Find Couples Psychotherapists in Lagos, Nigeria

Couples counselling works with two people, and with what happens between them. It does not treat one of them.

Both partners usually attend ¹. Couples counselling works on repeated arguments, an affair, sex, money, parenting, or a decision about separating.

It does not rule on who is right. It is not for married couples alone. Ask a practitioner which approach they use.

Everyone on this page describes their work as psychotherapy. A psychotherapist works through talking with you about your thoughts, feelings and behaviours ².

Psychotherapy usually runs longer than counselling and aims for clinical change. It works on patterns that repeat rather than on one current problem.

A psychotherapist trains in psychological treatment rather than in medicine. What that training covers, and which approach a practitioner uses, differ between practitioners. Ask which approach a psychotherapist trained in, and how long they usually work.

Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Yaba Outpatient Mental Health Services. Phone +234 815 517 0000. The provider expressly marks Clinical Psychology as NHIS accredited and directs patients to use NHIS health-insurance services. The current NHIA benefit statement says beneficiaries do not need cash for treatment except a 10% medicine co-payment, and its live fee-for-service list includes comprehensive psychiatric assessment and psychotherapy. This affordable route is limited to eligible NHIA enrollees. The hospital describes two public entry points for first-time patients. Its outpatient clinics cover adults, addiction, forensic, geriatric, rehabilitation, and children and adolescents. To use the National Health Insurance Authority cover you must be currently enrolled. You can also attend and pay cash, but we hold no verified cash prices, so we give no figure.

Usually. Partners are almost always seen together¹.

Some practitioners will see one partner alone where the other will not attend. A practitioner should still see you if you have no partner or cannot bring them³. Ask what a practitioner does when one person is unwilling.

No. Couples counselling is for people in a relationship, married or not, of any gender, living together or not. The same practitioners work with couples deciding whether to separate, and with couples who have already separated and are parenting together. Say which of those describes you at first contact.

No. The work is with what happens between two people rather than with a verdict on either of them. Effective work with couples needs its own theories and methods, drawn from research on relationships. Ask a practitioner how they handle it when you disagree in the room.

Yes, and many practitioners offer it. Couples therapy by video shows few significant differences from face-to-face sessions⁴. Symptom reduction, engagement and the therapeutic alliance are comparable.

Sitting in the same room at home suits some couples and not others. Ask what a practitioner offers.

We do not hold a verified list of free couples services in Nigeria. We will not name one we could not check.

Practitioners listed here set their own fees. Some adjust them and some do not, and a listing does not say which.

Ask directly whether there is any arrangement for people who cannot meet the usual fee. Ask before the first session, not after.

A statutory council exists. The Counselling Practitioners Council of Nigeria was created by an Act of 2022 and inaugurated in 2025⁵. We could not open a public register for it, so we cannot tell you to check a name against one.

A psychiatrist is a doctor, and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria keeps that register⁶.

Until the counselling register is public, ask what the qualification is and where it was awarded.

Couple therapy is an effective treatment for relationship distress, and the main models reach broadly similar results⁷.

Behavioural, cognitive-behavioural, emotionally focused and integrative behavioural couple therapy meet the criteria researchers use for a well-established treatment⁸.

Those findings describe groups of couples in studies. They are not a forecast about any one relationship, and nobody listed here can promise you an outcome.

What the research does not settle is which approach suits you. Ask a practitioner how they work with two people, and what they do when the two of you want different things.

Both partners usually attend together.

Practice differs on what comes first. Some approaches open with a formal assessment that combines joint and individual meetings. Others use no set assessment stage¹.

A first meeting normally covers three things. Why you are coming now, how each of you sees the problem, and what each of you wants changed.

Ask before you start whether the practitioner sees each partner alone. Ask what they do with what one partner tells them in private. Ask how you will know the work is done.

The National Health Insurance Authority runs the national scheme and publishes its benefit package⁹. We hold no source stating whether counselling for a couple sits inside that package, and we will not guess at one.

Private cover is separate, and each plan sets its own outpatient benefits.

Ask your health maintenance organisation whether outpatient consultations with your practitioner's category are covered, and ask the practitioner what they can invoice.

There is no threshold you have to cross first. Relationship distress is one of the commonest reasons adults seek psychotherapy at all⁷.

Distress between partners travels. It is associated with mood, anxiety and substance-use difficulties in the partners themselves, and with difficulties for children in the household¹.

Couples come with a repeating argument, with an affair, with a decision about whether to stay together, and with none of those. You do not have to agree on the problem before you make contact.

Our records name no register for the title psychotherapist in Nigeria. See the Nigeria page for the professions that do carry a register there.