Why do so many therapists not work outside 9-5?

My T works M-F from 7am and has her last session at 1 or 2pm. I have a flexible schedule so I see her mostly at 9 am. I'm hopefully going to be switching Ts soon and the T that I'm considering said she could only see me if I could come during the workday, which is fine in my case.

Because in many jobs you cannot take time of weekly. You don't go to dentist every week. You don't see lawyer every week.

Usually one needs therapy long term.

because we both have crazy and busy schedules, T and i meet whenever we can. we have had sessions that started at 11 pm or midnight, and lasted til 5 a.m.

It's a personal and business decision. Just like any other professional, therapists make decisions about their work hours based on both their personal needs and on what works best for their business. Some therapists may be okay working every evening if they don't have families to go home to. Others may offer one or two evening or weekend hours a week. Others prefer to keep regular work hours to perhaps match the hours of their spouse or families. It sounds like there are a number of therapists who do have alternate hours available, and you have to look to find one that works well for your own schedule. I don't find a choice to keep regular work hours "obnoxious" though, just a business preference.

It is obnoxious sorry. Most people work during the day. Unless you work from home or are retired or a stay at home parent, how can you even come to a session at 2pm in the afternoon? It's ridiculous. And yet most therapists can't seem to fathom how you can't just drop everything and leave work at 2pm just to go for a session. It shows they have no idea what it's like to have a regular job. If you decide to become a therapist, you have to work hours that are convenient for your clients. If you don't want that, well don't become a therapist. I see this attitude all the time and it strikes me as incredibly selfish and clueless.

My opinion. Just like anyone who manages their own time, I think therapists have the right to choose a work schedule that suits them if they are able to make living with it. The idea of being self employed and owning a business is not to be able to accommodate everyone, but to be autonomous and choose what kind of work they want to do.

Both of my therapists were pretty flexible with their schedule and willing to work with patients to adjust it. First T liked to work early mornings, the second did not like mornings much but sees clients until 10 pm and also works every other Saturday. When I had standing appointments with them, I had 9 or 9:30 am (I dislike evening appointments, any kinds, unless absolutely necessary).

It isn't every therapist's responsibility to accommodate for every client's needs. It's just not humanly possible. From the sounds of it here (and from what I've experienced) different therapists have different availability. Clients can seek and find a therapist who does have an availability that works for them. If you need a therapist who is available in the evenings or weekends, then that is what you have to seek out, and they do exist. But to say no one should even go into the profession if they don't have evening or weekend hours is unrealistic and basically says that therapists don't have the right to have a personal life of their own choosing -- that their entire world MUST revolve around accommodating clients, and if it doesn't, then they aren't worthy of even being in the profession. I just don't buy that. People who live for their jobs, who put their work before their personal lives, tend to be unhappy, stressed out, individuals; not a good trait for a therapist.

IF a therapist has the ability to work evenings and wishes to do so, that is a great situation for working clients. I don't believe every therapist has to do so though. IF a therapist has the ability to work on weekends and wishes to do so, that is another great situation for working clients, but again, it isn't necessary that every therapist have weekend hours either. A therapist who has a family and children has that family as a priority, and I fully understand their need for regular work hours in order to be with their family. Should therapist not be allowed to be married? Have children? Have other personal pursuits in their life? I've actually seen people say as much right here on PC, and it really kind of boggles the mind. There is a reason there are a variety of therapists with a variety of hours and availability, varieties of therapy modalities, etc. There are so many different needs of so many different clients, AND therapists are humans with their own needs and priorities themselves.

Actually, as someone who still sees a doctor of one kind or another near weekly, and has for more than a year, I just disagree. My doctors provide a service, and I fit them in because I need their service.

The op mentions that this means schoolkids and SAHMs must be therapists' target audience - but ignores the fact that there are school hours too and SAHMs are not sitting around with their feet up all day eating chocolate - they're often busier than people who work! (Plus, what do they do with the kids they stay at home with during therapy?) So I doubt there's any kind of target audience.

Therapists respond to economic forces like other professionals. If they want to work 9-5 and they can fill those slots, they will. If they can't, or they want to attract more business, or they like to sleep late in the mornings, they expand their hours, as lots of therapists on this thread have done.

I see that it is frustrating for those of us who need flexibility - it's another hurdle in finding a therapist, but what I really don't get is the tone of condemnation in the op and some other posts.

Around my area, it is usual for therapists to have night or saturday or even sunday appointments. I agree people in private practice get to choose their own hours.
I personally care nothing about families and would not choose to pay a therapist who told me their hours were 9-5 because of their children. If the therapist was all family focused - they would not be the therapist for me to hire.
I like setting my own hours too - and they are not 9-5. I like that I have flexibility and can set whatever hours work for me.
The first therapist I ever saw worked from 9-5 a couple of days a week and then 12- 8 other days and on Saturday afternoon. She had children at home. She took off Sundays and Tuesdays.

Also - the dentist I see does not just have 9-5 hours - she has a late night and saturday appointments. I think she does not work on Mondays. The gp of my partner works on Saturdays. Other professionals sometimes do keep hours that are in place to help people.

In my city, it is extremely rare to have therapists offer sessions after 7pm or work on Saturday morning. These people have chosen to work in the mental health business, that means that yes, they have to accomodate their clients who really need their help. There are other professions that work long hours and even during the night (nurses for instance) and these people manage to still have a family life. If a nurse said that she/he didn't want to work during the night, everybody would tell her/him to change jobs. Same with therapists. Working until 8pm doesn't mean you're only focused on your job and that you can't have a private life. It means that you are responsible and that you actually want to help your clients which means being accomodating. We're not asking for the moon here.

Nurses work in hospitals and clinics. That is different from running their own businesses, which a private practice really is. I am assuming that, if most therapists in your area work until 7 p.m. at the latest, it means that they can see enough clients during those hours to make a living, which means they are already helping a number of people. Of course it is frustrating if you can't find a therapist who can see you just because of scheduling issues, but therapists (especially those who run their own practices) are under no obligation to take on new clients. Everyone has different schedules. Working until 8 p.m. may not be a big deal to you or me, but it may be to some therapists in your area for whatever reason.

True, part of why I chose my daughter's pediatrician is that she works in a practice that's open at some point every day except, I think, Thanksgiving and Christmas. A doctor or nurse practitioner is there to see patients daily, including on weekends. I like having that availability. Though that probably wouldn't work as well with T's, since someone probably wouldn't want to see whatever T happened to be on call on a Sunday, they'd want *their* T.

Well, here is an analogy I just thought of, from my own professional life. I supervise the research work of many people. I am not self-employed but work for an academic institution where most of my duties are research and also some education. The experimental research work we do can be very hectic, unpredictable, and takes long hours - definitely not 9-5 and we often work on weekends. I used to spend lots and lots of weekends, holidays etc in the lab when I was younger and did the manual stuff myself. In my current position I no longer do that but have the responsibility of running multiple lines of research, supervising, management, administration, lots of writing etc. At this stage of my career, I don't want to be in the office and available for meetings just anytime, eg. when my students please. I want to have a balanced life and be able to get a lot of work done from home because I can afford it. But of course people constantly try, I am being pursued for last minute meetings and deadlines, look at this, look at that, the members of my team often have all kinds of issues (including personal) they need me for, etc etc. I try to do my best to be accommodating but have learned from experience (the hard way!) to draw realistic, reasonable boundaries in my time and availability otherwise not only I go crazy but the work won't be effective either under constant stress, unpredictable demands, and for me not being able to relax and do things unrelated to work. I don't work 9-5 and never have but I am also not willing to schedule/respond to requests after 7-8 pm and on weekend nights and vacations unless it's absolutely crucial. I now tell people this when they express an interest to work with me and they can choose whether I am the right person or not.

Of course service providers and people in helping positions should be understanding and accommodating, but I don't see why anyone should sacrifice their lifestyle of choice if they can make that lifestyle work. It probably would not be of help anyway if the professional had to live in a way they don't like or want, I think that would inevitably affect the effectiveness of their work performance. There are enough chaotic and unmotivated therapists, as it is evident on this forum, I think it would not be a good use of our time and money to be able to see a T whenever we want but with even more useless or harmful work ethic and style.

I am much more error-prone and irritable if I have to work in ways I dislike beyond a few weeks. I don't see why therapists would be exempt from this. It's more about consistency: if they initially tell a client they are willing to schedule early/late hours and weekends and/or are flexible, they should be able to stand up to that promise. I think this is quite similar to the questions around between sessions contact that is frequently discussed here.

Agreed with this:
Also not everybody works 9-5. There are a lot of jobs that either have different hours (people who work nights, like those doctors and nurses, for example), or have more flexible hours, or whatever. There are many working people who are available during the daytime (I'm one of them).

I think my T sets up his schedule so he can drive his kid home after school.

my husband is a therapist and he works til 7:30 pm on mondays for people that need a later time.

I've seen a number of Ts and currently work at the front desk of a counseling center. In my own experience, most of my Ts have had evening availability, which is when I go. The only exception was when I was in college and could easily see the a T on campus during the day. My current T says she likes working late, which works great for me.

Working with Ts professionally, it is really hard for them to be away from their kids and spouses. Some only work during the day and some work a lot of evenings or even weekends. The ones who are most flexible don't have kids and aren't married. The student Ts can only be there when other Ts are, so that impacts their availability. As for the ones with families, even two late nights a week really impacts their kids. One is a single parent, so she just can't do late appointments. Another one has very young kids and if she stays late, she doesn't even get to put them to bed, so she'd only would get to see them for maybe an hour max in the morning. It's just not fair for them to sacrifice their personal lives for others or they may start to resent the clients they stay late for.

With my job, it is really really hard to do an appointment that is not 6pm or later or on a weekend, but if that is all my T had I would just have to make it work. I've done it twice when I needed emergency sessions. It's worth it to me. I know some of our clients come in first thing in the morning and go to work after or others come over their lunch break. With kid clients, little ones will typically come over lunch and eat at the office or during gym/art/etc, while older kids have priority for after school times. You just do what you gotta do and/or find a T who has hours that work for your schedule.

[edit] also, I had a previous T I used to see around 5pm or so, but when she needed to move things because of stuff with her kids, I happily worked with her on that. I didn't want to be the reason she couldn't take her toddler trick-or-treating on Halloween.

My T sees clients from 7am-7:30pm. I see her at either 5:30 or 6:30pm

I think therapists who don't have children can't know what it's like to raise them. I just don't. And if my therapist has children I expect him to put them first because that is my own priority. BUT I do think there are times--during emergencies-- when the client has to be the priority. That's part of the job. I've called my therapist nights and Sundays when I really needed to and he's always been there for me. Other times I try not to bother him in his off (family) time. And, as others have pointed out, he still maintains a full schedule working regular hours.

Not saying it's not useful to find a therapist who works off hours. I just don't see how it should be their responsibility.

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.

My T had one day a week when she stayed until 7:00 but otherwise worked 9:00-4:00. My psychiatrist is more flexible and has a day with early morning hours starting at 6:20 and another day when he stays later until 7:00. I've never had a provider who worked on a weekend, however.

A Ts schedule really depends on the clients they serve. If they have enough clients working strictly 9-5 and those are the hours they like, then I don't see why that is obnoxious. If a T can't carry a full case load with those hours they'll adjust them to suit clients. It comes down to what works best for a therapist's business and life.

I see current T at 8.30pm on Sunday.

I'm not her last appointment -- she has another client at 9.30pm (apparently her last for the day).

She also does Saturdays (and other days of the week).

I'm almost 100% sure that she has one or more (small) kids.

She however does not advertise as having these hours. In fact when I first contacted her asking specifically about evening and weekend sessions, she said she has them only episodically -- so, even for the first session, I waited for almost a month to see her because she didn't have any slots.

However, somehow since then, a weekly slot magically materialized -- I have no idea why its existence was a state secret until I met her.

Former T on the other hand advertises as being flexible with hours and having evening / weekend appointments.

Except when I actually needed them (when my schedule stopped being flexible), she made a big deal out of it and veered between being passive-aggressive about it and saying that her agreeing to do them was a sign of "our special connection" (this when I was talking about leaving). And, this despite the fact that I offered to switch to fortnightly appointments since she said she could only do weekends every other week -- she got all pissy about it and said she'd prefer to keep me seeing weekly.

I realized later that she was rather resentful about it (and lots of other things about me pissed her off as well as I see now) but somehow didn't seem to be able to work it out in any non-dysfunctional way.

ETA: When I was T-shopping, a couple of Ts asked me to take a hike (one in fact said there was no point even in a first session) if all I could do was off-hours. And, a couple of others offered to see me first and then figure it out -- these folks usually offered me evening slots (I decided against therapy with them for other reasons). So, it seems that Ts seem to have some hesitation about advertising this stuff and even when they do, there's no guarantee that they'll stick to it (a la former T).

One reason why it might be obnoxious to some is that social responsibility and service to communities and putting clients first is in the various ethics codes of therapists (at least here in the US it is). I've seen 2 ethics codes that also expect those in the profession to do some work without compensation/volunteer. No, it's not mandated, and not everyone can; but it's strongly encouraged and expected (for those who can). This is what they commit to when they join the professional organizations.

Working one or two nights a week until 7 instead of 5 isn't revolving their life around their clients or putting the client above themselves and families or being a slave to clients. There are a good number of people who truly cannot get services due to their jobs. Some types of employers allow liberal use of leave, but others don't allow any. A construction worker can't just halt the job for 2 hours every week to go to your therapist. Most businesses in the US are small businesses and don't have extra employees to provide coverage for someone to see a therapist every week. People get fired. People just don't get services.

I don't know if some are too young to have experienced this, but in the US, people had less employment rights 20 years ago. I'ts changed a lot, but you can still get fired for taking off too much work for medical appointments. It takes 2-3 hours off work for middle of the day appointments, which is often all that is available. People just can't do this every week; many are self-employed themselves.

For me, i am one of the more fortunate ones who can work this out with my employer (make up the time). Many people don't have that luxury.

Sure, it's not as convenient. It's also not as convenient to recycle, but people have the responsibility to do it. I think I am more pro-social responsibility overall, but I think those in certain professions have more responsibilities than those in other professions. Those in the therapy professions do to, otherwise, they wouldn't put it in their ethics codes. Those in the profession have more responsibility than merely doing what they like to do. Ethics codes are not different for the self-employed than they are for those who are not.

Not only that, but those therapists who never offer any evening hours, rather than the clients, who are the ones putting more stress on others in the profession who do take responsibility.

My therapist is of retirement age though he says he plans on being around doing therapy for another 20 years. Anyway, he has slowed down but still sees clients on Saturdays. At least that's what his site says

I have had a lot of trouble because of this issue in the past. My last therapist only had appointments between 10 and 5, her last appointment being 4:30, which is right when I get off work. I would basically take appointments during my lunch break, which was really inconvenient because I can't guarantee nothing will come up at work that day, preventing me from going. And of course if I cancel less than 48 hours in advance she would charge me for the session. And when I do go, I would be in a hurry.

Now I am looking for a new therapist and so far three I've called that seemed good told me they don't have evening appointments. The only one who told me she does have them I am a bit iffy about.

I still really disagree with those saying it's unethical and whatnot for Ts not to offer later hours. They have no obligation to do that! If they are in private practice, THEY decide their hours, their rates, and their clientele. If that doesn't work for you, you find another T. Inconvenient, sure. Unethical or breaking some kind of social responsibility code? Absolutely not.

The office I work in has more than 10 Ts, and when I schedule people I always let potential clients know what times they have available on a weekly basis. One of our most experienced Ts only works 8:30-4:30 Monday-Thurs and almost always has a full caseload (including a lot of child clients), because she is amazing at her job and people make it work to see her if it's that important to them. If her schedule doesn't work, there are other Ts we have who have after school, evening, or weekend appointments, and some of them are even less expensive due to their experience level. Sometimes there is a waiting list for those spots though, because everyone wants them.

Why should any T work hours they don't want to if they don't have to? Some prefer daytime hours and others don't want to get up before 11am. Not sure where y'all are, but here there are enough Ts in my city who work all different hours that you can certainly find something that should work for you. Plus, it keeps being mentioned as if 9-5 is everyone's work schedule, but it's not. We have quite a few clients who come to the office that have alternative work schedules- like nurses who maybe work 3 days, get 2 days off, or people who work 1pm-9pm, etc. Or sometimes, one person will bring a kid in and a different relative will pick them up. They make it work! The people who can't will make appointments somewhere else.

Personally, while I see my current T at 6pm on a weeknight, if I couldn't get on her schedule at that time I would either look elsewhere to find someone closer who I could see during my lunch break or take time off work but go less frequently. I've even had other jobs in the past and my bosses have always been understanding about me needing to leave early to make it to therapy appointments. The one job I had that would have been impossible to do that with had a different schedule of 3pm-11pm and usually two weekdays off, it wasn't an issue there either.

Also, personally, I don't want to be more important that my T's family and personal life, because that would be bizarre and unhealthy. They need to take care of themselves properly to be emotionally healthy and effective at their job. Private practice Ts provide a service and they determine the details of how, when, and where. Clients can choose to partake or not.

[edit] For the social responsibility piece, both the Ts I work with at my job and Ts I've seen before often offer a sliding scale to reduce the financial burden. I know some Ts who normally charge $125/session who lower the rate to $25/session for those going through some sort of major crisis and some places even offer free counseling. And, in my own experience, I had a T who normally didn't accept insurance start accepting mine again just so i could afford to see her- making her $125 rate go down to a $15 copay for me and extra paperwork and phone calls for her to get maybe half of her usual pay from them. There are other ways to help those in need besides having extended hours.