Faithful Counseling Online Therapy Review (2024)

For those seeking mental health treatment, but prefer a professional who takes a faith-based approach, enter Faithful Counseling, a pious online therapy service. The faith-based program offers a convenient way to access licensed therapists and other professionals who may incorporate Christian faith into therapy sessions.

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Betterhelp Christian Faith

• Prices vary and start at $65/week
• Professional therapy for the Christian community
• Every therapist has self-identified as a practicing Christian
• Talk with your therapist via phone, video, or message
• Therapists help clients' feel mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy

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On BetterHelp's Website

Key Features

• Affordability: At $60 to $90 per session, Faithful Counseling online therapy can be more affordable than traditional face to face therapy, which costs an average of $100 to $200 per session, depending on the state.
• Flexibility: With Faithful Counseling, therapy isn’t restricted to scheduled sessions. You can talk to your therapist by text messaging whenever your therapist is marked available, or by phone or video call. You can also switch therapists, if necessary, until you find the best fit.
• Spiritual integration: In your online sessions, you can openly address spirituality, religion and God, which may be relevant to guiding your values, beliefs, lifestyle choices and treatment decisions.

Faithful Counseling is a professional mental health service with licensed professionals who are also practicing Christians. The therapists are part of the BetterHelp platform, which is an online therapy platform featuring a larger network of licensed therapists. Faithful Counseling therapists draw on their clinical expertise and Christian perspective to address the challenges their clients face. The service is not available to minors.

• Faithful Counseling operates from its Statement of Faith creed, which verifies that its therapists follow the Bible and that the only true basis of Christian fellowship is Christ’s love.
• The goal of Faithful Counseling is, “to holistically improve clients’ well-being, so that they may feel mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthy.”
• Faithful Counseling therapists are independent providers; the company doesn’t oversee them professionally. Your therapist is chosen for you, after you complete the platform’s questionnaire, create a private account and pay for the first month of services.

With Faithful Counseling you’ll get started on the online platform by answering a detailed questionnaire, with questions like, “if you identify as a Christian, which denomination best describes you?” “How long has your faith been important to you?” And, “which best describes your prayer life?”

You’ll save your answers by creating a private account and will then be prompted to pay for the first month, which is currently priced at $320. Once the platform matches you with a therapist—which can take a few hours or a few days—you can start communicating with them online. You can send audio, video or text messages at any time in the messaging room. You can also schedule weekly live 30- to 45-minute sessions with your therapist. You can connect via a computer, tablet or smartphone, depending on your preference.

Therapists are licensed, trained and accredited mental health professionals, such as psychologists, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers or licensed professional therapists. They hold a master’s degree or a doctorate degree in their respective fields, according to the company. They have been qualified and certified by their state’s professional board after successfully completing the necessary education, exams, training and practice. While their experience, expertise and background vary, they each possess at least three years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience.

Every therapist has identified as a practicing Christian, the company says, and has shared their testimony with Faithful Counseling Online before joining the platform, and has verified that their beliefs align with Faithful Counseling’s Statement of Faith.

After you create an account, you‘ll be billed $60 to $90 per week, charged every four weeks ($240 to $360 monthly) to your credit card. The subscription is billed and renewed every four weeks unless you cancel. It includes both the use of the secured site and the therapy service itself. If therapy isn’t in your budget, you can apply for financial aid through the site.

You can receive therapy in four ways:

• Through scheduled video sessions (weekly 30- to 45-minute sessions) and phone calls
• Unlimited messaging with your therapist through a private, secure message room that’s open 24/7
• Scheduled live chats with your therapist

You can use different ways to communicate with your therapist at different times as you wish, based on your needs, availability and convenience. Users may connect via a computer, tablet or smartphone, depending on their preference.

Online therapists must be licensed in the states in which they practice. If you live in a state in which few Faithful Counseling therapists are licensed, you may not have many therapists (if any) available. In an email after a trial run sign-up for therapy in Connecticut, for example, Faithful Counseling, stated: “We have limited therapists available for new clients right now.”

“Faith-based therapy gives us the ability to focus on the client from a more holistic view,” says Ashley Lowe-Simmons, a licensed clinical social worker and faith-based therapist in Columbus, Ohio, who is not affiliated with Faithful Counseling. Faith-based therapists may incorporate prayer into therapy sessions. Lowe-Simmons favors paraphrased Bible verses and affirmations to help make the Bible’s teachings more practical in her therapy services.

Still, to find the right faith-based therapist, Lowe-Simmons recommends going on different therapy platforms and scheduling 15-minute consultations. “Have several consultations, then go with the therapist who you feel is the best fit for you.” Because a therapist is chosen for you on Faithful Counseling online therapy, Lowe-Simmons feels this is a disadvantage, especially since you are required to pay for one month of therapy in advance.

Still, Faithful Counseling online therapy may be worth a try to help achieve your treatment goals, especially if spirituality and faith in God are important sources of support for you, and/or religious and spiritual issues are relevant to the underlying concerns that may be prompting you to seek treatment in the first place. Those issues might include conflicts over religious values, crises of faith, feeling alienated from your religion and distorted religious beliefs and practices.