Online Therapy for Veterans

eHome Military — Best Overall 

This versatile mental health services provider offers treatment on an individual, group, family, and couples’ basis, and it has a veteran-focused PTSD program. Moreover, eHome Military provides therapy to address a wide range of mental health disorders with 31 listed conditions.

E-Therapy Café — Best Range of Communication Methods 

E-Therapy Café lets patients connect with their therapists through a variety of methods, supporting good communication and responsiveness. Options include phone calls, e-videos, instant e-chats, and e-journals. Patients use a protected portal on the provider’s web platform to ensure confidentiality, convenience, and security.

Cohen Veterans Network — Best for On-Demand Care

When a mental health crisis strikes, timely, responsive care can mean the difference between tragedy and recovery. Cohen Veterans Network offers same-day crisis support. Plus, 96% of clients say they could schedule appointments as soon as care was needed.

Mental Verdure — Best for Military-Related Intervention Services

A military career is steeped in service. But veterans are often plagued with lingering mental health issues from their combat duties. Mental Verdure understands how these issues impact the lives of service members and veterans. They offer personalized intervention and counseling services that focus on military-related mental health disorders.

Thrive Counseling and Consulting — Best for Flexible Payment Options 

Thrive is committed to meeting the mental health needs of veterans and their family members with affordable care. Their therapists accept a variety of insurance plans. Plus, they support flexible self-payment options with sliding scale fees based on income. Pro bono services with student interns are also available.

We researched online therapy services based on essential features to determine which providers were best positioned to meet the critical mental health needs of veterans with a focus on reliability, flexibility, and confidentiality.

Communication Methods

Open lines of communication are essential for therapy to be successful. We searched for providers that offer a variety of convenient ways to contact their therapists. Our picks support phone calls, video calls, messaging, e-journals, email, instant chat, and communication web portals.

Available Therapists

Veterans come from various backgrounds with their own distinct experiences. We searched for services with therapists who treat many conditions and are familiar with military ways and lifestyles. This helps ensure that you can find a mental health professional with the focused expertise to meet your unique needs.

Accessible Care

Receiving counseling in a timely manner is essential to effective treatment. We prioritized services that emphasized accessibility. Some of the providers’ key characteristics on our list are shorter wait times, on-demand sessions, same-day appointments, and access to care from anywhere in the United States.

With nationwide coverage and over one hundred counselors, eHome Military is well-suited to provide mental health support services to veterans, service members, and their family members. Its span of services includes individual counseling, marriage therapy, and family treatment, with special programs for PTSD and addiction. Online private counseling sessions can take place in your home, work, school or anywhere you feel comfortable. Access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone with internet service is all you need to receive useful mental health therapy. eHome’s Client Care team personally takes care of every client and can be easily reached online, via email, or by phone.

eHome Military boasts a quantitative evaluation program called Deep Mind Insight™, with assessments applied initially, during, and after treatment. The M3 assessment provides quantitative measurement of a number of mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, PTSD and bipolar disorder among others, allowing clients to track progress throughout care.

eHome Military’s PTSD program helps veterans and active duty military members cope with overwhelming challenges through individual and educational sessions. Program therapists hold master’s degrees and state licenses, and specialize in PTSD treatment. PTSD counseling consists of a 12 week program with individual and educational sessions, weekly text check-ins, educational resources and an app for 24/7 support.

eHome has partnered with Wounded Warrior project and treated over 1,000 veterans with high, proven success. Post 9/11 veterans can get free mental health care from Wounded Warrior Project. eHome accepts all major insurance, including Aetna, Cigna, Humana, and United/Optum. Clients can also self-pay at affordable prices.

What Patients are Saying
Veterans and their family members are gratified to find easily accessible mental health services through eHome Military’s online counseling services. One happy patient was “matched with an excellent counselor who was very patient and passionate about (her) welfare. (She) was able to get tools to help work through (her) anxieties and issues.”

E-Therapy Cafe provides online marriage, couple, relationship, LGBTQ, military, and trauma counseling. You connect with your therapist through the E-Therapy Cafe virtual platform, which you can access 24/7 from your computer or mobile device. Methods of communication on the portal include face-to-face video chat, electronic chat, and virtual electronic journal exchanges. You choose the venue that best suits your needs and preferences.

The therapy team boasts trauma training with a focus on military combat issues. E-Therapy Cafe founder Dr. Jude Black has been a military spouse for nearly a quarter of a century. With an understanding of the sacrifices dependent spouses make, counseling for military family members addresses their unique experiences and challenges. Insurance isn’t accepted, but veterans receive a 10% discount.

The board-certified, licensed clinical therapists on staff are also certified, expert-level life coaches. Certified professional life coaches and registered dietitian nutritionists are part of the team, as well. Therapy emphasis is on the present and the future, rather than past emotional traumas and wounds. Your E-Therapy Cafe life coach invites you to embrace self-exploration and a path to emotional growth and professional development. Therapists can issue Emotional Support Animal letters to eligible patients.

At E-Therapy Cafe, you start by choosing a therapist and one of their three e-therapy plans or the pay-as-you-go express option. The plans include three, five, or eight online sessions per month. Each method of communication represents a session. Video and electronic chats are 30 minutes long. E-journal sessions max out at 700 words from you, plus a detailed response from your life coach. You can try out the service first with one 30-minute session for $30. Plus, E-Therapy Cafe offers free online assessments to help identify problems with addiction, depression, deployment, trauma, and several other issues. Their services aren’t suitable for people in crisis, individuals having suicidal thoughts, or those with a history of psychiatric disorders.

What Patients are Saying
Clients are impressed with E-Therapy Cafe’s credentials and the convenience of its services. One explains, “E-Therapy Cafe is designed to be what founder Dr. Jude Black, a licensed therapist and certified life coach, calls a ‘boutique team’ of therapists who are available to clients on the go, regardless of life stage or location.”

Launched in 2016, nonprofit Cohen Veterans Network has 19 clinics that provide mental health services to veterans, military families, and active duty service members. CVN Telehealth is available at each Cohen Clinic.

CVN uses secure, HIPAA-compliant video conferencing software to provide face-to-face sessions with therapists. You can connect via a computer, tablet or smartphone with sound and video capabilities. Appointments follow normal clinic guidelines, and all services offered in person at Cohen Clinics are available via CVN telehealth. Therapists and staff are trained to work with veterans and their family members while delivering telehealth services.

CVN also launched a virtual community room called CVN Presents on its website, YouTube Channel, Facebook Live and RallyPoint to simulate the popular workshops, partner gatherings, and seminars held in its clinics before the COVID-19 pandemic. The content series hosts live events and pre-recorded videos covering topics such as virtual yoga, deep breathing, suicide prevention and awareness, and other helpful mental health subjects. CVN accepts most major insurances and will work with clients on a case-by-case basis to ensure that any barriers to care are addressed. For those with no insurance, care may be available at no cost. Care is available to all-post 9/11 veterans, including the National Guard and Reserves, regardless of discharge status, combat experience or role while in uniform. CVN treats the entire military family including parents, siblings, spouses/partners, caretakers, and children and others. Individual treatment is also available to active duty service members with a TRICARE referral.

CVN treats a wide range of challenges including depression, anxiety, PTSD, adjustment issues, anger, grief and loss, family issues, transition challenges, relationship problems, child behavioral problems, and insomnia. Cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and prolonged exposure therapy are some of the treatment therapies offered via telehealth. Emergency appointments are also available.

What Patients are Saying
Veterans are relieved that CVN Telehealth lets them receive care when an in-person visit to a clinic isn’t possible. One Army veteran says, “The fact that I was able to go home, be with my dogs, be in the comfort of my own home, I was able to be in the zone a little bit more. And that’s what the telehealth did. It created options. It helped me feel more at ease and comfortable with what I was thinking, feeling and going through.”

Mental Verdure’s online emotional and behavioral health services are available to veterans and active duty service members and their spouses and children.  A dedication to providing mental health support to everyone who needs it inspired this organization to embrace telemedicine.

Michael Lambert, Ph.D., Birnettiah Killens, MSW, LCAS, LCSW, and Lydia Charack, MA, RP, BSc, BAA represent the core team of clinicians at MentalVerdue. However, they’re actively recruiting other skilled mental health professionals to provide a wider range of services to patients.

Mental Verdure’s military intervention program provides targeted personalized mental health treatment. Common behavior health disorders in this group include the following:

• Effects of TBI – traumatic brain disorder
• PTSD – post-traumatic stress disorder
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Aftermaths of sexual abuse
• Drug and alcohol dependence and abuse
• Dementia
• Anger management issues
• Suicidal ideation

The military family is a vital core unit instrumental to the service member’s experience. Mental Verdure provides family-centric treatment and support to address the many and varied issues that military family members face.

Mental Verdure uses WeCounsel to provide telehealth services. This HIPAA-compliant service protects your privacy with top-rated encryption procedures. Various insurance plans are accepted.

What Patients are Saying
Veterans and their families remark on how dedicated eHome Military is to veterans and service member issues. “Intervention and support make all the difference when your loved one’s trauma and reaction to it feels so overwhelming,” said one family member.

Marriage and couples counseling, alcohol and substance abuse treatment, PTSD therapy, anxiety and depression treatment, DWI evaluations and classes, sex therapy, family psychotherapy, pastoral counseling and child play therapy are among the many services Thrive Counseling & Consulting provides.

You can review Thrive’s list of 18 therapists and two student interns to learn about their experience, mental health specialties, and availability. You can also visit individual therapists’ pages for insurance information, and interns see patients free of charge.

Thrive’s Veteran and Military Therapy program concentrates on behavioral issues and addiction problems that military members and their families are most susceptible to, including PTSD, marriage and couples issues, alcohol and substance abuse, anxiety, and depression.

Tele-Mental counseling helps patients get the care they need from Thrive clinicians from a distance. An initial in-person meeting is typically required, however, Thrive makes exceptions for special cases. Zoom is the platform of choice for Tele-Mental sessions. It provides a HIPAA-compliant environment for smartphone, computer, or tablet use. This teleconferencing option allows you to receive virtual face-to-face therapy via a secure tech medium.

Thrive also hosts online support groups with a 20-participant maximum. You can register for these Tuesday afternoon sessions on their website. Online resources are available to help you complete your Tele-Mental prescreening form, observe emergency procedures, and set up Zoom.

Thrive accepts checks, cash, and major credit cards. A sliding scale fee also applies to individuals who have no health coverage and cannot pay standard cash rates. Income and household size determine eligibility.

With offices in Greensboro, Cary, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, Thrive provides both in-person and online services. Phone scheduling is required for first appointments, and then patients can schedule online. A links and resources page provides links to valuable mental health and substance abuse information.

What Patients are Saying
Clients rave about Thrive on and off-line. One patient shares, “Professional, friendly, welcoming, supportive, compassionate … Finding a therapist can be incredibly daunting, but from the first phone call to schedule the appointment Thriveworks has made it incredibly easy to seek the support I needed … . “

What is online therapy for veterans?

Online therapy for veterans is an electronic therapy option for active duty service members, retirees and military family members. Online counseling can be delivered via Zoom, texting, live video/videoconferencing, email, real-time chat, online journaling, and mobile apps. Veterans must have access to a PC, laptop, smartphone or other mobile devices to take part. Services may include counseling, group therapy, substance abuse treatment, life coaching and other mental health interventions, all specifically aimed at veterans.

Is online therapy for veterans effective?

Online therapy for veterans can be very effective with a qualified therapist and a reputable provider. Location, availability, and access play a vital role in how or whether veterans in need can get mental health therapy and counseling. Since skilled and qualified clinicians with experience in veterans’ mental health issues are often in short supply, online therapy for veterans fills the gap. However, to be successful, a program needs the cooperation commitment of both the therapist and the patient.

What are the benefits of online therapy for veterans?

Online therapy for veterans offers many advantages over in-person counseling. This medium is flexible and convenient. It eliminates transportation issues and travel time, making therapy accessible to more veterans than ever before.

Many veterans dealing with PTSD and other mental health issues find it difficult to leave their homes. With online therapy, this is no longer a problem. They can get invaluable therapy from the comfort of their home. Plus, since they’re in a familiar environment, they are often more open and receptive to the therapeutic effects of counseling. This option is also an excellent way to deliver services to veterans who live in underserved areas.

How much does online therapy for veterans cost?

Online mental health counseling for veterans ranges greatly in price. Some providers offer counseling on a sliding fee scale, and these sessions may be free or cost as little as $5. Trials are often available for discounted fees, such as $50 for a 30-minute session. Many online therapy providers offer subscriptions at a discount compared to pay-as-you-go fees. On the lower end, you can expect to pay $50 to $100 per session. On the higher end of the scale, therapy can cost hundreds of dollars per session.

Certain online clinicians support teaching and training. Those companies provide behavioral health student interns with the opportunity to get real-life experience. Veterans may receive therapy services from these interns for free. Online therapy providers may also accept VA Choice and a variety of insurance plans.

Start searching for your online counselor now!