Psychology Today Scraper

Extract structured records of therapists, psychiatrists, group practices, and rehab centers from the Psychology Today professional directory — across all 50 US states plus DC.

What this actor does

Psychology Today operates the largest publicly searchable directory of mental-health providers in the United States. This actor walks that directory by category and by state, returning one clean record per professional, with all the information a user would see on the provider's listing and profile pages.

You choose one of four categories — therapists, psychiatrists, groups, or treatment-rehab — and one or more US states. In LIST_ONLY mode the actor extracts everything visible on the listing pages (name, credentials, photo, short description, city, state) and is the fastest option for enumerating a state. In LIST_AND_DETAILS mode it additionally opens each provider's profile page and enriches the record with phone, website, specialties, treatment approaches, insurances accepted, languages, client focus, years in practice, gender, and a full street-level address.

The result is a ready-to-use dataset for lead generation, market research, referral directories, or any workflow that needs a structured snapshot of the mental-health provider landscape in a given region.

Key features

• Four directory categories: therapists, psychiatrists, groups, treatment-rehab
• All 50 US states plus Washington, DC
• Two scrape modes: LIST_ONLY (fast, listing-level) and LIST_AND_DETAILS (full profile)
• Fine-grained scope controls: maxItems global cap and maxPagesPerState per-state cap
• Configurable polite delay window (minDelayMs / maxDelayMs) between requests
• Transparent residential-proxy fallback — direct requests first, proxy only when blocked
• No login, no cookies, no API key required
• Zero-null output — empty fields are omitted from each record

Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
category	enum	yes	therapists	Directory to crawl. One of therapists, psychiatrists, groups, treatment-rehab.
states	string[]	no	["new-york"]	State slugs to crawl (50 US states + DC). Example: "california", "new-york", "district-of-columbia".
scrapeMode	enum	no	LIST_ONLY	LIST_ONLY for listing-level fields only; LIST_AND_DETAILS to also open each profile.
maxItems	integer	no	10	Global cap on records emitted across all selected states.
maxPagesPerState	integer	no	5	Number of listing pages to walk per state (~20 profiles per page).
minDelayMs	integer	no	150	Lower bound (milliseconds) of the random delay between requests.
maxDelayMs	integer	no	300	Upper bound (milliseconds) of the random delay between requests.
autoProxyFallback	boolean	no	true	Automatically retry through Apify residential proxy when a page looks blocked.

Example input

{
  "category": "therapists",
  "states": ["new-york", "california", "texas"],
  "scrapeMode": "LIST_AND_DETAILS",
  "maxItems": 200,
  "maxPagesPerState": 10,
  "minDelayMs": 200,
  "maxDelayMs": 500,
  "autoProxyFallback": true
}

Output

One record per provider. Fields without data are omitted so every key has a real value.

{
  "profileUrl": "https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/jane-doe-new-york-ny/111111",
  "professionalName": "Jane Doe",
  "credentials": "LCSW",
  "profileId": "111111",
  "shortDescription": "Compassionate therapist helping adults...",
  "longDescription": "Welcome! I am a licensed clinical social worker...",
  "phone": "+12125551234",
  "website": "https://janedoetherapy.com",
  "imageUrl": "https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/profile-photos/111111.jpg",
  "primaryAddress": {
    "street": "123 W 45th St",
    "city": "New York",
    "state": "NY",
    "zip": "10036"
  },
  "specialties": ["Anxiety", "Depression", "Trauma and PTSD"],
  "expertise": ["Grief", "Relationship Issues"],
  "treatmentApproaches": ["Cognitive Behavioral (CBT)", "EMDR"],
  "insuranceAccepted": ["Aetna", "BlueCross BlueShield", "Cigna"],
  "clientFocus": ["Adults", "Elders (65+)"],
  "languages": ["English", "Spanish"],
  "gender": "Female",
  "yearsInPractice": 12,
  "category": "therapists",
  "stateSlug": "new-york",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-04-24T12:34:56+00:00"
}

Field descriptions

• profileUrl — canonical Psychology Today profile URL
• professionalName / credentials — name and credential letters (e.g. LCSW, PhD, MD)
• profileId — stable numeric ID used by Psychology Today
• shortDescription / longDescription — the listing card blurb and the full profile bio
• phone / website / imageUrl — contact details and provider photo (detail mode). For most modern profiles website is Psychology Today's interstitial redirect URL (e.g. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/profile/{id}/website) — clicking it in a browser bounces the user to the therapist's external site.
• emails — array of contact emails when the therapist publishes a mailto: link directly on their Psychology Today profile or on an externally-linked website that resolves over HTTP without JavaScript (detail mode). Often absent — Psychology Today increasingly hides external website URLs behind a JavaScript-only interstitial that this HTTP-only scraper cannot crack without a full browser.
• primaryAddress — structured address with street, city, state, zip (detail mode)
• specialties, expertise, treatmentApproaches, insuranceAccepted, clientFocus, languages — taxonomy arrays (detail mode)
• gender, yearsInPractice — provider demographics (detail mode)
• category / stateSlug — echo of the input, so each record is self-describing
• scrapedAt — ISO-8601 timestamp of this run

Use cases

• Lead generation — build targeted lists of independent practitioners for CRM, EHR, or billing products
• Referral network building — seed a clinic's referral database with local provider coverage by specialty
• Market research — map provider density by state, insurance coverage, and specialty mix
• Academic / public-health research — study therapist distribution, wait-list availability, and access to care
• Directory and aggregator sites — populate a white-label directory with verified, normalised provider records

FAQ

Do I need a login or an API key? No. Psychology Today's directory is publicly accessible. The actor is login-free and cookie-free.

Do I need a proxy? Not usually. Runs start on Apify's direct egress; the autoProxyFallback toggle (on by default) only provisions residential proxy traffic when a direct fetch looks blocked — so you only pay for proxy on pages that need it.

What's the difference between LIST_ONLY and LIST_AND_DETAILS? LIST_ONLY returns everything visible on the state listing page — fast, and plenty for name / city / specialty counts. LIST_AND_DETAILS additionally opens each profile and adds phone, website, full address, specialties, treatment approaches, insurance accepted, languages, client focus, gender, and years in practice. Expect detail-mode runs to take roughly twice as long per profile.

Which categories are supported? Four: therapists, psychiatrists, groups (group practices), and treatment-rehab (inpatient and outpatient treatment centers).

Which states are supported? All 50 US states plus Washington, DC. Pass the directory slug (e.g. new-york, california, district-of-columbia).

How many results can I expect per state? Psychology Today shows about 20 profiles per listing page. Large states (California, New York, Texas) have tens of thousands of profiles across hundreds of pages; smaller states may only have a few hundred. Use maxPagesPerState and maxItems to control scope.

Can I filter by city, specialty, or insurance? The current version scopes by category and state. City-, specialty-, and insurance-level filters are on the roadmap.

Why is the email field missing? Psychology Today does not expose therapist email addresses on public profile pages. The actor only populates an email when an explicit mailto: link is present, which is uncommon.

Is this compliant with Psychology Today's terms? The actor reads only publicly accessible directory pages, with a configurable polite delay between requests to avoid hammering. Responsibility for downstream use of the data rests with the caller — please respect Psychology Today's terms and applicable regulations such as CAN-SPAM, TCPA, and GDPR.

Known limitations

• US-only directory. Psychology Today also operates country-specific directories (Canada, UK, Australia) — those are not covered by this actor.
• No city-level filter (yet). Scope is category + state; narrow the results downstream by filtering on primaryAddress.city or shortDescription.
• Email addresses are usually absent because Psychology Today does not publish therapist emails on their profile pages.
• Detail mode is roughly 2x slower than list-only mode because it fetches each profile page individually (with the configured polite delay).
• Very large states can produce hundreds of pages of results. Set maxPagesPerState and maxItems generously for exhaustive crawls, or slice by region in post-processing.