Marriage Counsellors & Couples Therapists in Christchurch, New Zealand

Both partners usually attend. Sessions run about an hour, most often weekly, and most approaches expect months of work rather than a single conversation ¹.

Ask in your first email how the practitioner handles a private call or message from one of you.

Ask which body the practitioner is registered with, what that registration covers, and whether it has a register you can search. Then look.

Ask what experience they have of working with two people.

Titles you will see include Psychologist (Reg. Psych), Clinical Psychologist and Counselling Psychologist. Search the register by name at New Zealand Psychologists Board (NZPB). A current entry is that body's own published record of the person.

Each practitioner sets their own fee, so you will have to ask. Ask the session length and the fee for two people.

If the two of you are in different places, ask whether they see couples online.

The usual reasons not to start jointly are moderate to severe aggression between partners, active alcohol or other substance misuse, a continuing affair, and psychotic symptoms ¹. Individual or specialist treatment comes first.

If one of you is afraid of the other, that is a safety question first.

Many practitioners work by video and say so on their listing.

Psychotherapy delivered live by video reaches outcomes close to in-person work². That evidence was not confined to couples.

Couples work by video shows few significant differences from meeting in a room, and the therapeutic alliance is comparable³.

Ask whether they see couples online, and whether both of you may join from different places.

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 courses⁴.

Reviewers are cautious about how long such effects last⁵. They also ask who these programmes reach.

Our guide to what therapy costs in New Zealand 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.

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 results⁶.

Behavioural, cognitive-behavioural, emotionally focused and integrative behavioural couple therapy meet the criteria researchers use for a well-established treatment⁷.

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.

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.

That depends on the country, the funder and the policy, and we hold no single answer true everywhere.

Two things affect a claim wherever you are. Whether the funder recognises your practitioner's registration category, and how a session with two people is invoiced.

Ask the funder both questions before the first session, and ask the practitioner what they can put on an invoice.

There is no threshold you have to cross first. Relationship distress is one of the commonest reasons adults seek psychotherapy at all⁶.

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.

Where there is violence, control or fear at home, the first call is not to a counsellor.

The NO MORE Global Directory lists domestic and sexual violence helplines country by country, and covers almost every country the United Nations recognises ⁸. The NO MORE Foundation built it with the United Nations and the World Bank.

A number from another country will not help you. Look up the one where you are.