Find Couples Family Therapists in San Diego, the United States

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 family or systemic therapy. Family therapy helps people in close relationships understand and support each other ².

Family here means whoever those involved count as family. Sessions usually have more than one person in the room.

A therapist may also meet members on their own ³. Ask a practitioner who they would want in the room.

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 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.

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

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

The licence is not one national thing. Each state licenses practitioners and sets what they may do⁶. So the titles whose fees you are comparing change at a state line.

TherapyRoute holds no verified lower-fee couples service for the United States. We name none here until we verify one at its own source.

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.

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.

A state board licenses marriage and family therapy and the titles that go with it⁹. No register records the approach a practitioner works in¹⁰. The approach is a question for the practitioner. 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.

Most practitioners seeing couples here cannot prescribe medication. Prescribing sits with psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses, and each state sets what a licence allows⁶.

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.

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.

If safety is the problem at home, the routes are your state, territory or tribal coalition¹¹, and the courts¹².

The title you will see is Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.

A practitioner must hold a current licence from the state board where they practise. See the United States page.