Dear Tired Therapist, You are not alone.

You are not imagining it.
The weight is heavier. The silence after sessions lingers longer. You’re still waiting to exhale at the end of the day, but it just doesn’t hit like it used to.

You're not the only one googling new jobs at midnight or fantasizing about a sabbatical where no one knows that you are a therapist. Wondering if it will ever get better or back to the way it used to be.

There was a time when you loved it. But now…it’s not the same. I’ve seen your posts.
“I’m so tired.”
“The pressure is killing me.”
“I just hate my life.”

These aren’t dramatic sentiments. They’re the cries of the frontline. And as therapists in America right now, we aren’t just listening to trauma, we’re living in it.

We’re Not Just Clinicians, We’re Witnesses to a Nation’s Crisis

We’re walking through an era marked by:

• deep political division,

• economic volatility,

• social injustice,

• global uncertainty,

and somehow we’re supposed to show up, with our Old Navy flats, a yellow cardigan, a perfectly written treatment plan completed exactly 47.5 hours after intake, and a smile that makes everyone’s problems go away.

But HOW?

We’re watching systems crumble, from education to healthcare, and still being told to “hold space” while holding back tears of our own. The truth? You can’t slap a CBT worksheet on societal collapse.

Our clients aren’t just anxious, they’re emotionally disoriented. And so are we. This isn’t “just burnout.” This is occupational dissonance. A moral injury.

Here’s what we don’t always say out loud: Some of what our clients are walking through right now? There’s no diagnostic code for that. No one trained you on what to say to the wife whose husband was deported or the mom who feels terrible that her daughter’s scholarship was ripped away a week before orientation at the during the same month that her dad was laid off.

There’s no clean clinical pathway for climate grief, racialized fear, legislative betrayal, economic squeeze, or a post-pandemic disconnection from.

A few days ago, a wrestling icon, who will remain nameless passed away. I remembered sitting on the couch with my dad as a kid cheering for this man, but after hearing how he feels about people who look like me and seeing him disown his daughter for an interracial relationship, the memory is tainted. So many of us are carrying these complex emotions that it’s hard to even know where to start.

We try to “treat” the symptoms, insomnia, panic, irritability, numbness, go back to basics. We say, eat healthy, move your body, connect with loved ones. It’s a good plan, so we repeat it session after session, but in our bones, we know. That’s all sounds great, but it doesn’t change that we feel like we’re living in a world that feels like it’s coming undone.

And maybe the worst part? It’s not just our clients questioning their reality anymore. It’s us, too.

We’re questioning:

• the tools we were trained to rely on AND the people who created them,

• the ethics of systems that reward volume over value, while holding us to the highest moral code,

• the very institutions that told us how to help but never bothered to consider how we would do that in a system that operates counter to everything they taught us to believe.

Honestly, I’ve seen therapists truly grieving. Grieving the careers that they committed a thousands of dollars and hours to. Grieving the middle class life that they thought they would have after a day of helping people heal.

You’re trying to be present for clients while you:

• research college savings plans and check for updates on your student loan forgiveness AGAIN,

• negotiate your parent’s medical appointments while your teen asks for DoorDash money,

• look calm in session while silently wondering if this was even the right career path anymore.

You’re trying to take your own advice and do the things, but secretly, you just want to throw caution to the wind, buy Beyoncé tickets and Cowboy Carter your way into the sunset.

But since that’s not what most of us will do, I offer you 3 protective shifts that are small enough to start now but deep enough to change how you feel in this work:

Build In The Buffer

One of our clinicians, who is the quintessential high-achiever, has worked with us part time for years. The work she does with her clients through our office is her self-care after showing up in a different capacity in her higher ed day job. She will gladly work Saturdays and Sundays, but she has a rule, no back to back sessions. On those weekends that she chooses to work, she will take up to 3 sessions on each day with at least an hour in between. Sometimes I’m sure she doesn’t actually ‘need’ the hour, but it’s always there. If you are still working back to back sessions, maybe it’s time that you block a slot or two off or even just stagger them a bit. If you’ve had three emotionally intense clients back-to-back, the most ethical thing you can do next might be… nothing.
Give yourself permission to under-book without apology.

Build Micro-Moments of Joy Into the Day

We don’t just regulate through deep work, we regulate through delight. Not everything has to be healing. Some things should just feel good. That might be:

• A playlist that makes you feel like a main character, mine includes New Edition,

• Fancy snacks between clients, and yes in a wonderful mug or fancy bowl that’s almost a plate

• A sunbeam and a 10-minute nap

For me, and don’t judge, but I love to see a good solid read. And I mean read in the telling someone off sort of way. When the good guy tells the bad guy what they did wrong, even with a cleverly placed curse word or two, I get a little giggle. My sister used to enjoy Judge Judy for the same reason. She loved to see her concretely holding people accountable. It’s the complete opposite of her personality, but it made her smile at the end of a long day of helping people.

Think about it. For many of us, our greatest pleasure of the day is tossing TikTok videos back and forth to our group chat while we should be going to sleep. Instead of waiting until bedtime, schedule in 15 minutes to do that in between sessions and scroll til your heart’s content.

Especially today, joy isn’t frivolous, it’s a counterweight to heaviness. And it’s something you need all day long.

Uncouple Your Worth from Your Caseload

I know you have bills to pay, but you are not more valuable because you’re fully booked. You are not less effective because one client ghosted or another resisted homework. You are not “failing” because you no longer want to sit in back-to-back trauma work.

It’s not 2020 anymore. We got this nation through many a tough day over zoom and most of us never even stopped to catch our breath. There are ways to adjust for the income that you might lose if you change your availability, but the first step is to acknowledge that, at least for now, the goal is not to be booked and busy.

For your practice to survive, and support you, it may be time to renovate.

And no I don’t mean new furniture for the suite, I mean the private practice model many of us were trained on. It’s crumbling in 2025. Not because you are broken. But because the blueprint wasn’t designed for the world we’re living in now.

The “ideal week” planners and social media templates won’t save you from systemic overwhelm. Sliding scales don’t fix broken systems. Venting can release the pressure temporarily, but what do you do when the pressure builds right back up?
What you need is a reworking of your business model, your offers, your pricing, your schedule, so it reflects the life you actually want, not the one your grad school supervisor said was “realistic”.

You're Not Broken. The System Is.

Because the therapists I know, the ones I work with, and the ones I coach, aren’t looking for escape. They’re looking for a way through that honors their humanity as much as their credentials.

So, take the break. Skip the paperwork. Cue the Beyoncé playlist and daydream a little.

Then when you’re ready to start again, smarter, softer, and more yourself, let’s talk.

I write notes like this each month to therapists who are tired of the same old strategies. If you’re ready for honest conversation, quiet resistance, and maybe a few brave shifts, click here to join the list to know when something new is coming out. I have no time for fluff, so I only email when I have something to say.

If you’re starting to suspect it’s your practice model that’s stealing your peace, I open up a few consult slots each month and I’d love to talk it through with you. We’ll look at your numbers, your time, and your life, and figure out what needs to shift and the best way to make that happen. No pressure.
You’ve built a great life and practice and no, you don’t have to burn it down to get some peace. But it might be time to break some rules.