Stress & Burnout Therapy
Are you too burned out to be productive and enjoy life?
When your work life suffers, every area of your life follows suit.
Your personal and professional relationships may feel empty, unfulfilling, or fraught with tension. Perhaps people walk on eggshells around you because you lose your patience easily. You might have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, causing your physical health to suffer. Maybe you have started gaining weight, leaning on alcohol, and avoiding responsibilities unless you absolutely have to do it. Each time a new opportunity arises, you think: Why bother?
The good news is that you do not have to go on feeling this way. As a therapist who specializes in helping high-functioning professionals manage burnout, I am confident that I can help you increase your self-compassion, withstand stress more effectively, and find meaning and purpose in your work again.
If this sounds like a good fit, all you have to do is fill out this form to get started.
Are you struggling with chronic physical or emotional exhaustion?
Has a lack of motivation made it hard to stay on top of your obligations?
Do you feel like you are not as effective at work as you used to be?
Perhaps you have been feeling short-tempered, irritable, and anxious for a while now and the stress is starting to impact your job performance. You might feel overly cynical about your work, your colleagues, and your clients. You have been dreading going to work every day and then you are too exhausted to focus on other matters when you get home. Maybe you are finally at the point where you are thinking about seeking counseling to help you reduce your stress and avoid burnout.
Burnout is the result of a constantly plugged in world.
Among texts, emails, push alerts, social media notifications, and a 24-hour news cycle, it has become increasingly hard to unplug and relax in our modern world. We are expected to always be “on,” accessible to everyone around us even when we are not at work. Our self-worth has become tied to our jobs, and all our actions are supposed to center around hustling and making money.
Social media only reinforces the attitudes of hustle culture, bombarding us with highlight reels of successful people and causing us to feel inadequate by comparison. At the same time, social media is also filled with images and newsreels of terror and suffering. So on one hand we are supposed to compete with others, and on the other, we still need to self-soothe because the world is in chaos.
In the face of all these confusing and contradictory demands, it is no surprise that so many people are feeling burned out and turning to therapy.
Our society often rewards burnout and shuns mental health.
Our work culture encourages and rewards burnout. Chances are we have all heard colleagues and superiors brag about how little sleep they have gotten, how little spare time they have, and so on. In many workplaces, unhealthy habits are glamorized, self-care is neglected, and merely talking about mental health is taboo.
For high-functioning professionals who want to maintain successful careers while still prioritizing their mental health, it can be hard to know where to turn. And that is why therapy is such a worthwhile investment—it is a chance to learn how to address burnout without sacrificing your professional goals.
Burnout therapy can help you enjoy a healthier relationship with work.
If you want to feel challenged and engaged at work, knowledgeable and useful to others, and satisfied in both your personal and professional life, then burnout therapy is probably right for you. This is not about scaling down your ambition or telling you to work less, but about helping you enjoy a healthier relationship with work. It is about increasing your self-compassion, building proper time for rest and recovery, and exploring what endows your work with meaning and purpose. This way, you can avoid getting hung up on the little things and focus on what truly matters.
What can burnout counseling help you accomplish?
The root of all burnout is emotional depletion. When you are emotionally depleted and feel like you have nothing left in the tank, it is hard to effectively communicate your needs, navigate conflict, and function at an optimal level.
That is why my approach to burnout therapy focuses heavily on emotional management skills. Throughout our work together, I will teach you to cope with the prospect of failure effectively, tolerate distress and leverage it for better performance, and learn to be present in the moment instead of worrying excessively about the past or the future. I will also help you acknowledge and capitalize on your strengths, allowing you to focus on the positives in your life and harness your inner wisdom.
Additionally, I will help you explore beliefs about yourself, your work, and your relationships. You will learn to identify how certain beliefs like “I am not good enough” or “I will never be successful” may be fueling your tendency to overwork yourself. By challenging these cognitive distortions and confronting unhealthy expectations, you can increase your self-compassion and stop holding yourself to perfectionistic standards.
What kind of approaches are used in burnout counseling?
I draw from an eclectic range of approaches and treatment methods, as I recognize that everyone has different needs. In general, I will utilize:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help you improve your day-to-day functioning and address thoughts of inadequacy that are leading to burnout.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help you accept what you cannot control and live a life that is committed to your values.
Psychodynamic Therapy to help you understand how current challenges with burnout are connected to past trauma and early childhood relationships.
Solution-Focused Therapy to help you set goals for the future and gain the tools to achieve them.
Ultimately, it is important to remember that burnout is very common and can be managed and overcome. By gaining new tools for regulating your emotions and learning to challenge negative beliefs about yourself and your work, you can radically shift your perspective and build habits for rest and recovery. You can unlearn the behaviors reinforcing burnout (e.g., poor sleep, substance use, etc.) and replace them with behaviors that bring you one step closer toward a life filled with meaning and purpose.
You may have some questions about burnout therapy…
What if I am judged for seeing a therapist?
Just as you would see a doctor for physical issues, it is important to see a psychotherapist for your mental health. There is nothing wrong with leaning on others for support. What is more, you do not have to tell anyone that you are in therapy—our sessions are confidential, so your employer and coworkers do not have to know about your time here. That said, if therapy helps you improve your work life, it is worth noting that any judgment you receive may be positive and include a recognition of your success.
What if my schedule is too full for burnout therapy?
If you are already struggling with burnout, the odds are that your exhaustion is making everything take longer to complete. Perhaps you are also self-soothing with a bit too much screen time, having a hard time staying focused, or constantly pushing through the aftermath of yesterday's happy hour. If you can commit to consistent therapy and recover your efficiency and effectiveness, you may find that the time was well worth the investment.
Will you tell me to quit my job or just take more vacations?
The beliefs and behaviors that got you to this place of burnout are likely to follow you wherever you go, so I will not tell you to quit your job or take more vacations. Instead, I will help you look at the underlying factors that led you to feeling burned out so that you can make meaningful lifestyle changes. Whether or not you quit your job or take more vacations is ultimately secondary to the process of healing burnout and bringing rest and recovery back into your life.
You do not have to keep burning out to feel good about yourself.
If you want to achieve a healthier work-life balance and find relief from stress and burnout, I encourage you to pursue therapy with me. To get started, all you have to do is fill out a contact form. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Stress & Burnout Therapy
in Wausau
300 N 3rd Street
Ste. 302
Wausau, WI 54401
Virtual services are also available across Wisconsin.