HIGH-ACHIEVING DOESN’T HAVE TO MEAN HIGH-ANXIETY.
THERAPY FOR BURNOUT IN LOS ANGELES
I offer burnout therapy in person in Echo Park, Los Angeles, as well as online throughout California.
YOU’RE GOOD AT HOLDING IT TOGETHER, but your body is paying the price.
You’re the person people count on. You get things done, show up for other people, and somehow manage to keep moving even when you’re running on empty.
Maybe you’ve been telling yourself that you just need to get through this busy season. Once work and other obligations calm down, you’ll finally relax and take a break. But the finish line keeps moving, and you’re starting to wonder how long you can keep living this way.
You’re exhausted, but slowing down doesn’t feel easy. Rest can bring up guilt, anxiety, or the feeling that you should be doing something more productive. When you do have time to yourself, you find yourself numbing out on your phone, ruminating, or distracting yourself—and then getting frustrated that you wasted precious time.
You’re finding yourself with less patience, energy, and capacity for things that used to bring you joy. It also feels harder to be fully present in your relationships, or even figure out what you need from them. Irritability and resentment start to creep in, and you wonder what it would be like to have someone really take care of you for a change.
Maybe you’ve become so accustomed to pushing through that you don’t even know what “enough” feels like anymore. You feel disconnected from yourself and what you need. You wonder, “Where is the other side of this hill? Will I actually ever get there? And how do I survive in the meantime?”
MAYBE you’re…
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Even when you’ve accomplished a lot, it’s hard to let yourself feel satisfied. There’s always another task, another goal, or another way you could be doing better. You hold yourself to high standards and tend to be much more forgiving of everyone else than you are of yourself.
Sometimes this comes from wanting to get everything right, be the best version of yourself, or avoid letting anyone down. But living under this constant pressure is exhausting and isolating. You feel like you should be able to handle it all, and when you can’t, you blame yourself.
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Your mind rarely seems to shut off. You’re constantly planning, solving problems, replaying conversations, or thinking about what needs to happen next.
You may find yourself living in your head so much that it’s hard to tune into your body or how you’re actually feeling deep down. You know you need a break, but a part of you worries that if you step away, everything will fall apart.
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Your life is starting to feel like a long list of things you’re “supposed” to do. Work, responsibilities, relationships, and expectations take up so much space that there’s little room left for curiosity, spontaneity, or being authentically you.
Maybe you’re a creative who has started to feel more pressure than pleasure in your work. Self-doubt, perfectionism, or the fear that what you create isn’t good enough can make it hard to enjoy the thing you once loved. You might find yourself wondering what you actually want—not what would be practical, productive, or expected of you, but what feels meaningful to you.
You want more than just getting through your days. You want to feel connected to a life that feels truly your own.
You’re torn between pushing through and wanting to slow down.
A part of you thrives under pressure and equates productivity with self-worth. Another part of you feels depleted, lonely, and underappreciated.
You don’t just want relief—you want to understand the deeper parts driving the perfectionism, over-functioning, and self-abandonment—and finally shift what’s underneath.
how ifs therapy for burnout works
YOU DON’T HAVE TO KEEP PUSHING YOURSELF TO THE POINT OF exhaustion.
IFS offers a different way of understanding the patterns that keep you stuck in over-functioning.
Rather than seeing your perfectionism, productivity, people-pleasing, or inability to slow down as problems you need to eliminate, we’ll get curious about what’s underneath these patterns. Through IFS, we’ll work with the parts of you that:
Believe you have to be exceptional to be worthy
Feel responsible for everyone else
Are afraid of disappointing people
Don’t trust anyone else to do things “right”
Worry if you stop pushing, everything will fall apart
These parts aren’t trying to make your life harder—they developed for a reason. Often, they’re trying to protect you in ways that made sense at another point in your life—but that are no longer working as well as they once did.
In therapy, we’ll slow down enough to understand what these parts are afraid would happen if they stopped pushing so hard. Instead of fighting against them, we’ll work to build enough trust and internal safety that they can begin to let go of the roles they’ve been carrying.
Over time, this can create more room to make choices based on what you actually want—not just what you feel you have to do.
THERAPY FOR BURNOUT CAN HELP YOU:
Recognize the patterns keeping you stuck in overdrive
You can begin to notice when you’re pushing past your limits—and understand what’s driving the urge to keep going.
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Untangle your worth from your productivity
Feel more connected to your worthiness and value—not just what you produce or how hard you work.
02
Rest without feeling like you have to earn it
You can begin to develop a different relationship with rest, productivity, and your sense of worth.
03
Set boundaries without the guilt
You can learn to recognize your own needs and communicate them without automatically taking responsibility for everyone else’s feelings.
04
Reconnect with yourself
Instead of constantly responding to what everyone else needs from you, you can begin to hear your own wants, feelings, and values more clearly so you have more energy for the life you’re actually living.
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You've survived by pushing through. It's time to find out what's possible when you don't have to.
FAQs
COMMON QUESTIONS
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Burnout therapy can help you understand and change the patterns that contribute to chronic stress, exhaustion, over-functioning, and difficulty taking care of yourself. Rather than focusing only on managing symptoms, we can explore the deeper beliefs, fears, and protective patterns underneath them.
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IFS can help you understand the different parts of you that may be contributing to burnout—for example, the part that pushes you to work harder, the part that feels guilty when you rest, or the part that believes you have to take care of everyone else.
Instead of trying to get rid of these parts, we approach them with curiosity and compassion. As they feel more understood and supported, they can begin to step out of patterns that are no longer serving you.
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No. You don’t have to wait until you’re at a breaking point to take your exhaustion seriously. If you’re noticing that you’re constantly pushing yourself, struggling to rest, feeling disconnected from yourself, or having less capacity for the people and things you care about, therapy can be a place to slow down and explore what’s happening under the surface.
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Absolutely. We can explore the realities of your work environment while also looking at the internal patterns that may be keeping you stuck in overwork, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or difficulty setting boundaries. Sometimes there are external circumstances that genuinely need to change, and therapy can help you understand what is and isn’t within your control.
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Creative burnout can look different from traditional workplace burnout. You may still be getting things done, but the work that once felt meaningful or energizing starts to feel like another obligation. You might struggle with creative blocks, perfectionism, self-doubt, or feeling like your work is never good enough.
When your creative work is closely tied to your identity or sense of self-worth, burnout can feel especially personal. You may find yourself questioning whether you’ve lost your creativity or wondering if you’re even doing what you’re meant to be doing.
Therapy can help you understand the patterns underneath the burnout so you can reconnect with your creativity in a way that feels connected, joyful, and sustainable.
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That depends on your goals and how deep you want to go. Some clients come to work through a specific transition or burnout cycle, but many stay longer-term to reshape deeper identity and attachment patterns connected to work, worth, and productivity. This goes beyond surface-level coping work to create deeper, sustainable change.