Marriage Counselling in Red Deer: Cost, Coverage and the First Session

Our fees are the same at our Red Deer, Calgary and Cold Lake clinics, and some clinicians charge less or offer a sliding scale. Sessions with a psychologist are $235 and are available to Red Deer clients online through our Calgary team. Across Red Deer, fees vary mostly with the clinician's designation, and many psychologists use the recommended fee schedule published by the Psychologists' Association of Alberta as a reference point.

Couples often meet weekly or every second week at first, then less often as things settle. Knowing the fee and your coverage at the start lets you plan for that.

Often, yes. Most plans do not have a separate category for couples counselling. A session with an eligible clinician is usually claimed as psychological services under one partner's plan, and the receipt is issued in that person's name. If both of you have benefits, the second plan may pay part of what the first does not.

Before the first session, ask your insurer three things: the annual maximum for psychological services, which designations are eligible, and whether a doctor's referral is required. At our Red Deer clinic, couples counselling is with Canadian Certified Counsellors, so check that your plan covers that designation. With direct billing, we submit the claim at the appointment and you pay only the balance. Our article on couples counselling and insurance covers this in detail.

You both attend. The counsellor asks what brings you in, how the relationship started, and what each of you hopes will change. Each partner gets time to speak, and the counsellor's job is to understand the pattern between you, not to decide who is right.

By the end you should have shared goals and a sense of how the work will go. Some counsellors also meet each partner once on their own early on. Some of our Red Deer counsellors use the Gottman Method, a structured, research-based approach to couples therapy. Our article on the Four Horsemen explains one of its best-known ideas.