If you or your children are not safe, get help now. Visit a nearby emergency service, hospital, or police station immediately. The line listed below is a gender-based-violence line.
Crisis numbers in Lebanon
- KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation: Tel: 03 018 019
- All crisis lines in Lebanon
What couples counselling is, and what it is not
Couples therapy is a talking treatment for two people seen together, and the relationship is the work.
The approaches share common ground 1. The therapist keeps a relational frame and works actively. What is addressed is the pattern that keeps a difficulty going. No one is judged and no verdict is delivered.
It is not a religious or legal proceeding about the marriage, and it does not replace one. Couples come at any stage, including while a separation is being considered. Relationship distress is one of the common reasons adults seek therapy 2.
How does a session with two people work?
Both partners attend, and any separate contact with one partner should follow rules agreed in advance 1. Ask what they are.
Sessions are commonly about an hour and often weekly, with many approaches expecting a course of work over months. The early sessions cover history as much as the present difficulty.
Sessions online are widely offered here, including for couples living apart from each other, or from the country. Different models produce similar results for relationship distress 2, so choose on fit and on what you can attend.
Who is qualified to do this work?
Psychology here is licensed. The Ministry of Public Health issues the licence to practise and publishes the list of licensed clinical psychologists 3. The Lebanese Order of Psychologists is the professional body established under Law No. 8, with which practising psychologists register 4.
Counselling and psychotherapy are not covered by the same licence. A practitioner may hold a qualification and a membership rather than a state licence. That is not irregular, and the two are not the same thing.
Ask which licence or registration a practitioner holds, and check the ministry's published list where it applies.
Titles you will see include Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Psychologist and Clinical Psychologist. Search the registers by name at Ministry of Public Health, Lebanon (MOPH) or Lebanese Order of Psychologists (LOPsy). A current entry is that body's own published record of the person.
How couples work is charged
Fees are set by each practitioner and we publish no average.
Our guide to what therapy costs in Lebanon sets out what people are quoted and what changes it 5. Read it first. Then ask the practitioner what a session for two people costs and how long it runs. Ask in which currency they charge.
Sessions online may be priced differently from sessions in a consulting room. Nothing on this page calculates a figure for you.
Is couples counselling the right first step?
A joint appointment is not always where to begin.
Moderate to severe aggression between partners is one reason 1. Active alcohol or other substance misuse is another. So are a continuing affair and psychotic symptoms.
Individual or specialist help usually comes first.
If one partner is afraid of the other, the services below are the ones for that, and they are free. Seeing someone alone first is a normal route into couples work rather than a decision about the relationship.
Couples therapy across Lebanon
Our own listings are concentrated in Beirut and the surrounding towns, and between them the practitioners record Arabic, English and French 6. Which language a couple wants to argue and repair in is a real choice here, and it is on every listing.
If one of you is abroad, say so in your first message. Practitioners who work online say so on their listings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we do couple therapy if one of us is abroad?
Practitioners who work online say so on their listing.
Psychotherapy delivered live by video reaches outcomes close to in-person work, across therapies in general rather than couples work7. Couples work by video shows few significant differences from meeting in a room, and the therapeutic alliance is comparable8.
Say in your first message that one of you is abroad, and name the time zone.
Who is licensed to do this work in Lebanon?
Psychology is licensed.
A practitioner may hold a qualification and a membership rather than a state licence, which is ordinary. Ask which they hold.
What does couple therapy cost in Lebanon?
Four things move a fee. The practitioner's registration category, their experience, the session length, and whether you meet in a room or online.
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.
Does couple therapy work?
Couple therapy is an effective treatment for relationship distress, and the main models reach broadly similar results2.
Behavioural, cognitive-behavioural, emotionally focused and integrative behavioural couple therapy meet the criteria researchers use for a well-established treatment9.
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.
What happens in a couple therapy session?
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 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 how you will know the work is done.
Will insurance pay for couple therapy in Lebanon?
We hold no source on this. Not for the National Social Security Fund, and not for private policies. We will not guess at one.
Employer and private policies set their own outpatient benefits, and counselling is often outside them.
Ask your insurer whether it covers outpatient consultations with your practitioner's category, and ask the practitioner what they can invoice.
When should we go for couple therapy?
There is no threshold you have to cross first. Relationship distress is one of the commonest reasons adults seek psychotherapy at all2.
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 the problem is safety rather than the relationship
Where there is violence at home, these are the services, and they are separate from couples work.
KAFA runs a support line for women and children affected by violence, at all hours and free of charge 10. It offers safety planning, social work, psychological assessment, legal consultation and referral to a safe shelter. It is open regardless of nationality or religious community.
ABAAD runs an emergency line and a safe shelter for women and girls 11. The Internal Security Forces have their own line for domestic violence complaints, allocated under Law 293 of 2014.
In Lebanon, marriage, separation and custody are dealt with under the personal status laws of the recognised religious communities 12. The position depends on your own community's law. A general answer will not help you.
ABAAD also runs a centre for men that offers individual, family and couples counselling alongside work on anger and stress 13.
Nearby places and related listings
- Couples therapists by city, the therapists for couple page, not tied to a place
- Couples therapy across Lebanon
References
[3] Ministry of Public Health, Lebanon, list of licensed clinical psychologists.
[4] Lebanese Order of Psychologists.
[5] TherapyRoute, How much does therapy cost in Lebanon.
[6] TherapyRoute's own records.
[10] KAFA, support centre and the Internal Security Forces domestic violence line under Law 293/2014.
[11] ABAAD, emergency safe line and Al Dar shelter.
[13] ABAAD Men Centre.
Real choice. Authentic, independent, clinician-led care.
TherapyRoute is a clinician-led directory that champions independent practitioners who answer to you and their professional ethics. We don't take commissions, sell your data, or assign therapists by algorithm. You browse, compare, and choose.
Vincenzo (Enzo) Sinisi, Clinical Psychologist (HPCSA), Psychoanalyst (IPA/SAPA), Group Analyst (IGA)
