Burnt out Therapists, Recovery, and Next Steps

Marianna Jaross

I spent the first several years of my working life in some form of counselling role: Support worker, counsellor, and psychotherapist. When you start working with people coming out of extended psychiatric care at the age of twenty-one, you see some things at an early age you may not have otherwise been exposed to. I started working as a counsellor at twenty-three; liaising with parole officers, running groups, and seeing clients for individual therapy.

I completed my registration as a psychologist several years ago, and as soon as I did it; I left the city I was living in and started a non-clinical role.

As therapists and psychologists, we spend years training. We jump through the hoops of the requirements; completing training, supervised hours, and internships. We learn about evidence-based practice, ethics, and navigate the world of work outside of the ideals that we were trained with. We experience high case-loads, the restraints of the systems we work within, and building lives outside of the titles we attach to ourselves and have invested years into.

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon within my field: Psychologists who are burnt out, tired, and enter a bargaining phase for years before giving up their practice. Perhaps another course? Perhaps another training program or interest area? Perhaps if I open my own practice, it will feel different? Perhaps perhaps perhaps.

This is not to say that there is not value in taking a break and recalibrating. But I think there is a deeper need to recognise the magnitude of what therapists, counsellors and psychologists are holding; and whether it is sustainable for decades to do this work. Certainly I have met clinicians who make clinical work their predominant practice; but at least in the circles I have run in, these seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

So what do we do?

1.) Ask yourself uncomfortable questions. How much of ourselves, and our value, do we place into being a therapist? On helping people? Have we considered that there are other ways to do this?

2.) Consider the cost of this. Consider whether you are able to show up in other areas of your life: I know many therapists who change their workload when entering partnerships, having children, or taking on new responsibilities. Our bandwidth for being a therapist may change in different seasons of our life.

3.) Understand that being a therapist can mean that you are also involved in other areas of work. Perhaps you can enter other interest areas: Academic administration, policy, program development, supervision, and writing; to name a few. There are many spaces your skills may be used in a different way.

4.) A life that is both financially sustainable and viable for your nervous system: There is a part of me that believes our training is a bit of a treadmill: All the requirements, hoops, and pressure of completing your training to be a therapist; and the up-keep to maintain it.

5.) Seeking out help and support. You are human too, and may need time and space to figure out this next stage of your life. Lean in, not away.

6.) Discover other interests: Who were you before you narrowed your interests down to being a therapist? Did you like to create, play music, dance, or swim? Did you have interests in other areas? Implement and return to these; and parts of your soul may return to you, too.

© Marianna Jaross 2026