Couples Therapy and Marriage Counseling in St. Petersburg
Family Psychology Associates has been helping Tampa Bay couples repair, reconnect, and figure out what comes next since 1992. We provide couples therapy and marriage counseling at our offices in St. Petersburg, Safety Harbor, which is minutes from Clearwater, and Trinity, which serves the New Port Richey area, as well as by secure telehealth anywhere in Florida.
If you have been searching for couples therapy near me or marriage counseling near me and are not sure where to begin, this page explains who we help, how we work, what treatment usually takes in time and sessions, and how insurance tends to work for relationship care.
Who We Help
Relationships are one of the strongest predictors of long-term well-being, and they are also one of the hardest things people do. Research summarized by the Gottman Institute and a large related body of work finds that couples who seek help tend to do so late, on average about six years after they first identify a serious problem. By the time most couples arrive in our offices there are years of unresolved material, not a single issue. The encouraging part is that evidence-based couples therapy reliably reduces distress and improves relationship satisfaction, often in a shorter time frame than people expect. The American Psychological Association describes couples therapy as a focused, goal-directed treatment built for exactly this kind of work.
Relationship problems do not always look the way people expect. In our offices they show up as couples who say they never fight but who have stopped being curious about each other. Couples in the middle of affair recovery. Couples whose conflict is polite, structured, and devastating. New parents who cannot recognize their relationship after the first baby. Long-married couples who have lived their individual lives in parallel for twenty years and do not know how to be a couple again now that the children are gone. Premarital couples who can feel that something is slightly off and want help naming it before the wedding rather than five years into the marriage.
Healthy relationships are not free of conflict. What separates couples who do well from couples who struggle is not the absence of problems but the presence of particular skills, including the capacity to repair after conflict, to stay curious about each other, to recognize and respond to emotional bids, and to hold on to a sense of friendship during difficult seasons. Couples therapy is largely the work of building or restoring those capacities.
We work with married and unmarried partners and with couples of any relationship structure. We see same-sex and LGBTQ+ couples, and we work with polyamorous and non-traditional relationships. Our approach is relational rather than prescriptive. We help you clarify what you want your relationship to be and then build the specific skills to get there.
The services we offer include marriage counseling, couples counseling, premarital assessment and counseling, relationship enrichment, discernment counseling for partners who are unsure whether to stay, and divorce counseling with post-divorce co-parenting support. When the difficulty extends beyond the two of you, we can also bring in family therapy or work focused on family estrangement.
How We Work With Couples
We begin with a careful assessment. That typically includes a joint session and an individual session with each partner, followed by a feedback meeting where we share our formulation and a proposed treatment plan. You should leave that meeting knowing what we think is happening, what we propose to do about it, and roughly how long it is likely to take. From there, the pace and the approach are matched to the couple rather than to a script.
The evidence-based approaches our clinicians draw on include the following.
- Gottman Method Couples Therapy. A research-driven approach developed from decades of observational research on what actually predicts relationship success. It focuses on building friendship, managing conflict, creating shared meaning, and the specific repair behaviors that distinguish thriving couples.
- Imago Relationship Therapy. A structured approach that uses guided dialogue to help partners move from reactivity to empathy. Particularly useful when early-life material is driving current conflict.
- Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). An evidence-based approach rooted in attachment science. It focuses on identifying the underlying emotional patterns that drive recurring arguments and on creating new, safer emotional experiences together.
- Cognitive Behavioral Couples Therapy (CBCT). Focuses on the specific communication and behavioral patterns that maintain conflict, paired with concrete practice between sessions.
- Discernment counseling. A short, focused consultation for couples where one partner is leaning out of the relationship and the other is leaning in. It helps you reach clarity about the path forward rather than defaulting to either premature repair or premature separation.
- Affair recovery work. A structured, phased approach covering crisis stabilization, disclosure, meaning-making, and rebuilding. Affair recovery tends to be longer work, but outcomes are strong when both partners are engaged.
- Premarital counseling. A focused preventive package, often four to eight sessions, covering communication skills, conflict management, expectations, finances, family-of-origin patterns, and intimacy.
Sessions are available at all three offices and by telehealth. Many couples use a mix, meeting in person for the assessment phase and switching to online sessions when schedules get complicated. Appointments are available six days a week and four nights a week.
What We See in Our Couples Caseload
Three patterns stand out right now. The first is couples in their thirties and forties who have been pushed to their limit by years of juggling careers, young children, and aging parents, and who arrive in a state of low-grade contempt they could not have imagined when they met. The second is couples rebuilding after an affair, where the work is not only about trust and disclosure but also about the vulnerabilities that made the relationship susceptible in the first place. The third is couples whose conflict pattern is heavily shaped by untreated individual issues, including ADHD, trauma history, anxiety, or unresolved family-of-origin material. When that is the case, a period of individual work alongside the couples work often accelerates change significantly.
We also see an encouraging uptick in premarital and early-marriage couples coming in proactively. These are couples who are not in crisis but who want to front-load the relational skills. This work tends to be brief, focused, and high-yield. A four to eight session premarital package can produce shifts in communication patterns that would otherwise have taken years of lived experience to figure out the hard way.
One population that often goes under-served is same-sex and LGBTQ+ couples, particularly those navigating family-of-origin complexity alongside the ordinary relational work. We hold that work as a priority, and our intake team will tell you honestly which of our clinicians has the most experience with your particular situation.
The Clinicians Who See Couples
Our couples program is led by Jeffrey M. George, Psy.D., who is certified by both the Gottman Institute and the Imago Relationship Institute and who has built this program over many years. Additional clinicians who carry meaningful couples caseloads include Dexter Rogers, LMHC, Michael T. Smith, Ph.D., Sally Rosendale, LCSW, and Lester Weiss, LCSW.
Our intake team matches couples to the clinician whose training, approach, availability, and office location fit the specific situation. If the fit is not right, tell us early and we will move you rather than let the work stall. Every clinician at Family Psychology Associates holds a current Florida license as a psychologist, mental health counselor, or clinical social worker, and our couples clinicians hold post-graduate training in specific couples therapy models.
Insurance and Couples Therapy: What to Expect
Insurance is the question we get asked first and the one that gets answered vaguely most often, so here are straight answers. Coverage varies by plan and by clinician, and we will help you check yours before you commit to anything.
Sometimes, and the honest answer is that it depends on your plan. Insurance generally pays for the treatment of a diagnosable mental health condition in an identified patient. Many couples come to therapy for relational concerns that do not fit that framework, and those visits are often not covered. When one partner does have a diagnosable condition and the couples work is part of treating it, coverage is more likely. Several of our clinicians are paneled with major plans and others see couples on a private-pay basis. Our intake team will walk through the options with you before anything is scheduled, so you know what you are committing to.
Blue Cross Blue Shield plans vary widely, even within Florida, so we cannot promise coverage for a specific plan from a web page. What we can do is tell you how to find out quickly. Call the member services number on the back of your card and ask whether your plan covers outpatient family or couples psychotherapy, whether a diagnosis is required, what your deductible and copay are, and whether the clinician you are considering is in network. Our team can help you frame those questions and check the paneling on our side. Start at our new client page and we will help from there.
It depends on the clinician as much as on the plan. Panel participation is individual, so one of our couples clinicians may be in network with a plan while another is not. Tell our intake team which plan you carry and what you are hoping to work on, and they will tell you which clinicians are realistic options and what each would cost. Current information on fees and accepted plans is kept on our insurance and fees page.
Many couples choose to. Paying privately keeps a mental health diagnosis out of the insurance record, removes plan-imposed limits on session count or length, and gives you a freer hand in choosing your clinician. We are transparent about the fee before you schedule, and we will tell you at the start of treatment roughly how many sessions we expect your situation to take, so you can plan.
Contact us before you book. Our new client page lays out what we need from you, and our intake staff will verify what they can on our end and tell you plainly where the uncertainty is. We would rather spend fifteen minutes on this up front than have you surprised by a bill after your third session.
Frequently Asked Questions About Couples Therapy
It depends on the presenting concern. Premarital work is often four to eight sessions. A typical course of couples therapy for moderate relationship distress runs twelve to twenty-five sessions. Affair recovery and more complex relational work often takes longer. We are transparent about our assessment at each phase of treatment rather than leaving you guessing.
This is common. Often one partner is ambivalent or skeptical. We are happy to start with an individual consultation to talk through what couples therapy would actually look like. Many initially reluctant partners are willing to come in for an assessment once they have a clearer idea of the process.
Yes. Discernment counseling is designed specifically for this situation, where one partner is leaning out and the other is leaning in. The goal is clarity about the path forward rather than premature repair or premature separation. We also provide support through and after divorce, particularly around co-parenting.
Yes. Affair recovery is some of the most important work couples therapists do. The process is structured and phased, with attention to crisis stabilization, disclosure, understanding what made the relationship susceptible, and rebuilding. Most couples who engage fully in the work make significant progress.
Yes. Our clinicians work with couples across the full range of relationship structures and identities, including same-sex, LGBTQ+, polyamorous, and other non-traditional relationships. Our approach is relational rather than prescriptive.
Yes. Most of our couples clinicians provide telehealth visits anywhere in Florida. Telehealth works well for established couples work and is often the most practical option when partners are on different schedules or in different places. You can read more on our online counseling page.
Where We See Couples Across Tampa Bay
We have three offices and a telehealth practice that covers the state of Florida.
St. Petersburg. 5628 Central Ave, First Floor, St. Petersburg, FL 33707. Call 727-900-7014. This is the base for our couples therapy and marriage counseling in St. Petersburg, and it is where our St. Petersburg psychologists and therapists practice.
Safety Harbor. 801 2nd Street North, Suite 7, Safety Harbor, FL 34695. Call 727-725-8820. This office is minutes from Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Largo, and Oldsmar, and it is where most of our couples counseling and marriage counseling for Clearwater area couples happens. See our Safety Harbor team and our Clearwater area therapists.
Trinity. 10751 Maple Creek Drive, Trinity Professional Place, Building 8, Suite 101, Trinity, FL 34655. Call 727-203-3770. This office serves Trinity, Holiday, Tarpon Springs, East Lake, Keystone, and the New Port Richey area.
Telehealth. Secure video sessions are available throughout Florida. Details are on our online counseling page.
A Note on Safety
Couples therapy is not appropriate when intimate partner violence is active. If you are in a relationship where you feel unsafe, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-799-7233. Please reach out to the hotline or to a domestic violence advocate for safe initial support.
Couples work often intersects with other concerns. You may also want to read about family therapy, family estrangement, trauma resolution, postpartum therapy, and ADHD.
Clinically reviewed by Geoffrey Peal, Psy.D., Licensed Psychologist | Last updated July 30, 2026 | Family Psychology Associates has served Tampa Bay since 1992.
Content on this page reflects clinical approaches currently used by our practice and is reviewed by FPA clinical leadership. It is offered for general educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized clinical consultation.