Online Couples Counselling in British Columbia

How booking works in BC

Start with the free consultation. Book it online through Jane, choosing "New Client Consultation (Telehealth) – 15 minutes", or text (519) 760-5211 with two times that suit you and it is booked for you. No referral is needed. One of you books, and both of you can join. The consultation is 15 minutes, on a video call or a scheduled phone call, and costs nothing.

Say where each of you lives, and what you want to cover. Every enquiry reaches Mohamad first, and he books you with the counsellor who fits: in British Columbia that is Mohamad or Alison. Tell them roughly what brought you in, whether you will be joining from one place or two, which language you want to work in, and whether it matters to you who your counsellor is. If TEO is not the right fit, you will be told so.

Then book your first 60-minute session. You join each session online through Jane. Payment is per session by Interac e-Transfer or credit card, and cancellation is free with 24 hours' notice; inside 24 hours, or a missed session, the full fee is charged. There is no package to buy and no minimum number of sessions.

Hours in your own time zone. Appointments run 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, seven days a week, and most of British Columbia keeps Pacific time, so for most couples there is nothing to convert. If you are in the East Kootenays or the Peace region, which keep Mountain time for all or part of the year, the same window is 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm whenever your clock sits an hour ahead of Vancouver's. Appointments starting at six, seven or eight in the evening are ordinary here, and so are Saturday and Sunday sessions, which is what makes it workable when the two of you work different shifts or the only quiet hour in the house is after bedtime. The honest limit: nothing starts before noon.

Is couples counselling covered in BC?

MSP does not cover counselling in private practice, for couples or for individuals, anywhere in British Columbia. That is the plain answer to the MSP question.

Extended-health plans. What can cover part of the fee is a plan through work or school. Coverage depends on the credentials your plan recognizes: check for Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC), which Mohamad holds, or Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC), which Alison holds. Plans differ on which designations they name, how much they pay in a year, and whether they reimburse a couples session at all, so read the booklet's own wording before booking and ask your insurer directly. If you each have a plan, ask both how they handle a shared session.

Direct billing. Direct billing is available with Mohamad and Alison for Pacific Blue Cross and for plans on the TELUS eClaims network, Canada Life and Manulife among them. Where your plan is not one we can bill, you pay per session and submit the receipt yourself. The mechanics are on the direct billing page.

CVAP. British Columbia's Crime Victim Assistance Program does not fund couples work. If one of you is a victim of crime and wants individual counselling, that is a separate route, explained on the CVAP counselling page.

What the first sessions look like

Assessment first, then a plan. The first session is 60 minutes with both of you. Each of you describes the relationship as you see it, what brought you in, and what you want to change; nobody is asked to share more than they are ready to. Your counsellor then takes stock of three things, in the Gottman Method's terms: the friendship underneath the relationship, how conflict is actually conducted between you, and whether the two of you still share a sense of where this is going. Out of that comes a plan, agreed with you, for what the next sessions work on. It is reviewed as you go rather than fixed in advance, and you can stop at any point.

Nobody takes sides. The counsellor is there for the relationship, not for one of you. Later sessions are structured: one topic at a time, each person gets heard, and the conversation slows down if it heats up. The work looks at the pattern between you, and at specific habits such as criticism, contempt, defensiveness and withdrawal, rather than at who was right in the last argument. Between sessions, your counsellor may suggest a conversation to have at home; two free printables, the Couples Communication Kit and the Couples Connection Journal, can help with that.

If your partner is not ready, start alone. One partner declining is one reason couples counselling never begins, and it is not a dead end. An individual session at $150 lets you work on your side of the pattern: what you do when the familiar argument starts, what you want, and how to raise it. A reluctant partner sometimes joins later once they see what a session is like, and there is no requirement that they do. The couples therapy page has the fuller answer.

If you want to see what an online session looks like from start to finish, read what to expect from online therapy.

Common questions

Related pages

• Couples therapy and marriage counselling — what couples work is, in all six provinces TEO serves
• Gottman Method Couples Therapy — the method explainer
• Premarital counselling — for engaged and newly married couples
• Separation and divorce counselling — deciding, separating, and co-parenting afterwards
• Infidelity counselling — after an affair
• Couples counselling online for Nanaimo — where the practice is based
• Couples therapy in British Columbia: what to expect — the first few sessions in order, and the coverage questions BC couples ask
• Does couples therapy work? An honest look at the evidence — the research, with its limits
• Online therapy in British Columbia — the whole practice in the province, beyond couples work
• Mohamad Shabib, CCC — Level 1 and Level 2 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy
• Alison Shaji, RCC — British Columbia clients only
• Direct billing — which plans can be billed on your behalf
• Fees & insurance — the full fee table and receipt details

Where we work in British Columbia

Couples counselling here is delivered online, so where you are in British Columbia changes nothing about access. Couples book from Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond and Abbotsford, and from every ferry-dependent and highway-dependent community in between.

The province-wide picture is on the British Columbia therapy page. Couples in the Okanagan can read Couples counselling in Kelowna, and couples on the Island the Nanaimo couples therapy page.