Find Black Couples Counsellors in Johannesburg, South Africa

For a couple, the counsellors listed in Johannesburg offer talking sessions of about an hour ². Counselling usually runs weekly, for a set number of sessions.

Assessment, diagnosis and medicine sit outside counselling; ask who provides them where you are. Open the profiles below to compare experience, language, fee, and whether they work online. Ask how soon each one can see you.

Everyone on this page describes their work as counselling. A counsellor listens and helps you find your own solutions to problems ².

The training emphasises the conversation itself. Sessions usually stay close to something happening now: a loss, a relationship, work, a decision. That focus is what most often separates counselling from longer psychotherapy.

A counsellor is not a medical doctor and does not prescribe or diagnose. Ask a counsellor what they work with, and for how long.

The Family Life Centre - FAMSA Johannesburg. Phone +27 11 788 4784. Fees are assessed on a sliding scale. Johannesburg residents can request an appointment.

Usually. Partners are almost always seen together³.

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 them⁴. 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 sessions⁵. 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.

Yes. It is preventive work with a relationship that is not in difficulty.

One trial followed engaged and newly married couples for three years. Those given no programme separated at a higher rate than those completing any of the three offered. A single relationship awareness session did as well as the two skills courses⁶.

Reviewers are cautious about how long such effects hold⁷.

Each practitioner sets their own fee; no published tariff applies. Our guide to what therapy costs in South Africa sets out the usual ranges; ask each practitioner what a couples session costs.

Four things move a fee. The practitioner's registration category, their experience, the session length, and whether you meet in a room or online.

Most South African listings state an arrangement rather than an amount. A sliding scale, insurance accepted, a cash practice, or an invitation to enquire⁸.

Lower-fee couples services exist. FAMSA Outeniqua in George sees individuals, couples and families, free of charge for people who cannot afford a fee⁹. The UNIBS unit at the University of the Free State offers marital and family counselling in Bloemfontein¹⁰. The University Psychology Clinic at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth offers couples, marital and family therapy, delivered by supervised trainees¹¹.

Where a practitioner states a fee on their listing, that figure is their own. Ask before the first session. Ask too whether the fee runs per session or per person in the room.

Both partners usually attend together. The practitioner works with what happens between you, not with one person's account of it.

Practice differs on what comes first. Some approaches open with a formal assessment that combines joint and individual meetings. Others use no set assessment stage³.

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.

Your scheme decides, and the answer differs by scheme and by option. The Council for Medical Schemes regulates South African medical schemes, and publishes the difference between a medical scheme and a health insurance policy¹².

Two things affect a claim. The practitioner's registration category, and how a session with two people is invoiced.

Ask your scheme whether that category is claimable on your option, 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 all¹³.

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 household³.

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.

The title you will see is Registered Counsellor. Search the register by name at Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). A current entry is that body's own published record of the person.

In South Africa psychologists and social workers must be registered to practise. No statute protects the plain title counsellor. See the South Africa page.