How to Find a Good Marriage Counsellor

Choosing a marriage counsellor is higher stakes than it looks. A good one can turn a relationship around; a poor fit can leave both partners feeling ganged up on and done with therapy altogether. As a couples therapist trained in the Gottman Method and Emotionally Focused Therapy, here is how I would actually go about finding one, including the parts most articles leave out.

Where to look, and where not to

Start with the professional registers rather than a general search. In Australia that means the Australian Counselling Association, PACFA, or AHPRA for psychologists. In the UK, BACP or UKCP. In the US, look for a licensed marriage and family therapist. These registers only list people whose qualifications have been verified, which removes the largest single risk in this process at the first step.

A personal referral from a friend is worth having, with one caveat that matters more in couples work than anywhere else. If your friend saw this person individually, they are not necessarily a couples therapist, and the fact that they were excellent for one person says little about whether they can manage two people in conflict. Ask what your friend actually saw them for.

A referral from your GP is fine but tends to be limited to whoever is local and taking referrals. And be careful with lists that are ranked or badged rather than simply listed, since on many directories those positions are paid for.

None of this tells you whether the person is right for you. It only tells you they are qualified. The rest comes from the first conversation, which is why almost every good couples therapist offers one free.

1. Couples-specific training, not just individual therapy

Couples work is its own craft. Ask directly: what training do you have in couples therapy? Names worth hearing include the Gottman Method, EFT, and structured approaches like CBT for couples or integrative behavioural couples therapy. A therapist who only ever works with individuals may unintentionally turn couples sessions into two separate therapies sharing a couch.

Years in practice matter less than most people assume. Twenty years of individual therapy is not twenty years of couples therapy, and a therapist five years in who has done couples work exclusively is usually the better bet.

2. Registration you can verify

In Australia, look for ACA or PACFA registration, or AHPRA for psychologists; overseas, the equivalent bodies. Anyone qualified will tell you instantly. I am registered with ACA at Level 2 and with PACFA, and I would encourage you to verify that rather than take my word for it.

Verifying takes two minutes on the register's own site. It is worth doing, because counsellor and psychotherapist are not protected titles in most places, which means anyone can use them.

3. Balance, neither partner's lawyer

The single most common complaint about couples therapy is that the therapist took sides. A good couples therapist is the advocate for the relationship, holds both partners accountable, and makes both feel understood, even mid-conflict.

Notice how you each feel after a first session: heard, or judged? Compare notes deliberately, because it is very common for one partner to leave feeling it went well and the other to say nothing for a week. If one of you felt got at, say so in the next session rather than filing it. A competent therapist will want to know immediately, since balance is part of the job rather than a courtesy.

4. A method, not just a referee

Ask what their process looks like. You want structure: an assessment phase, a working map of your negative cycle, skills, and something to practise between sessions. Not fifty minutes of lightly supervised arguing, which you can already do at home for free.

If the therapist cannot describe their approach in plain language, that is your answer. It is a fair question and a good practitioner will be pleased you asked it.

5. Comfort talking about everything

Money, in-laws, parenting and intimacy are where couples actually struggle. A therapist you cannot discuss intimacy or an affair with is working with one hand tied. That applies whichever of you it was, and whether or not you are married: being cheated on by a boyfriend or a girlfriend is not a lesser version of it.

This is also where cultural fit stops being a soft consideration. If in-laws living with you, or family expectations about what a marriage owes the wider family, are part of the picture, you want someone who does not need it explained from first principles. That is exactly why I keep a separate page on counselling Indian couples, because a therapist who treats an involved extended family as automatically pathological will get the whole case wrong.

6. Ask what happens in individual sessions

Most couples therapists hold one individual session with each partner during assessment. The important question is what happens to what you say in it.

Practices differ. Some therapists hold no secrets, meaning anything disclosed individually can be brought into joint work. Others hold individual confidence. Both are defensible; being surprised by which one applies is not. Ask before the individual session, not after.

7. Practicalities that keep you attending

Online availability across your time zones, session times that fit two diaries, and fees you can sustain for the whole arc of the work. Consistency beats intensity in couples therapy, and the commonest reason a course of work collapses is not that it was not helping. It is that it became too hard to schedule.

On fees, ask about the total rather than the hourly rate, since a course typically runs 8 to 20 sessions and that is the number that has to be affordable. What couples therapy actually costs sets out the ranges by country and why insurance rarely covers it.

Red flags worth respecting

A therapist who consistently sides with one partner. One who breaks confidence between individual conversations without an agreed rule. One who pushes their own agenda about whether you should stay together, in either direction. One who lets sessions become unmanaged fights. One who cannot tell you what method they use.

One more that is easy to miss: a therapist who continues couples work when there is ongoing violence or intimidation in the relationship. Joint sessions can be actively unsafe in that situation, because whatever is said in the room goes home afterwards. A responsible practitioner screens for this and will say that individual support needs to come first.

Trust your read, and change therapists if it is off. The relationship's future is worth an awkward switch, and switching after three sessions costs far less than staying for twenty.

The questions to ask in a first call

What is your couples training specifically? How do you keep balance between us? What does a typical course of therapy look like, and roughly how long? Have you worked with our kind of issue before? What happens to anything I tell you in an individual session? And what does the whole thing cost?

Most good therapists, myself included, offer a free first conversation precisely so you can ask these before committing. If saying any of it out loud is the part you are dreading, opening up in a first session has its own answer.

If your partner will not come

This is common enough to be worth planning for rather than treating as the end of the road. Couples work with one person in the room is a real thing and it is not a consolation prize. Relationships are systems, and a change in how one person responds changes what the other is responding to.

It also tends to resolve the question. Some partners join after a few sessions once therapy stops being an abstract threat. Others do not, and the work then becomes about what you want to do with that information. You can read about how I approach relationship counselling, or get in touch if you want to talk it through first.