Election Day itself was certainly a grueling one for campaign staffers, poll workers , and political reporters. But the day after is when things got tough for therapists , many of whom saw their practices go into overdrive while already feeling personally upset over the election’s outcome. “This morning, I was more or less crying while my client was crying,” an upstate New York therapist, Danielle (who requested just her first name be used out of privacy concerns), said on Wednesday.
“In the morning, I thought, I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” she admits. “At one point, I had thought about taking Wednesday off. But then I was like, ‘I can’t take the day off.
I’m a therapist.” Being a mental-health professional is always intense, of course. This week just brought a bit more intensity to many practices—particularly those with clients that supported Kamala Harris.
It also brought a higher volume of patients: On Wednesday, nationwide mental health bookings on Zocdoc , a virtual platform, jumped by 22% between the hours of 6 and 8 am alone. Mental health provider Spring Health reported a 24% increase in member account creation from Nov. 4th to Nov.
5th—and, most significantly, a dramatic 240% surge in appointment bookings from Nov. 3rd to Nov. 4th.
Crisis lines also saw a jump: The Trevor Project , for LGBTQ youth, told the Washington Post it saw a 125% increase in calls, texts and chat messages on Election Day and on Wednesday. Crisis Text Line .