Burnout Recovery Therapy
Treating complex burnout patterns.
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably realized that burnout recovery isn’t as simple as hiring an assistant, restructuring your team, or taking a sabbatical. And that’s because part of the problem is structural.
In most organizations, strong performance is rewarded with more work and more responsibility. And when the only strategy you have for managing that additional load is to work harder, burnout is difficult to avoid.
This kind of exhaustion, the kind that rest doesn’t fix, is compounded by the emotional labor of managing up and down simultaneously, navigating the politics behind every decision, projecting confidence and optimism even when you don’t feel it, and coming home to family with their own needs when you’re already drained and struggling to stay engaged.
Most burnout support focuses on managing the pressure: coping strategies, time management, boundary setting, and stress reduction. Those approaches aren’t necessarily wrong, but they don’t address the whole problem, and in some cases, they can unintentionally reinforce it. The structure of most leadership roles operates on infinite demand, chronic under-resourcing, and no sanctioned way to show strain or ask for support. And underneath all of that are personal patterns that developed before this role and will follow you to the next one.
Solutions for complex burnout like this have to address both the structure itself and how you function within it.
What we’ll work on.
- Identifying which of your work habits are necessary and which are making your burnout worse
- Examining how the expectations, incentives, and power dynamics in your job are contributing to your burnout, and identifying where you may have leverage within them
- Determining what changes will help you and the most effective sequence in which to make them
- Designing a plan that accounts for real operational and financial constraints
- Processing workplace abuse or past experiences that may be contributing to your burnout
- Making gradual, sustainable changes that reduce strain and restore your energy and capacity over time
What I don’t do:
- Treat complex burnout as something that can be resolved with simplistic or short-term advice
- Offer quick fixes or promises that don’t account for the realities of your role
- Assume you can easily walk away from or push back against difficult power dynamics
- Focus on productivity strategies or ways to simply do more
- Provide care for severe or acute conditions that require specialized psychiatric treatment
This work is for you if:
- You’ve changed roles, companies, or reporting structures and are still exhausted
- You carry your role well, but you feel ongoing political, financial, and reputational pressure that probably isn’t obvious to outside observers
- Rest helps temporarily, but it doesn’t meaningfully change the workload or how you function under pressure
- You’ve tried the obvious fixes: managing your time better, working through lunch, hiring support, putting in more weekend hours
How does burnout recovery work?
We will begin with a brief consultation to understand your situation and which strategies you’ve already tried. Before the first session, you will also complete a structured assessment covering workload, decision-making patterns, stress responses, and relational dynamics so we can establish a direction quickly.
Phase 1: Stabilization
First, we will reduce the immediate load on your nervous system.
We will review your calendar, workload, and decision patterns in detail. Together, we will identify where you may be:
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Taking on responsibilities that don’t belong to you
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Making yourself available when it isn’t required
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Preparing as if you expect to be challenged or doubted
From there, we will implement targeted adjustments. Our goal will be less stress coming home with you, fewer reactive decisions, and more energy at the end of the day.
Phase 2: Structural Analysis
Once your capacity begins to return, we will widen the lens.
We will examine the political and power dynamics shaping your role and clarify which pressures are structural and which are self-imposed.
If chronic worry, rumination, or anticipatory stress is still keeping you awake at night, we may integrate focused Anxiety Therapy.
If patterns of manipulation, exclusion, or reputational threat are present, we may draw from my Workplace Abuse Therapy framework.
If your stress response needs more day-to-day support, we may add Stress Management Therapy to our work, so you can regulate more quickly, recover faster, and reduce the risk of burnout returning.
If the environment itself cannot be recalibrated, you will be in a position to plan a career transition strategically rather than reactively.
Throughout this phase, we will track how your nervous system responds to criticism, ambiguity, silence, and shifting expectations and adjust our approach accordingly.
Phase 3: Calibration
When your balance is restored, we will move from coping to making deliberate choices about when and where you expend your energy.
As those choices begin to take root and feel more natural, we will taper our meetings and check in periodically to ensure old patterns do not quietly reassert themselves.
If persistent second-guessing or reassurance-seeking continues to undermine your decisions, we will incorporate focused Self-Trust Therapy work to strengthen your internal authority.
This work is not about softening your standards or fitting more into your day. It is about calibrating your response so it matches the situation instead of exceeding it.
You will remain capable. Mediocrity is not the goal. Sustainability is.
FAQs
Do I need burnout recovery or career coaching?
This isn’t always straightforward because these problems often overlap.
If you’re exhausted but aren’t sure whether you need to leave your job, change industries, or address internal patterns and coping strategies, therapy can help you figure that out first before you make any expensive career decisions.
If you’re clear you need a career change and primarily need help deciding what direction to pursue, career coaching is probably the better fit.
If you’re experiencing severe workplace abuse or corporate gaslighting, the priority might be getting out safely, which we can discuss during the consultation.
We’ll clarify what you actually need during the consultation based on your specific situation.
How long does burnout recovery take?
Longer than most people expect, because we’re working with nervous system patterns and protective strategies that your body probably developed over years or even decades.
Some people see significant shifts in 3-4 months. Others may need 6-12 months or longer, especially if we’re addressing complex workplace trauma, dismantling deeply ingrained hypervigilance patterns, or navigating a complicated exit strategy while managing financial realities.
The timeline also depends entirely on your unique set of circumstances. If the cause of your burnout is primarily environmental and you need to leave, the work might be shorter and more focused on strategic planning. If your exhaustion stems more from internal patterns that will follow you across roles, meaningful change tends to take longer.
This isn’t a quick fix. But it’s also not indefinite. We’re working toward specific changes, not just ongoing support.
How much does burnout recovery cost?
Burnout recovery rates vary depending on the number of sessions and whether you’re working with me as a coach or therapist. Sessions start at $175. We can discuss options during your consultation.
Can I fix this myself with better self-care?
Maybe. Self-care is important and helpful, but it’s rarely sufficient to address the underlying patterns creating persistent exhaustion.
If rest, yoga, boundaries, and nervous system regulation were going to fix this on their own, they probably would have by now, right? The fact that you’re reading this page suggests those things help temporarily but haven’t fully resolved whatever keeps recreating your exhaustion.
This work addresses the deeper patterns that make sustainable work feel impossible, the trauma responses that get activated at work, or the need to figure out whether your environment is genuinely toxic before you spend years trying to fix yourself when the real problem isn’t you at all.
How is this different from working with other therapists who treat burnout?
Every therapist will approach burnout through their own training lens. For example, CBT therapists will focus on identifying and reframing cognitive distortions that add to your burnout, trauma therapists will process past experiences contributing to your burnout, and psychodynamic therapists will explore unconscious patterns contributing to your burnout.
Those approaches can all be incredibly helpful, but if they have fallen short for you, it might be because they often miss the systemic workplace dynamics that make healing burnout patterns more complex.
I bring both clinical training and workplace expertise, which means I can help you distinguish between what’s a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation and what’s an internal pattern that would exhaust you anywhere.
I don’t assume the problem is exclusively internal or exclusively environmental. We look at how your nervous system patterns interact with actual workplace dynamics (authority structures, organizational incentives, risk distribution) to figure out what needs to change for you to have a better long-term experience at work.
My goal isn’t just to help you cope better. It’s to identify whether you need environmental change, internal work, or both, and to comprehensively address the patterns perpetuating your exhaustion.