Reading other threads I'm quite surprised to hear how many people report their Ts being late. I think time boundaries are very important and a T should be keeping to those as a duty. My T has never been late, and unless it was a one-off for a good reason, I wouldn't accept lateness from him.
So I thought I'd start a poll to find out how common lateness is, and also whether the therapist is apologetic about it when they are late.

[Merecat]

Mine too has never been late - she manages her schedule so that she has time if clients do run over a bit. I too wouldn't accept my T being late regularly. I'm surprised to see folk here talking of their T being 20 mins late or more.

[Waterbear]

Current T, never. Her 'office' is at her house so it would be really awkward if she was late or if there was another client still there. Old T I used to meet at an office and sometimes she was a few minutes late, never really apologised but it could have been a difference in clock times etc. I used to hate standing there waiting, though I still never saw another client. I couldn't do that.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I've never had a T run late. A Pdoc, yes. My Pdoc has been up to an hour late. But not T. My current T said one time that she was 2 mins late... I told her she wasn't, but she could add 2 mins to the end of session if it made her feel better.

[ThisWayOut]

My current t starts her sessions at about 10 after most of the time, but I think it's because she runs right up until the hour most of the time... I think there were a few times she started on the hour and I was thrown off a bit.
Previous t often ran 15 or 20 minutes late. Sometimes she made up for it at the end of session, other times not. Other t's have varied in their time management. It's not a huge thing for me as long as I'm getting what I need from therapy. I've mostly seen student t's or t's in community clinics. This t is only my 2nd private practice t (out of about 18)

[skeksi]

Mine has never been late. When he's been unable to make our set time, he has called and cancelled in advance (as little as 4 hours, as much as 48 hours).

My T routinely starts his sessions about 10 minutes after the hour and runs to the hour. Some might call that late, but I just see it as a matter of his routine so it doesn't bother me. Always get my full session time.

[healed84]

Yes, my t generally runs 20 mins behind. But never shortens my session time. That is just how he is.. Horrible at time management.

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Nope. My T is always on time. It's my pdoc who's always 10-15 minutes late. I don't understand why. I've literally had the first appointment of the day and he was STILL 15 minutes late. But, I still get my 20 mins. It's just dumb.

[divine1966]

No. Generally not. She sees me at a clinic. It's not like she has to arrive from somewhere. Last time I saw her she asked me to wait a minute as she had to go to the bathroom. Their bathroom is in the hallway outside of clinic door. It was less than 5 minutes

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My ex therapist was ALWAYS 20 to 30 minutes late and sometimes an hour late. He would sometimes make up the time but sometimes he didn't.

Very inconsistent. I never said anything.

[Out There]

He works from home and he's never been late. I've been late a couple of times and I always get that too but it's only been 5 -10 minutes lateness. I am last session of the day , but I think he times his clients really well.

[stopdog]

The first one was late only once. I waited 10 minutes and then called to say I had been there but was leaving. She was in her office and claimed to hav simply not paid attention to the time. She did not apologize, but promised it would not happen again. It is the only time she has used the word promise and not immediately broken it the next week.

The second has been late a few times but she always calls and is apologetic. She comes in from a ways out and traffic can be a bit iffy and I know it. It is not a weekly occurance and she has also been flexible and understanding when my person's health/mds running late has caused me to run late or cancel at the last minute.

If I had one who started late consistently, I would simply take that as the start time -I would probably say something like. -it apppears the appointment time is really X so that is when I shall arrive. I do not sit in a waiting room for either of them-I go in directly on time or a minute late.

[rothfan6]

Mine is awful at time management too @healed84. I picked "Yes, always or nearly always, and is apologetic." Its rare that we start on time. Hes always at least 10-15mins late, running around trying to find his tablet, charger,headphones and make coffee. But its usually later than that. He'll ask to start 10 mins late and it will be 20-30 a lot of the time. It doesnt cut into my time though and we usually go over time.

[junkDNA]

when i was in the treatment program my T was the clinical director, so he had to have a lot of meetings with the therapists bc he supervised them, and also everyone else. those meetings would run late. i would often tell him how i didn;t like it and thuoght it was disrespectful. he agreed and apologized each time. now that we've both left there he is rarely late. so i forgive him

[Argonautomobile]

The man is constitutionally incapable of being on time. It's like a starship side-swiped him one day and he got knocked out of sync with everyone else in the time-space continuum, and is now forever doomed to be fifteen minutes late to everything. I get pissy about it when he's 30+ minutes late, he apologizes, it happens again, he apologizes, it happens again....and so on, ad infinitum.

My pdoc is regularly half an hour late, even when I'm the first morning appointment or the first afternoon one. He sees patients back to back and sometimes runs overtime as needed so I've ended up waiting a whole hour.

My T schedules her clients well. In over 30 sessions, I've only seen another client twice. She is regularly about five or so minutes late but she goes overtime with pretty much all her patients so I live with it.

[SheHulk07]

Mine has been late maybe twice in the 2 years I've been seeing him, and urges wasn't more than 10-15 minutes. He has apologized both times and gave an explanation.

[BlessedRhiannon]

Lately, my T has been running up to five minutes behind, but that's not really late, and she always gives me my full 50 minutes and sometimes more than that. She's almost never been more than 5 minutes late and when she is, she apologizes and gives me extra time or if we can't have extra time, she doesn't charge me the full amount.

He used to let me in a couple of minutes late every time and ended the sessions exactly on time so I would get 42-43 minutes instead of 45. I mentioned it on here and was ridiculed and reprimanded for it, but it was a big deal for me because I always imagined him waiting as long as he possibly could to let me in, so he could spend as little time with me as possible.

It turned out that he used his wristwatch to see when he should buzz people in, and a wall clock to keep time during the sessions, and they were not synched. Since then, he has let me in a few minutes late twice, I think, and apologised both times. 45 minutes is not that long and it does make a difference if you lose a few minutes, especially if it happens twice a week every week.

[ruh roh]

Mine is sometimes a couple minutes late, does not make up for it at the end, but more than makes up for it with between session contact when it's needed. It only bothers me when I run into her clients before me because some of them stare at me, which feels invasive and ruins my session because I have a hard time shaking off the interaction.

I put very rarely and was apologetic. Although it was during the 2 or so years that we did phone sessions, not while I've been seeing her in person, but anyway there were 2 occasions where she texted me a little bit before I was scheduled to call her and asked that I wait 10 minutes to call. And she apologized both times and said I would still get my full time. During the first year in person and now in person again for almost a year, she is always-always on time. Once when I was a couple minutes late, she was just coming outside to look for me even. She is hugely consistent.

[velcro003]

Now that I see my T as the last appointment of the day, she is usually waiting for me, but when I saw her mid-afternoon on Saturdays, she was always 10-15 minutes late. I felt really weird about it for a few weeks, and contemplated quitting therapy, sure it was a sign of bad boundaries and I would end up getting hurt.

The issue is mostly that she has two small children to get ready in the morning, and sometimes starts off late, hence everyone else is late. She always gave me my full hour (as in 60 min), so I don't feel so bad. All of my other past T's were 45 min, so this was something I am ok with since I do get an "extra" 15 minutes.

At a year in, I feel safe to say that she holds boundaries just fine, just isn't amazing at time management.

[velcro003]

Originally Posted by ruh roh

Mine is sometimes a couple minutes late, does not make up for it at the end, but more than makes up for it with between session contact when it's needed. It only bothers me when I run into her clients before me because some of them stare at me, which feels invasive and ruins my session because I have a hard time shaking off the interaction.

gross! do what i do, and stare at the ground until they leave

[LadyShadow]

My T is sometimes late, and has me sitting in the waiting area. He doesn't apologize. But makes up for it in session and may give me an hour instead of 45 minutes. But the really creepy part is all those people that are in the waiting area. There is something definitely wrong with them. There are all these little kids running around me, people yacking on their phones, I usually have to remove myself and wait in another area for my T to find me.