most comfortable with.
Online vs. Face-to-face Therapy Price Comparison
The price of couples counseling varies based on your location and the type of therapist you’re looking for, but it usually ranges from $100 to $200 per session in the US, with some therapies costing well over $250 per session. Couples counseling can be particularly expensive, because many face-to-face counselors charge more when more than one person attends counseling sessions.
Considering you’ll typically attend relationship counseling once a week, this means the cost can vary from $400 to $1000 on a monthly basis.
Unfortunately, couples counseling, including marriage counseling, is not usually covered by insurance. This is because the need for couples counseling isn’t typically a medical issue. In order to have relationship therapy covered by insurance, typically at least one partner needs to be diagnosed with a mental health disorder.
When it comes to couples counseling, online counseling can be significantly cheaper. For example, a subscription costs from $100 to $360 per month, depending on the platform, your location, and the type of therapy you’re looking for..
When searching for an affordable face-to-face relationship counselor, look for a professional who offers sliding-scale fee options, which means the price of counseling is based on what you can afford to pay. You may be required to show proof of income in order to access these reduced rates.
Certifications to Look For
Couples counselors are trained professionals on the subjects of family, marriage, and relationship dynamics. In order to become certified, they need to have an undergraduate degree in psychology, mental health, or sociology, as well as a master’s degree in a related field.
To obtain a license, all counselors need to have at least two years of supervised clinical experience and they need to pass a state exam. Licensed couples counselors can be:
- Licensed Family and Marriage Therapists (LMFTs)
- Licensed Professional Counselors (LPCs)
- Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs)
- Licensed psychologists
Couples Counseling Techniques
In this part of the article, we’ve looked at different treatment methods and techniques used by couples counselors to help improve your relationship.
Reflective Listening
If you and your partner need to work on your communication skills, your counselor may help you with reflective listening. This type of counseling allows partners to talk to each other freely in a safe environment, without judgment.
Each partner is given enough time to express their thoughts and emotions, while the other learns how to listen actively and reflectively.
By using “I” instead of “you” statements, reflecting on what the other person shares, and adjusting your nonverbal communication signs, you and your partner can start having healthier, more productive conversations.
For example, instead of blaming your partner, you could start a discussion by explaining how their behavior made you feel. Reflective listening also teaches you how to let your partner know you’re listening to them when they’re talking to you.
Emotion-focused Therapy
Emotion-focused therapy has been proven as one of the most effective treatments for couples facing relationship issues. This is an evidence-based intervention that includes three steps: de-escalation, restructuring, and consolidation.
- De-escalation – in this stage, couples try to identify negative interaction patterns which prevent them from having constructive arguments. Some of these patterns include silent treatment, stonewalling, or a refusal to listen.
- Restructuring – this stage aims to change these negative interaction patterns into more productive, healthier conversation techniques. Couples learn how to share emotions and become more responsive to their partners’ needs.
- Consolidation – the last stage of emotion-focused therapy teaches couples new communication strategies and interaction skills in order to prevent the possible relapse into unhealthy, unproductive behaviors.
Solution-focused Therapy
Solution-focused therapy works best for couples who are going through a short-term crisis or have a specific relationship issue that they aren’t sure how to tackle.
More often than not, instead of directly addressing relationship issues, couples tend to dwell on these problems. This therapeutic technique helps couples find a common relationship goal and create a solution that helps them achieve it, with guidance from a counselor.
The Gottman Method
The Gottman Method is a research-based relationship intervention that aims to resolve conflict within relationships, while simultaneously increasing intimacy and affection.
This method defines four destructive behavioral patterns in each relationship – criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling – these are called the “Four Horsemen of Apocalypse”. These unproductive behaviors contribute to conflict and prevent couples from openly discussing their issues.
The Gottman Method replaces unproductive behavioral patterns with positive interactions, and helps couples define shared goals, develop stronger bonds, and learn strategies to tackle their issues more productively.
Conclusion
Every relationship has its ups and downs. If you’re going through a short-term crisis, experiencing deeper issues, or are even thinking about divorce, couples counseling might be able to help you get on the right path.
If you’re still not sure how to find the right couples counselor, contact us and we’ll get back to you.
