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The online alternative to marriage counseling
Chat with your relationship coach today.
The online alternative to marriage counseling
In the process of designing Power of Two Online we looked and looked and looked at what options are currently available for Online Marriage Counseling. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, we'd like to share with you what we've learned.
If you are considering couples counseling but aren't sure you have the time, money or willingness to go to couples therapy in person, there are 4 types of help available online: audio recordings and DVD's, e-books, live counselors, and Power of Two relationship coaching.
Many of the folks offering marriage counseling online are actually selling a collection of audio files that you can listen to. Some come with a workbook, or an online assessment, or an e-mail tips series. Most of these programs offer general relationship advice, however eventually explain that they are an alternative to marriage counseling as opposed to an online program per se.
Audio recordings are great if you really are someone who will listen to 5, 10, or even 20 hours of someone lecturing to you about marriage. Likewise, while some of the videos we reviewed were pretty well made, in the end, our team was left, well, to put it bluntly, bored. That's because no matter how entertaining someone is, after 4 hours of talking heads, it's hard to stay excited about anything!
See how your relationship measures up and find out what areas could be improved!
Begin the Relationship QuizWhich gets to what we at Power of Two see as the biggest downside of using an audio or video based program to improve your marriage. None of these programs will fix your relationship problems if you don't watch or listen to them. Here's the second problem, they are expensive-most cost hundreds of dollars just to take a peek. However that often requires returning the books, workbooks etc. that come with the files in perfect condition. How many people really return all those DVD's that stuff to their original packaging and then mail them back in "new" condition?
Example Audio/Video programs:
Program name | What you get | What it costs |
---|---|---|
Marriage Fitness (www.marriagemax.com) | Library of audio files, 7 tele-seminars, a workbook, some e-mails and a phone call |
$159/month |
Light Your Fire (www.lightyourfire.com) | 9 hours of Audio recordings and a workbook | $119 |
Marriage Builders (www.marriagebuilders.com) | 6 Audio recordings, workbook, and a book | $195 |
The next type of online counseling for relationships out there is downloadable e-books or articles and e-mail series.
You can learn a lot by reading an e-book. A well designed e-mail series can be quite thought provoking. And these are a bit more reasonable on the wallet, costing 30 or 40 bucks for a decently comprehensive article. (If you're thinking about going this direction, read our article on picking good marriage help books).
What an e-book can't do is SHOW you how couples in great marriages talk using excellent communication skills. Likewise, most e-books are read once, think about, then forget type affairs. What an e-book also can't do is really understand your unique situation and give you customized help and advice.
Example download/e-mail programs:
Program name | What you get | What it costs |
---|---|---|
Simple Marriage (www.simplemarriage.net/products/combos) | 3 downloadable e-book articles | $34 |
Dr. Lee Baucom (www.savethemarriage.com) | 1 e-book | $47 |
There are a variety of services that offer genuine online therapy sessions. Using either phone or a video-conference call you can talk with a live marriage counselor. In theory this seems great-a therapist who comes to your home.
By way of full disclosure, we haven't actually called any of these folks-there are just too many people out there. Our hunch is that some are great therapists who have really honed the art of delivering marriage counseling sessions online. More likely, like with couples therapy in general, some licensed therapists are probably great and some lousy. Also, it is likely few and far between who actually TEACH the skills it takes to build a great marriage in a therapy session.
And, phone or video-call therapy is as expensive as going to someone's office with counselors charging upwards from $120/hour.
Example marriage counseling online options:
Program name | What you get | What it costs |
---|---|---|
Regain.us | Online platform and phone/video-based counseling | $40-$70/week |
www.betterhelp.com/ | Phone/video-based counseling | $40-70/week |
www.talkspace.com | Phone/video-based couseling | $79/week |
www.breakthrough.com | Video-based counseling | $140/week |
What’s left?
There is one final option if you’re in the market for marriage counseling online.
Power of Two is the best all online way to improve your marriage. Like any online learning should be these days, Power of Two includes videos, audio files, interactive exercises, worksheets, e-mail tips and reminders, text message challenges and all sorts of other materials that truly leverage what it means to be online.
However Power of Two offers something many other programs do not: your own personal coach. For under a dollar a day*, you will be assigned your own expert relationship coach. You can write back and forth with them using our platform, and they will help you use the skills you learn at Power of Two in your day to day life. They'll make sure you’re focusing on the right skills, given the specifics of your situation. Our relationship experts will answer questions, email you reminders, review your work, and generally guide you on your path to a strong and healthy relationship.
Power of Two Online is not a one-size-fits-all program. Our coaches are real human beings who actually read your comments and send you personal, not canned, responses. This is critical for ensuring you really learn the communication skills you need to talk with your spouse."
Most important, Power of Two is a membership based service. You don’t need to shell out hundreds of dollars to see if it works. Just sign-up and get going. Not for you? No DVD’s to return. Just cancel with a quick click.
Try the only true online couples therapy alternative for yourself — Power of Two Online!
Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Health Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant 90-FE-0123.Any opinions, finding, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of Health and Human Servies, Administration for Children and Families.