I mean, is it realistic that the state of New York (or any state in the United States for that matter circa 1985) would allow a psychiatrist to operate an office from his house, where presumably his kids could wander into his office where the patients are/the records are? Bare in mind that this is from a pre-computer era, where stuff is still largely on paper. The records as I just said, are in the office itself.

Locking file cabinets have existed for a very long time. Such cabinets can be broken into, but they would be no safer in an office building.

HIPPA didn't exist then.

Lots of psychiatrists still work from home, even now.

Lots of psychiatrists still work from home, even now.

I never thought about this until reading a thread (https://moviechat.org/tt0088527/Growing-Pains/58c742df6b51e905f66f950e/Why-Does-This-Not-do-Well-in-Syndication) elsewhere, but why exactly does Jason need to allow strangers or "clients" (especially those with mental health problems) into his house? What's not to say then, that Jason or any other psychiatrist who operates like that, talks about these people to his family too? That would essentially, violate confidentiality laws.

My mom used to work in a dental office. Sometimes, she would drop by the office on Saturdays to retrieve her personal stuff that she had forgotten to take home. I would go inside and near the office area were patient dental charts were set out for Monday's appointments. I never went through them or dug through other charts in the locked file cabinets. The keys to the file cabinets were hanging on a hook on the side of the cabinet.

My mom talked about the patients who she worked on. Not their names, but in broad terms.- I had a man who wouldn't open his mouth...A lady claimed that I hurt her gums with the mirror...

Most people talk about their work.

I never thought about this until reading a thread (https://moviechat.org/tt0088527/Growing-Pains/58c742df6b51e905f66f950e/Why-Does-This-Not-do-Well-in-Syndication) elsewhere, but why exactly does Jason need to allow strangers or "clients" (especially those with mental health problems) into his house? What's not to say then, that Jason or any other psychiatrist who operates like that, talks about these people to his family too? That would essentially, violate confidentiality laws.

Also as dutifully pointed out elsewhere (https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowingPainsTV/comments/1hqap9z/comment/m5fo012/), the logistics would be a nightmare in real life. Jason didn't even have a separate outdoor entrance and his patients and kids often saw each other come and go and his patients were right inside his living room. This would really only be an option with a separate outdoor entrance and even then depending on the type of people he was treating it would be a huge safety risk (https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowingPainsTV/comments/1jn0ayw/comment/mocmxom/) for his family.

Lots of psychiatrists work from home.