Nicole Artz
Nicole Artz
  • Jan 26, 2025
  • 5 min read

How I Recognize and Manage Burnout as a Therapist

Therapist burnout

As a therapist, you’re on the front lines of helping people strengthen their emotional well-being and take better care of themselves. So what does it mean if you no longer feel that connected to what you’re doing? And what should you do if work has left you feeling emotionally exhausted?

Burnout can occur in any healthcare profession and treating it isn’t just about doing more self-care or going to therapy yourself (although both of these strategies can be virtuous). Instead, it’s important to know that burnout is often a dynamic and systemic issue that deserves proper support and care.

Main Signs of Therapist Burnout

Sometimes burnout feels incredibly obvious. For example, maybe you know that you don’t like your job, or you feel like your work is exacerbating your own mental health issues. In these cases, the burnout may feel quite palpable - it’s there, it’s in your face, and you’re trying to figure out what to do next.

But, in many cases, burnout often feels insidious and hard to detect, particularly in the earlier stages of it occurring. Here are some of the many warning signs indicating you may be struggling with burnout right now:

  • sense of apathy or dread toward work
  • poor work-life balance that doesn’t seem to have any good resolution
  • compounding compassion fatigue due to the type of work provided
  • feeling like your usual coping skills aren’t working as well as they typically do
  • sense of physical fatigue or a decrease in energy throughout your day
  • frequent escape fantasies, including frequently imagining quitting your job or doing something else entirely
  • dissociating or not paying much attention in sessions with clients
  • feeling increasingly agitated or frustrated with clients or the work itself
  • desire to engage in numbing behaviors, including substance use or disordered eating
  • decreased sense of purpose, meaning, or satisfaction at work
  • lack of interest in furthering your professional development or strengthening your competence
  • no longer caring much about “what happens” in your clinical practice (i.e. running on auto-pilot)

You don’t need to have all these symptoms to be experiencing burnout. Burnout is multifaceted and complex - sometimes people only have 1-2 symptoms, but those symptoms feel so intense that they disrupt functioning or significantly impact their work performance.

Keep in mind that burnout can happen at any stage of your career. In some cases, it can resolve on its own, especially if your external circumstances change. But without proper intervention, it may also worsen progressively.

7 Tips for Dealing with Burnout

Burnout is not inherently an individualistic problem. Many therapists resonate with working very long hours with high caseloads and limited professional support. You may be

Dealing with therapist burnout

Name Your Burnout

Dr. Dan Siegel coined the term, name it to tame it, to speak about the benefit of verbalizing an emotional experience to better neutralize it. Naming burnout is important because it honors what’s happening in real time. By being honest about what’s going on, you open space for paying attention to your needs and considering what you might want to do next.

Remember Your Why

Going back to graduate school, what first excited you about being a therapist? Are you able to ground yourself to what initially led you to this work? And if not, what might be missing? What do you need to feel more passionate or connected to your job or to your clients?

It may be helpful to also reflect on any gratitude you have for your work. This may feel especially valuable if you experience compassion fatigue or cynicism. Anchoring yourself to “your why” can keep you focused on what matters most: the connections you build with your clients and the role you play in supporting their well-being.

Seek Peer Support

Consulting with peers

Many mental health professionals are reconciling burnout, even if you don’t quite realize it. Unfortunately, isolation is a significant problem in this field. You may spend most of your working day caring for clients without connecting to other colleagues. Community therapists may have more social connections than therapists in private practice, but nobody is immune to feeling alone in their struggles.

Peer support can be found in various ways, including:

  • joining peer consultation groups
  • online communities, including ours!
  • creating informal peer support groups among colleagues
  • joining a new supervision group
  • creating after-hours work rituals on a weekly or monthly basis with colleagues

Practice More Self-Compassion

It’s important to be kind to yourself in the face of emotional exhaustion. Unfortunately, many therapists do the exact opposite. They blame themselves for not being “strong” enough or they assume they just don’t have enough resilience to cope with their stress.

Self-compassion refers to treating yourself with love and kindness during difficult times. You can practice self-compassion by:

  • asking yourself, “What would I tell a friend experiencing this right now?”
  • deliberately choosing to practice self-care activities that honor your emotional well-being
  • trying to untangle yourself from perfectionism, especially if that comes into your work
  • reminding yourself that many factors contribute to therapist burnout and that this feeling isn’t solely your fault or a sign of a moral failing
  • engaging in more mindfulness as you move through your daily life

Strive for a (Realistic) Healthy Work-Life Balance

First things first- there is no perfect ‘work-life balance.’ In an ideal world, we’d all get adequate sleep, spend time with a high-quality social support network, make enough money, and have enough resources to look after our own needs. But real life has its nuance and downsides, and the concept of balance itself can ebb and flow.

However, you can strive to implement a more healthy balance by:

  • delegating certain administrative tasks that drain your energy
  • setting defined communication boundaries outside of your typical work hours
  • knowing how many clients is your “threshold” each day or week or trying to honor that limit if possible
  • giving yourself adequate time for breaks during the workday
  • creating work-free zones in your home (especially if you primarily work from home)
  • ensuing you have some time for self-care each day even if it’s just for a few minutes

Reevaluate Your Current Role

Sometimes burnout is less about logistical stress and more about existential concerns. For example, maybe you feel emotionally drained because you want to fix your clients’ lives. Or you hear so many traumatic stories that you start questioning the meaning of life and wondering if you’re actually making a difference. Maybe you’re so focused on treating clients that you’re neglecting nurturing meaningful relationships in your own life.

Role ambiguity sometimes perpetuates burnout. That’s why it’s important to truly clarify the intentions you have for your work and your clients. This may mean engaging in deeper introspection and asking yourself, What kind of mental health support am I responsible for giving my clients? How can I take care of myself (and them) even if I don’t have control over their particular circumstances? Am I putting too much pressure on myself or them to change?

Seek Your Own Mental Health Services

It’s no secret that therapists can deeply benefit from seeking their own mental health treatment. Emotional fatigue may exist as its own problem, but it can also coincide with other difficult struggles, including depression, anxiety, relationship problems, secondary traumatic stress, and more.

While therapy itself may not prevent burnout, it can offer a supportive environment for you to unpack your symptoms and discern your next steps. If you’re struggling with problems in your personal life, therapy provides guidance and care for looking after yourself so you can show up well for your clients.

Final Thoughts on Managing Therapist Burnout

All mental health practitioners are susceptible to the tides of burnout. Regardless of how long you’ve been working - or where you currently work - it’s so important to be mindful of the main signs of burnout and aim to take care of yourself if you’re struggling.

For many providers, it’s not a matter of if burnout happens - it’s a matter of when. The good news is that preparing yourself and having support available can help you navigate this tender time with a sense of grace.


Self care for therapists

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