Feeling Good Institute Online Therapy Review

When cognitive behavioral therapy was developed in the mid-twentieth century, few could have predicted how the approach to talk therapy would dominate mental health treatment over the coming decades. For a great many, its ascendance has been positive. A review of over 100 studies on CBT suggests that there’s a lot of strong evidence that this type of therapy is very successful.

Feeling Good Institute is an online therapy company that offers live video therapy in most U.S. states and select locations worldwide. Its therapists, not all of whom are licensed, are trained in various therapies which includes TEAM-CBT (more on that later). The online therapy space has exploded in recent years, but Feeling Good Institute’s website says it’s different thanks to its effectiveness tracking, cutting-edge techniques, and an approach that arms users with skills to address current and future challenges. That’s a bold claim, and we wanted to know whether the Feeling Good Institute delivered. 

To arrive at the answer, we took all angles into account. We analyzed the Feeling Good Institute’s online presence, surveyed 105 users, interviewed a current therapist, consulted a subject matter expert, and I personally spent a month as a client under two different therapists. Read on to find out how the Feeling Good Institute stacks up.

What Is Feeling Good Institute?

Feeling Good Institute aims to bring TEAM-CBT, a version of cognitive behavioral therapy developed by psychiatrist David Burns, MD, to the masses through its clinical training and therapy network. You may remember Dr. Burns, as I did, from such books as "Feeling Good," which he published in 1980. I’m nearly certain my parents had a copy of it on the bookshelf growing up. Odds are in my favor since the book has sold millions of copies worldwide.

Dr. Burns, an emeritus adjunct clinical professor at Stanford, didn’t found Feeling Good Institute but looms large in the company, which was founded in 2010 by three of his devotees. His presence and the zeal of Feeling Good Institute-trained therapists can feel a little cult-ish, but it’s not all smoke and mirrors. 

“Dr. Burns is well-known as one of the creators/originators of CBT,” said Amy Marschall, PsyD, one of our subject matter experts and a licensed clinical psychologist certified in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and telemental health.

Today, Feeling Good Institute has an international presence, offering online therapy in 37 U.S. states, Washington D.C., Canada, the Middle East, Latin America, and Europe. It also provides in-person treatment in California, New York, Canada, and Israel.

What Services Does Feeling Good Institute Offer?

As of February 2023, Feeling Good Institute offers the following online therapy services:

• Individual therapy
• Couples therapy
• Child and adolescent therapy
• Family therapy
• Intensive therapy

Feeling Good Institute does not offer group therapy. It also does not provide medication management (outside of California) or psychiatry, unlike its competitor Wellnite, which offers CBT and medication management in one platform. Feeling Good Institute also does not offer messaging or text-based therapy, a novel, relatively untested service that draws people to some online therapy companies.

Instead, all therapy is delivered via live video sessions or in-person therapy where available. Individual, couples, and youth sessions are typically 50 minutes or more, depending on the therapist. Intensive therapy involves longer sessions delivered in a short timeframe, normally 10 to 20 hours over 2 to 14 days. 

All therapy sessions at Feeling Good Institute use a therapeutic modality called TEAM-CBT. TEAM-CBT is like cognitive behavioral therapy with a twist. CBT has a strong evidence base—and a reputation for rigidity. “TEAM-CBT seeks to address some of the concerns associated with traditional CBT to make the approach more collaborative and client-centered,” said Dr. Marschall. The letters in TEAM highlight what set it apart:

• Testing 
• Empathy 
• Agenda setting
• Methods

Testing refers to surveys you fill out before and after each session to track how therapy is going. Empathy means that Feeling Good Institute-trained therapists prioritize warmth and compassion. Agenda setting references how you’ll make a collaborative plan with your therapist for what to tackle in each session. Methods allude to the over 100 cognitive behavioral techniques that can help address problems like depression, anxiety, and bad habits. 

Even with these tweaks, TEAM-CBT is still heavy on homework and handouts. The idea is for you to go deep with a therapist and learn the TEAM-CBT skills that work for you so you can continue to use them on your own. TEAM-CBT is a good fit for people who like self-help and structure. “It can be great for clients when it's a good fit,” said Dr. Marschall, “but like everything, it's not the right tool for every job.”

Who Is Feeling Good Institute For?

I get the sense that Feeling Good Institute is ideal for people like me: Former good students who love intensive support and aren’t actively in crisis. Feeling Good Institute works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. According to its website, Feeling Good Institute’s therapists treat a myriad of issues, including:

• Addictions
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Low self-esteem
• Relationship problems
• Stress
  

How Much Does Feeling Good Institute Cost?

At Feeling Good Institute, you pay per session. The per-session rates vary based on the therapist you choose and the length of your session. 

Of the four certified and affiliated therapists available in my state, Minnesota, the average fee per session ranged from $195 to $286. In California, 36 certified and affiliated therapists are available, with rates that range from $95 per session for therapists under supervision to $800 per session to work with the director of the company. 

I have usually accessed therapy with the help of my insurance, which Feeling Good Institute doesn’t accept, so I’m not used to paying hourly rates that high. I definitely felt a little queasy when I submitted my credit card for billing. Feeling Good Institutes rates are indeed a bit higher than average. A month of weekly sessions with the least expensive Feeling Good Institute therapist we could find would set you back $380, which is higher than the $178 monthly average cost of therapy reported in Verywell Mind’s Cost of Therapy Survey. This could be why only 51% of people surveyed said that Feeling Good Institute was affordable. However, users tend to feel the cost is worth it: 83% said it provided good, very good, or excellent value for the money.

Does Feeling Good Institute Accept Insurance? 

Feeling Good Therapy is not in-network with any insurance company. However, its website notes that your health insurance may offer reimbursement for out-of-network psychotherapy. Of the people we surveyed, 49% said they ended up paying a discounted amount thanks to insurance.

Does Feeling Good Institute Offer Discounts? 

Feeling Good Institute therapists offer a free 15-minute consultation. This is an excellent time to hear more about the therapy and ask any questions you have. At the end of the free video chat, you and your potential therapist decide whether you’d like to move forward and book a paid session. This process can make you feel more confident about whether it will be worth it for you. After my consultation, I felt like I understood what to expect from therapy at Feeling Good Institute. 

In addition, Feeling Good Institute’s stated rates are not necessarily set in stone and, to some extent, you can negotiate your rate. The session fees listed on the website are an “average fee per session,” which gives the impression costs could be more or less depending on the circumstances. Some therapists include “sliding scale available” under the financial section in their bios. Others offer discounts for pre-paying or for longer sessions.

The website has a page for lower-fee ways to access Feeling Good Institute therapists. It includes an easy search for therapists offering reduced rates and links to apply for one of the three pro bono intensive therapy slots Feeling Good Institute provides annually. 

Navigating the Feeling Good Institute Website

Feeling Good Institute’s website initially strikes a hopeful note, which, in time, turns dissonant. When you first arrive, you’ll immediately see a picture of a peaceful-looking 30-something woman sitting in front of an open laptop. A smaller image of a compassionate-looking female therapist is in the upper corner, reminiscent of a Zoom session. White, blue, and yellow colors create a cheerful and optimistic feel.

Navigation is unfussy; you can scroll down or use the navigation menu at the top of the page to get where you want to go. You have seven options: Find a therapist, About, How We Help, For Therapists, Blog and News, a phone number, and a yellow button to Book a Free Consult.

The text is easy to read, and the Chrome screen reader extension worked well, making it accessible to individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have visual processing differences. The FAQ includes eight categories, each with one to 14 questions and answers for most things you’d want to know. As I poked around the site, I felt my trust in Feeling Good Institute bloom. 

It’s easy to check out the therapist bios before you sign up, something you can’t do as easily at many of its competitors, including Wellnite. The therapist bios are thorough and include a headshot, availability, services, who they work with, specialties, location and contact info, a statement about their practice, intro video, financial info, languages they speak, publications and media, photos of their office, and badges emphasizing credentials.

Even though I felt washed with calm when I landed on the site initially, the more I dug around, the more that feeling flickered. 

A big part of the allure of TEAM-CBT is that they say it’s evidence-based and cutting-edge. Unfortunately, the website doesn’t do a very good job of making either case.

For example, Feeling Good Institute’s website has a page about the science behind its approach. As a former mental health researcher, I nerd out when I see something like this. When I clicked on the page, I could see large text stating that "Research Shows TEAM-CBT Works" and a claim that it's eight times more effective than other treatment approaches and reduces suffering by an average of 30% per therapy hour. When I see impressive numbers like that, I want to understand where they come from. 

Language camouflaged in a hard-to-read font in the footer indicates these data come from two naturalistic studies that are available upon request. Feeling Good Institute’s cagey approach to data and the lack of publicly available or peer-reviewed studies about TEAM-CBT was disconcerting to me as a researcher.

When I continued to scroll down the page, I did see citations for what it called “recent” papers that purportedly demonstrate the impact of TEAM-CBT. But what I saw didn’t exactly fit that description. I saw papers that were greater than five years old, not recent in research terms, and which lent credibility to the components of TEAM-CBT but not TEAM-CBT as a package. 

For instance, one of TEAM-CBT’s components is "routine outcome monitoring.” This strategy, which essentially refers to measuring how therapy’s going, does indeed have a strong evidence base, which is partly why many types of psychotherapy use it.

The citations make the case that TEAM-CBT could work well in theory, but after a decade-plus in business, it struck me as odd that the company didn’t have more specific findings available about whether it worked in practice, particularly given Feeling Good Institute’s reliance on TEAM-CBT’s evidence-based structure as a selling point.

The blog presented another mismatch between what I hoped to see and what I actually saw. When I clicked through a few of the first posts, I found briefs summarizing research from 2013, 2015, and 2021 and no date on the blog posts themselves. While 70% of the people we surveyed felt positive about the additional content on the site, the temporal disorientation was unsettling for me. I was somewhat reassured to see Feeling Good Institute updates its modest Facebook and Instagram accounts regularly with informational and marketing content.

On the whole, its online presence left me feeling ho-hum about Feeling Good Institute and uncertain about what I was getting myself into. The users we surveyed may have felt something similar to me about the website. Sixty-two percent told us they found the experience of navigating the website easy or very easy, a pretty middle-of-the-road percentile compared to the other online therapy companies we’ve reviewed.

Unlike some of the other companies that we reviewed, Feeling Good Institute does not have its own app. However, if you would like to have live sessions on your tablet or mobile device, it’s recommended that you download the SimplePractice app.

How Do You Sign Up for Therapy at Feeling Good Institute

To sign up for therapy at Feeling Good Institute, you have your choice of several approaches. You can use the menu to find a therapist through its directory, or search by state, city, or lower-fee options. 

The most eye-catching option is to click the prominent yellow “Get Matched!” button in the center of the homepage. 

When you click that button, whether or not you fill out your location, you’re taken to a page that asks you to click through three questions about your location, the type of therapy you’re looking for (adult, couples, family, children, or adolescents), and the concerns bringing you to therapy. You have over 50 choices for the latter. I liked that you can pick more than one, as well as the option to select “I’m not sure.” 

You do not need to provide any personal information in this phase. You also can’t state your preferences regarding your therapist’s gender or sexual orientation, ethnic identity, or languages spoken. Likewise, there’s no way to disclose these details about yourself. The lack of these features may be off-putting for members of sexual, racial, or ethnic minority groups.

And that’s it. The next screen shows you the best therapist matches for you. This is much less preamble than some of its competitors, which felt a little odd, but is certainly simple. That may be why 71% of the people we surveyed said the sign-up process was easy or very easy.

Matching With a Therapist at Feeling Good Institute

After you click the yellow button “See Your Matches,” you’ll see a list of certified and affiliated therapists who fit your specified criteria to select from.

Unlike companies that use an algorithm to match clients and therapists, like BetterHelp and Talkspace, Feeling Good Institute’s match functions more like a simple, filtered search—a plus for people who want the freedom to choose their therapist. 

Of course, the downside of choice is decision fatigue, but I don’t think that’s much of a risk at Feeling Good Institute. There just aren’t an overwhelming number of therapists in most states. In fact, when I browsed by state, I noticed that a trio of Feeling Good Institute therapists, each licensed in more than two dozen states, crops up again and again. In several cases, including Colorado and Delaware, that little group accounts for the entirety of the coverage.

Once you have your match results, you’ll scroll through to see the candidate therapists’ names, photos, credentials, TEAM-CBT level, specialties, and whether they’re open to new clients or have a waitlist. You can also click to read even more information, including details about languages spoken and prices. I noticed some bios contained information about expertise supporting members of certain groups, including LGBTQIA+ individuals. Each profile has a yellow button to "Book a Free Consult." Eighty-one percent of the users we surveyed were pleased with the number of quality providers they encountered in this phase, and a similar number felt good about therapist diversity.

At the very bottom of the page, you’ll see a more sparse set of bios. These belong to community-certified therapists. When I first saw these, I was flummoxed: What are community-certified therapists, and what’s their relationship to Feeling Good Institute?

This is where Feeling Good Institute’s training mission can make it a little confusing for an online therapy seeker. Anyone who has earned a certification in TEAM-CBT can be listed on the Feeling Good Institute website, but not all of these therapists are affiliated with Feeling Good Institute on an ongoing basis. 

The more sparse profiles belong “community certified therapists” that, while certified in TEAM-CBT, are not affiliated with Feeling Good Institute, and have an unknown degree of continuous rigor in their TEAM-CBT practice.

The  “certified and affliated therapists” have a more fleshed-out profile, with bright yellow buttons for easy booking from the website.

Confusing things further, both groups of certified therapists have practitioners at various levels. Feeling Good Institute’s TEAM-CBT certification has five levels, with level one being the lowest level of training and level five reserved for the most experienced. You’ll see the level of each practitioner called out on their bio.

It’s important to note that while Feeling Good Institute level four and five therapists have mental health licenses, therapists at lower levels do not necessarily have a license to practice mental health care (though many of them do). As a result, unlicensed therapists may be among the certified and affiliated therapists you see. This differs from many other online therapy companies, including Wellnite, which commonly require all providers to hold a license. You’ll need to review bios for terms like “licensed psychologist,” LCSW, LMFT, and LPC to find a licensed therapist.

Despite its confusing elements, 81% of the Feeling Good Institute users we surveyed said Feeling Good Institute was overall helpful at connecting them with a therapist.

How Do Therapy Sessions Work at Feeling Good Institute?

You begin therapy at the Feeling Good Institute by scheduling your free consultation.

Once you’ve chosen your therapist, you click a yellow button on their profile to book a free consult, which opens a new window to request an appointment.

After selecting the service (“initial 15-minute free consultation”) and the location (“online therapy”), you’ll see a calendar with options showing the therapist’s availability. I could schedule with both therapists I worked with within the week, which is reasonably prompt, but still requires more waiting than some of its competitors promise, including Wellnite.

Then you select who the client is (yourself, your partner and you, or someone else) and enter your contact information (legal first and last name, name you go by, email, phone number, birthdate). It’s refreshing that payment information is not requested to access the free consultation.

You’ll get an email letting you know your appointment request was received, which also contains a green button to sign into your client portal.

Scheduling Subsequent Therapy Sessions

At Feeling Good Institute, you can request appointments, including consult calls and therapy sessions, but nothing is official until it’s confirmed by the therapist. I requested my first consultation call around 10 a.m. on a Friday and received confirmation around 7 p.m. that same evening.

Leading up to your appointment, you’ll receive up to three reminder emails at two days, one day, and 15 minutes prior to your scheduled time. My emails included an appointment to add to my Google calendar, a unique link, an email to contact my provider, and a reminder to download the SimplePractice app if I wanted to have my session on a smartphone or tablet. 

After the free 15-minute consult, you can schedule future appointments directly with your therapist or through the client portal.

Accessing Feeling Good Institute’s Client Portal

Once you register with Feeling Good Institute, you receive access to the client portal. The portal has a basic interface, with tabs labeled Appointments, Documents, Billing and Payments, and Request Appointment.

I liked the login process. To access your client portal, you click a link in your email, so you don’t have to set (and reset when you forget) a new password.

Once you schedule paid sessions with a therapist, the client portal is also where your onboarding documents will be. I received 10 documents to review before my first session, including five mood surveys, demographic forms, privacy policy, informed consent, and billing information. This amount of paperwork felt a bit overwhelming, but it also reminded me of the process of getting started with a new in-person therapist.

You can’t message your therapist via the client portal. However, it is possible to contact your therapist via email if needed. Both of my therapists’ emails were included in the appointment reminders, and both also initiated email communication with me.

Video Session

At Feeling Good Institute, therapy sessions take place on SimplePractice, a software platform many health and wellness practitioners use. I accessed SimplePractice on my laptop’s web browser by clicking an emailed link. If you’re using a smartphone or tablet, it’s recommended that you download SimplePractice’s app, Telehealth by SimplePractice, which is available for iOS and Android devices. 

Feeling Good Institute doesn’t offer any text-based therapy. All sessions are live video sessions, though one therapist did offer to do a phone session when I asked about it. The feel is reminiscent of Zoom and FaceTime, except HIPAA-compliant and HITRUST-certified.

Measuring TEAM-CBT Progress

TEAM-CBT is big on measurement, and I received an email with a survey link before and after each session to track my mood. 

The pre-session survey included detailed questions to get granular about three broad mood categories: depression, anxiety, and suicidal feelings. The after-session survey included 54 questions. Each section requires you to self-score your total. 

If that sounds like a lot, I can tell you it felt that way, too. Even though I know measurement is linked to better therapy outcomes and is a pillar of TEAM-CBT, this seemed like overkill. Engaging in an endless-feeling scroll and a mini-math pop quiz tended to undercut my post-session zen. When I mentioned my annoyance in a session, my therapist was good-natured, which helped me feel a little less frustrated going forward.

Therapy Handouts and Homework

Therapy with Feeling Good Institute involves a lot of handouts and homework, which may provide helpful structure for some and may be too much for others. When I began working with him, my first Feeling Good Institute therapist shared a Google Drive with me that had 31 PDF handouts, which we then proceeded to use during and between sessions as part of the homework he assigned. 

Homework is prominent in CBT therapies, and TEAM-CBT is no exception. The consent for treatment, which I had to sign to begin therapy, even included a section on homework. It stated that my therapist required homework, and if I was uncomfortable with that, my therapist would be happy to refer me to another clinician.

For my homework, one therapist I worked with asked me to buy and use a TEAM-CBT workbook authored by Dr. Burns called "Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety." I got some pushback when I declined, which made me a little uncomfortable, but when I held fast, my therapist suggested I listen to a handful of episodes of Dr. Burns’s free podcast instead. The goal, he said, was to learn more about TEAM-CBT. While it was interesting, the focus on materials featuring Dr. Burns, who is not directly affiliated with Feeling Good Institute, made me uneasy. Later assignments featured a combination of podcast episodes and PDF handouts. The handouts were helpful—so much so that I later debated buying the handbook for my own purposes. 

At the same time, not everyone has the capacity for homework that Feeling Good Institute requires, especially when dealing with mental health challenges.

What Happens If I Miss A Session at Feeling Good Institute?

When you begin therapy with Feeling Good Institute, you complete paperwork that includes informed consent for treatment. This document contains information about your therapist's billing policy. My agreement stated that my therapist would bill me within 48 hours of a session (my therapist always billed me right after we ended). If I missed a session, I would need to pay for it unless I provided 48 hours' notice, or my therapist and I both agreed that I could not attend due to circumstances beyond my control.

Switching Therapists at Feeling Good Institute

Feeling Good Institute is not designed to facilitate switching therapists. If you opt to stop working with one therapist and want to try another, you essentially go through the same sign-up process again. However, you’ll use the same client portal, as it’s connected to your email. My second therapist said she thought she could contact my first for the onboarding paperwork I filled out, but I got the impression this wasn’t a situation she regularly encountered. This surprised me because 54% of Feeling Good Institute users said they switched therapists at least once.

Canceling Therapy at Feeling Good Institute

Feeling Good Institute therapy has a more serious, intentional streak, and the process of canceling therapy reminded me of what it’s like at in-person mental health clinics. You could theoretically stop booking sessions with your therapist and ghost them. However, the informed consent for treatment, which you sign to start therapy, has language about expectations for ending therapy. My therapist included a request for a final session to understand my decision, solidify gains, and support my transition. 

Honestly, I dreaded the awkwardness of canceling on my therapists, who’d been truly helpful. When I bit the bullet with my first therapist, I told him at the beginning of a session that it would be our last one, and he handled it beautifully. He validated my decision and revved up to give me a lot of value for the rest of the hour. At the close, he shared some kind observations, wished me well, and invited me to reach out if I needed anything—a class act. Handling client-initiated cancelations well appears to be baked into how Feeling Good Institute operates, as the last session with my second therapist went equally well.

Quality of Care and User Satisfaction

As a client, I will say that the Feeling Good Institute therapists I interacted with were unusually warm, attentive, and responsive. I went in with a fair amount of skepticism ( have a master’s in counseling psychology, trained as a therapist, and have had CBT therapy before) so I didn’t expect the sessions to be as fresh and helpful as they were. 

Feeling Good Institute users were broadly satisfied with their experience too, according to our survey results. The vast majority—84%—said they’d rate Feeling Good Institute as good, very good, or excellent overall.  A whopping 91% said Feeling Good Institute was better than other services they’d used in the past, putting Feeling Good Institute squarely in the top 20% of all online therapy companies we assessed.

Its in-house therapist training program, staff stability, and distinct treatment modality likely all contribute to the generally high quality of care Feeling Good Institute provides.

How Are Feeling Good Institute Therapists Trained? 

Feeling Good Institute has ongoing training embedded in its clinical operations thanks to its training mission. Melinda Braswell, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner who is an affiliated therapist with Feeling Good Institute, said that continuing education and improvement was a huge draw for her when she sought options to offer her patients more support. Feeling Good Institute’s “mission is to keep you sharp, keep you on your toes, make sure that you’re getting the support you need to offer the best care possible care possible to the patient,” she said.

Affiliated therapists attend weekly meetings to go over skills and consult about patients. They can also participate in additional TEAM-CBT training at no charge, which is offered to the broader community as well. Several well-regarded professional associations have approved Feeling Good Institute to provide advanced training, including the American Psychological Association, National Board for Certified Counselors, Association of Social Work Boards, and Association for Addiction Professionals (NAADAC).

 Is Turnover a Problem? 

It can be disruptive for users when their therapist leaves an online therapy company, but that doesn’t seem to be a big issue at Feeling Good Institute. Therapists tend to stick around. Brasswell said working with Feeling Good Institute has been one of her most positive professional experiences. Beyond that, she said she signed a three-year contract with Feeling Good Institute, which she believes is standard. Even if they do leave, because Feeling Good Institute therapists do not sign a non-compete, they can continue to work with their clients even if they part ways with Feeling Good Institute, she said.

Does Feeling Good Institute’s Approach Work?

Feeling Good Institute’s website says TEAM-CBT can help with anxiety, depression, relationship problems, addictions, children, adolescents, parenting, and more. Subject matter expert Dr. Marschall said that traditional CBT can help with these conditions, so it’s reasonable to think that TEAM-CBT could also help, but she did have a couple of hesitations.

“Regardless of the diagnosis, some people just aren't a fit for certain modalities,” Dr. Marschall said. “My main concern with someone being a ‘purist’ about their approach…would be that this could make it hard to recognize when that approach isn't right for a specific client.”

Dr. Marschall also noted that some of Feeling Good Institute’s efficacy claims may be overblown. The website mentions that clients can see meaningful results in “as few as five sessions,” which concerned her because so many variables impact outcomes. “I'm always hesitant about an approach that makes a guarantee like that,” she said.

Privacy Policies

Feeling Good Institute’s privacy policy is surprisingly easy to understand and audience-focused. I expected legalese but found helpful links for how to opt out of targeted advertising. The policy goes into some detail about how your private information is protected. Feeling Good Institute protects credit card information with SSL, a protocol that transmits information safely on a computer network. It protects health information with SimplePractice, a HIPAA-compliant and HITRUST-certified healthcare software used by tens of thousands of healthcare professionals. 

I did notice one confusing gap. The privacy policy says Feeling Good Institute encourages clients to communicate with their clinician only through the client portal for privacy reasons. When I opened my client portal, however, I did not have the option to message my therapist there.

Feeling Good Institute vs. Its Competitors

Feeling Good Institute’s main competitor in the online therapy space is Wellnite. Although it’s nearly a decade younger, Wellnite offers online CBT-style therapy in many U.S. states, just like Feeling Good Institute. While Feeling Good Institute focuses only on TEAM-CBT, Wellnite’s therapists use CBT and other approaches, including mindfulness therapy and EMDR. Other differences between these rivals could make one or the other a better fit for you.

When it comes to cost,  Wellnite uses a subscription model instead of Feeling Good Institute’s pay-per-session model. But if you do a little math to calculate the per-session rate for the therapy-only plan, you’ll find it works out to $150 per 60-minute session. This is a big difference from Feeling Good Institute, where per-session rates for similar-length sessions can be anywhere from $95 to $800 each. While Wellnite does accept PPO insurance, its ongoing $450 per month cost without it could quickly scramble a lot of people’s budgets. 

Perhaps that’s why only 47% of Wellnite users said it was affordable, while 61% of Feeling Good Institute users said the same. Beyond that, just 73% of Wellnite’s users said it was a good value for money, but 84% of Feeling Good Institute did.

The competitors also take a different approach to scheduling. Wellnite’s therapy-only plan lets you choose between six 30-minute sessions, four 45-minute sessions, or three 60-minute sessions per month, with no option to add on more. At Feeling Good Institute, session length starts at 50 minutes, and you can schedule as many (or as few) as you and your therapist agree to. Feeling Good Institute offers a time-limited burst of more frequent and lengthier sessions through its online intensive therapy offering. If you’re looking for more from your therapy or the option to schedule as needed, Feeling Good Institute is a better option.

Wellnite’s providers also set it apart from Feeling Good Institute. For one, all of Wellnite’s therapists are licensed, which is something Feeling Good Institute can’t say. Interestingly, even with this guarantee, our survey respondents rated the number of quality providers eight percentage points higher at Feeling Good Institute. Perhaps this is due to the additional training in TEAM-CBT that all Feeling Good Institute therapists have. 

The providers also differ in what they can do. For an additional fee, Wellnite offers medication management and psychiatry, in addition to talk therapy, while Feeling Good Institute’s focus is solely on the latter. Seventy-five percent of the Wellnite users we surveyed thought its psychiatry services were good, very good, or excellent.

If you’re looking for the flexibility to schedule as many sessions as you need and prefer to work with a TEAM-CBT-trained therapist, Feeling Good Institute is the best option. If, however, you’d rather commit to a regular subscription that helps you access prescription medication, Wellnite is for you.

Final Verdict

Feeling Good Institute is the best place to connect online with therapists certified in TEAM-CBT. The level of training and continuing education Feeling Good Institute provides to its affiliated therapists makes it stand out. This approach appears to work for many; 84% of Feeling Good Institute users we surveyed felt good about their experience overall and 73% would recommend it to a friend.

Still, Feeling Good Institute isn’t for everyone. Its approach is intense, homework-heavy, and doesn’t include text-based therapy. If you’re looking for something more low-key, you’d do better to look elsewhere. Likewise, while all Feeling Good Institute therapists are trained in TEAM-CBT, not all hold a license to practice mental health, and Feeling Good Institute doesn’t accept insurance. If these factors are important to you, Feeling Good Institute won’t be a good fit.

Methodology

To fairly and accurately review the best online therapy programs, we sent questionnaires to 55 companies and surveyed 105 current users of each. This allowed us to directly compare services offered by gathering qualitative and quantitative data about each company and its users’ experiences.

Specifically, we evaluated each company on the following factors: website usability, the sign-up and therapist matching processes, therapist qualifications, types of therapy offered, the service's quality of care, client-therapist communication options, session length, subscription offerings, client privacy protections, average cost and value for money, whether it accepts insurance, how easy it is to change therapists, overall user satisfaction, and the likelihood that clients would recommend them.