I agree with this. Therapists as a profession, have a responsibility to address access to therapy and should offer alternative hours when possible (not being convenient does not = not possible). Once or twice a week wouldn't be too difficult for many.

If they are not ethically responsible, then they perhaps should not receive all of the benefits of being in a profession. This is an example why the government steps in to make regulations that so many businesses complain about. If they do nothing to address client access to needed services, one day they may find that government programs will cut their reimbursement rates for not offering any weekend/evening hours. Insurances will follow the government and do the same...some depend on insurance/government for their livelihood but some do not. It varies by area.

But to answer your question, I think there are at least two primary reasons--one being supply and demand. If there is a shortage of therapists in the area, then they can decide to only accept clients who can come between 9-5.

The other reason is because they simply get away with it. Interestingly, i think the reason it became a 9-5 job is because back in the day, medical doctors (psychiatrists), were the ones who did therapy. So the therapy profession morphed into the culture of 9-5 healthcare as those with lower licenses starting taking over therapy little by little. Although house calls by doctors used to be common, availability is changing in my country-more and more medical practices offer at least some evening/weekend hours as it is expected that medical doctors, who may work in the helping profession to help people, want to be socially responsible and help people.

More and more businesses address social causes these days. I'm not sure why this is uncommon with therapists as a profession. I found the same problem when looking for therapists. And having children shouldn't be a status quo reason to never work evenings or weekends. Most of the workforce have children and millions of parents work alternative hours (nurses, the server at McDonalds, airline pilots, etc). My psychiatrist worked a lot of weekends to accommodate patients, although he was in private practice.

My therapist is one who goes out of his way to come early or stay late when it's difficult to accommodate me for a 2nd session during the week, and he works at least some weekend hours. But-I've taken off work for weekly appointments for years now, which has been a real inconvenience to my employer and coworkers and business clients at times.

I think this issue annoys me.