Is Seeing 25 Therapy Clients a Week Too Much?

Is 25 clients a week too many for a therapist?

Maybe.

I know. Deeply helpful. 😂

But I don't want to give you some bullshit universal number and pretend that every therapist, caseload, practice, and life is exactly the same.

Because 25 clients per week might be completely sustainable for one therapist.

For another therapist?

Twenty-five clients might be the exact number making them wonder if they should abandon their master's degree and go work at Costco.

The better question isn't whether 25 clients is objectively "too many."

It's:

Is 25 clients too many for YOU?

And there's another question I think is even more important:

If 25 clients is too many for you, can you financially afford to see fewer?

Because that's where this conversation gets complicated.

Is 25 Clients a Week a Normal Therapy Caseload?

Twenty-five clients per week isn't an unusual full-time therapy caseload.

But "normal" and "sustainable" are not the same fucking thing.

Your actual workload depends on significantly more than the number sitting on your calendar.

Twenty-five sessions could mean five clients a day, five days a week.

It could mean six or seven clients packed into fewer clinical days.

It could include primarily lower-acuity clients.

Or intensive trauma work.

Or couples.

Or high-risk clients.

You could have extensive documentation requirements.

You could have administrative support.

You could be doing all of your billing, scheduling, marketing, emails, and insurance bullshit yourself.

So when another therapist says:

"I see 25 clients every week and I'm fine!"

Okay.

That tells me that they are fine seeing 25 clients.

It tells me almost nothing about you.

Twenty-Five Clients Does Not Mean a 25-Hour Workweek

This is probably the most important part of the caseload conversation.

Twenty-five clients means 25 therapy sessions.

It does not mean you worked 25 hours.

There are progress notes.

Treatment plans.

Treatment plan updates.

Emails.

Scheduling.

Billing.

Consultation.

Care coordination.

Insurance.

Practice management.

Continuing education.

Whatever other administrative nonsense has found its way into your week.

And if you own a private practice?

Congratulations, you also own a fucking company. 😂

You're not only providing therapy.

You're running the thing that allows you to provide therapy.

So a therapist seeing 25 clients per week might actually be working substantially more than 25 hours.

How Do You Know If 25 Clients a Week Is Too Much for You?

Don't start with the number.

Start with what the number is doing to you.

How do you feel by the end of your clinical week?

Are you still present with your last few clients?

Are you consistently behind on documentation?

Do you dread opening your calendar?

Are you becoming irritated when clients schedule?

Do cancellations secretly feel like you've won the fucking lottery?

😂

Do you spend your weekends recovering?

Do you have energy for your relationships?

Your hobbies?

Exercise?

Travel?

Absolutely nothing?

Because doing absolutely nothing is also a legitimate way to spend your free time.

The point is:

Does your caseload leave room for the rest of your life?

There Is a Difference Between Being Tired and Being Burned Out

Therapy is work.

You are allowed to be tired after work.

A difficult clinical day may absolutely take more out of you.

That's not automatically burnout.

What I care about is the pattern.

If you are consistently emotionally exhausted, increasingly detached from your work, struggling to remain present, dreading sessions, or feeling like you cannot recover before you have to do it all again?

I would pay attention to that.

Especially if you're thinking:

"But I'm only seeing 25 clients. Other therapists see more."

I do not care.

Your nervous system does not give a fuck what Jessica's caseload is.

Twenty-Five Clients Can Feel Completely Different Depending on How They're Scheduled

Let's compare.

Schedule A:

Five clients Monday through Friday.

Versus:

Schedule B:

Seven clients Monday.

Six Tuesday.

Six Wednesday.

Six Thursday.

Friday off.

Both are 25 clients.

Those weeks could feel wildly different.

Maybe you LOVE having a three-day weekend and would choose Schedule B every time.

Maybe seven-client days make you want to launch yourself directly into the sun.

😂

Your sustainable weekly caseload isn't only about how many clients you see.

It's also about how you distribute the clinical work.

Client Acuity Matters

Twenty-five clients who require relatively routine outpatient care may create a different workload than 25 clients with significant clinical complexity.

And even within the same caseload, certain weeks can be heavier.

Maybe several clients experience crises at once.

Maybe you're doing intensive trauma processing.

Maybe risk concerns increase.

Maybe you have significantly more care coordination than usual.

This is why there isn't a mathematical formula where:

25 clients = acceptable

26 clients = burnout

Clinical work doesn't work like that.

Your Life Outside of Work Matters Too

Your capacity isn't created in a vacuum.

Maybe you have caregiving responsibilities.

Maybe you're running another part of your practice.

Maybe you're teaching.

Maybe you're supervising.

Maybe you simply want enough fucking energy to enjoy your life.

That last one counts.

You don't have to earn the right to want a smaller caseload by having some enormous outside responsibility.

"I don't want to spend all of my energy doing therapy" is allowed to be a reason.

Your career is part of your life.

It does not have to consume all of the capacity available in it.

What If You Know 25 Clients Is Too Many?

This is where the advice usually becomes:

Reduce your caseload!

Fabulous.

Thank you.

Never considered that. 😂

Except maybe you're seeing 25 clients because you need the income from 25 clients.

Maybe you'd LOVE to see 18.

You'd have more energy.

You'd have more flexibility.

You'd enjoy clinical work more.

You'd have time for the rest of your responsibilities.

There is only one small problem:

Seven missing sessions worth of revenue every fucking week.

And that is where therapist burnout becomes a financial problem too.

Calculate the Actual Cost of Reducing Your Caseload

This is an exercise I think is genuinely useful.

Let's say you currently see 25 clients per week.

You'd ideally see 18.

That's a difference of:

7 sessions per week.

If your average collected revenue is $125 per session, that's:

$875 per week.

Across four weeks:

$3,500 per month.

Now we have a much more useful question than:

"Can I handle 25 clients?"

The question becomes:

How could I eventually replace $3,500 per month without those seven sessions?

THAT is something we can actually build a strategy around.

Your Only Options Aren't "See 25 Clients" or "Make Less Money"

This is exactly why I care so much about income diversification for therapists.

If your entire income comes from clinical work, the equation is pretty unforgiving:

More sessions = more revenue.

Fewer sessions = less revenue.

There are obviously ways to change the economics of your clinical work.

You might increase rates when appropriate.

Change your payer mix.

Reduce overhead.

Adjust your practice structure.

But eventually, clinical work is still constrained by one thing:

Your fucking time.

There are only so many sessions you can personally provide.

What If You Replaced Five Sessions of Income?

You don't have to replace your entire clinical income.

This is where people sometimes hear "diversify your income" and immediately think:

Great, apparently I need to build a seven-figure online empire.

No. 😂

Maybe your first goal is:

Replace the income from two clients per week.

Then four.

Then five.

Maybe eventually you're seeing 20 clients instead of 25 while making exactly the same amount of money.

Maybe that's enough.

Maybe you eventually want 15.

Maybe you discover another income stream you fucking love and want clinical work to become a much smaller part of your week.

You get to decide.

What Can Therapists Do Besides Seeing More Clients?

Your expertise can potentially generate income in ways other than individual therapy sessions.

Depending on your skills, interests, credentials, scope, and applicable professional requirements, that could include:

Consulting.

Supervision.

Training.

Speaking.

Educational resources.

Digital products.

Workshops.

Writing.

Other professional services.

Or something completely outside of mental health.

There isn't one correct diversified-income model.

And please don't read this and immediately decide you're going to make a 97-module course about anxiety.

I will not let you create that yet. 😂

The goal is to intentionally figure out what makes sense based on your expertise, audience, data, interests, and actual financial goals.

You Can Love Therapy and Still Want to See Fewer Clients

I want to keep hammering this home throughout this conversation because it's important.

Wanting a smaller caseload does not automatically mean you're burned out.

It doesn't mean you hate being a therapist.

It doesn't mean you're leaving the profession.

Maybe you fucking LOVE therapy.

You just don't love doing it 25 times every single week.

Those are different things.

Maybe seeing 15 clients would make you love clinical work even more.

The problem is that most therapists aren't financially incentivized to discover their ideal clinical caseload.

They're incentivized to discover:

How many clients can I tolerate while continuing to function?

And I think we can aim a little fucking higher than that.

So, Is 25 Therapy Clients a Week Too Much?

For some therapists, no.

For some therapists, absolutely.

Twenty-five isn't inherently good or bad.

Instead, ask yourself:

Does this caseload allow me to provide the quality of care I want to provide?

Can I keep doing this without consistently feeling depleted?

Does this schedule leave capacity for my life outside of therapy?

Would I choose this caseload if money weren't part of the decision?

OOOOH.

That last one.

That's the one I really want you to answer.

If you magically made the exact same income regardless of whether you saw 15 clients or 25 clients...

How many would you choose?

Because that number might tell you a whole lot more about your ideal caseload than any fucking article on the internet ever could.

And if your answer is substantially lower than the number you're currently seeing?

Maybe your long-term goal isn't learning how to tolerate your current caseload.

Maybe it's figuring out how to make that smaller number financially possible.

Want to Make Your Income Less Dependent on Your Caseload?

This is exactly what I teach.

I help therapists diversify their income so making more money doesn't automatically have to mean adding more clients to the calendar.

I've created resources for therapists at different stages of that process, whether you're figuring out what the hell else you could do with your expertise, building visibility, deciding what to create, or trying to turn something you've already created into actual income.

Check out all of my resources for therapists who want to diversify their income here!