Could Thriveworks Help My Husband and Me Address Our Communication Issues?

When I approached my partner about couples counseling, I was a bit nervous—would he worry that I thought there was something wrong with our relationship? Would he even want to talk to a stranger about our communication woes, or the same fight we’ve had for 10 years? It seemed like walking into sensitive territory at best, and I hoped for a trusted therapist on the other end who would both understand this and proceed with care and compassion. 

After he agreed, we signed up for couples therapy with Thriveworks. It has over 2,000 providers and offers therapy in 380 in-person locations as well as teletherapy. The teletherapy service looked promising. One major perk is that it takes a variety of insurance plans, which makes it more accessible and affordable—especially since most couples therapy is not covered by insurance. It also has a quick process for matching you with a therapist who is in-network and licensed in your state, so you won’t spend weeks waiting to connect with one. 

We tested Thriveworks couples therapy for just over a month. This was supposed to involve three therapy appointments, but we ended up only having two when the first therapist we tried to work with canceled the appointment right before it was supposed to start, citing an error in the scheduling platform. What’s more, my husband was so put off by the therapist we did end up using that I wouldn’t have been able to convince him to see him for a third time even if I wanted to—and rightfully so.

How I Signed Up

Upon first glance, the website was very user-friendly and quickly walked me through the steps of signing up: inputting my insurance, providing my location, and finding a provider to meet my needs. One thing that concerned me, however, was that I wasn’t prompted to fill out any sort of mental health or medical background information. Most therapy services ask you to submit a form of this nature to give your therapist some information on your situation, history, medications, etc.

At first, I was unclear about whose insurance I should use for couples therapy. I later found out that only one person’s insurance needs to be filled in and the other person is their guest. I wish this had been explained more clearly during onboarding, though.

The cancellation policy seemed harsh to me: you’re charged $135 if you cancel an appointment with less than 48 hours' notice. Given this policy, I was hesitant to sign up as a parent of five children who sometimes get sick or have a last-minute meltdown. In my experience, kids never give you 48 hours’ notice if they plan on coming down with a fever, or need to be picked up from school unexpectedly.

I did appreciate the educational section of the website, though, where you can read blog posts about various mental health topics of your choosing, from relationships and grief to self-care and stress management.

How I Found Our Couples Therapist

To find a therapist, I could filter by the type of counseling, visit type, clinician gender, client age, language, and counseling approach. The various therapeutic approach options include dozens of options: religious counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), and much more.

Therapist qualifications vary greatly on the platform, depending on what you need. Providers include psychologists, licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs), licensed marriage and family therapists (LMFTs), and various other types of licensed counselors. There are even psychiatrists to manage mental health medications.

I narrowed my search down using my location and desired therapy type: couples therapy. About four therapists came up as a match, and their schedules and profiles, which included their qualifications, were immediately available. The first therapist who came up had limited availability, but I selected them because they seemed to have focus areas that matched our needs. 

An Unfortunate Cancellation and Customer Service

I scheduled our first therapy session and rearranged my work day and my husband’s to ensure we could both be there. I even hired an extra babysitter to ensure we weren’t interrupted. Then, just an hour before the session, the therapist called to say that they never opened this time on their schedule and it must have been an error in the scheduling system so they were not, in fact, available.

Based on that conversation, I decided to switch therapists. 

Luckily, customer service at Thriveworks was excellent.

Still, switching providers ended up being a hassle: I had to reenter my insurance information, essentially starting over on something that should have been saved for such a situation. I also had technical difficulties here, such as not being able to push the “submit” button after filling out the form numerous times. Eventually, I had to enlist help from the text line.

One thing I noticed after scheduling with two different therapists at Thriveworks was that provider availability tended to be limited (at least in my area). Our first provider only worked from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., making it difficult for anyone with a traditional full-time job to schedule appointments with them. Our second provider seemed to have availability every single hour, but I don’t think that was really accurate, as they said they had a heavy caseload with multiple patients. This made me worry that the website’s scheduler might just be perpetually inaccurate.

Inside a Couples Therapy Session

The company sent us a link and a reminder for our upcoming session. It sent another one just before the session. These made it easy to find and join our appointment. Our new provider was on time and ready to go.

The small talk persisted for at least half of the session before any sort of deeper conversation about why we were there began. While this seemed somewhat necessary to establish trust, I didn’t think it worked well. Ultimately, we were just waiting for the “real” work to start. 

Eventually, I brought up an issue we’d been facing for a while. The therapist basically summarized the issue back to me in an effort to understand but also jumped to some conclusions in doing so. I also felt they were using words that labeled our situation inaccurately, such as stereotyping me as an overbearing mom and using terms such as “anxiety,” which seemed rather diagnostic before really getting to know the full story.

They offered quite a few platitudes and clichéd pieces of advice, such as “be nice” and “stay calm,” which seemed to gloss over the complexities of the situations we were describing.

I expected our provider to go more in-depth to better figure out our individual backgrounds and our needs and goals as a couple. I expected more specific questions about our relationship’s strengths and challenges, and less stereotyping or lumping us into a category that didn’t feel applicable.

Pros and Cons

While our experience with Thriveworks was less than ideal, there are plenty of positive aspects of the service to consider.

Final Thoughts

My Thriveworks experience was not at all what I’d hoped for. We ended up with scheduling issues and a therapist who didn’t seem able to handle what we were bringing to the table. The quality of the session we attended, coupled with the original provider canceling so unexpectedly, gives me doubts about using them moving forward.

Unfortunately, for us, the whole experience produced additional marital stress rather than relieving it. As a result, I would not recommend this service to others. However, our experience may not reflect the norm. 

It was hard enough to make the decision to try couples counseling, get us both on board, find someone who accepted our insurance, and had availability that worked for both of our schedules. I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go through all that just to be disappointed like we were. Couples therapy shouldn’t feel like more trouble than it's worth.

Since we were matched with multiple providers, if my husband and I were to continue with Thriveworks, we’d have a few more therapist options to try out to see if we could find a better match for our needs and circumstances.