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When Self-Care Isn’t Enough: Finding the Right Therapy for Burnout
If you’ve been feeling drained, exhausted, tired, apathetic, and generally unable to cope with your job lately, you’re not alone. What you’re dealing with is called burnout, and new data suggests that 66 percent of American employees today are experiencing it.
Indeed, it’s common for people in high-demand professions, remote work environments, and caregiving roles to feel symptoms of burnout syndrome due to prolonged, unmanaged stress in the workplace with not enough time to recover from it.
Self-care — like exercise, vacations, and digital detoxes — can support recovery from burnout (without quitting your job). But when it becomes chronic, structured therapy for stress and burnout may be necessary.
What Is Burnout? A Clinical and Functional Perspective
Core Dimensions of Burnout
According to 2020 research in JAMA Surgery, the three key traits of burnout are:
- Emotional exhaustion
- Depersonalization
- Reduced personal accomplishment
Emotional exhaustion is “a chronic state of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job and/or personal demands and continuous stress,” per a 2020 study in Psychiatry Investigation.
Depersonalization refers to being uninterested in your work, according to the American Thoracic Society. This may result in insensitive or cynical behaviors, like interacting with co-workers unprofessionally or impersonally.
Reduced personal accomplishment is when there’s a drop in capability and productivity at work, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).
Burnout vs. Stress vs. Depression
While burnout, chronic stress, and depression are all related, there are distinctions between the three.
- Burnout depletes your energy in a work-specific context, but usually goes away (or is improved) when you remove yourself from the stress.
- Chronic stress is an ongoing state of tension in response to triggers, like financial pressure or dysfunctional relationships, and can be improved with rest and/or removing the triggers from your life.
- Depression is a loss of pleasure and motivation that is pervasive across life contexts and often persists without interventions like therapy and/or medication.
However, there can be a connection between burnout, depression, and suicidal thoughts. “Burnout and depression have been known to coexist with suicidal ideation and behaviors,” wrote the authors of a 2025 review in Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing. If you’re experiencing a mental health crisis, it’s important to get help immediately. The International Association for Suicide Prevention has a “find a helpline” tool for every country.
Impact Beyond Work
Even though burnout syndrome is a result of your career, it can still affect other areas of your life. “It can also strain personal relationships, as individuals may have limited energy and emotional resources to devote to their social connections and leisure activities,” the authors of a 2023 research article in Medicina wrote.
Burnout can also negatively impact your health and lead to high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, depressive symptoms, and insomnia, according to 2017 research in PLOS One. Not to mention, experiencing burnout long-term can cause people to cope by smoking and drinking more alcohol, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). Down the line, these behaviors can lead to a heart attack, stroke, and certain cancers, per the AHA.
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Why Self-Care Alone Often Fails
The ‘Bubble Bath Myth’
Self-care strategies — like getting proper nutrition, working out, sleeping enough, and spending time with friends and family — can reduce symptoms of burnout, according to the APA. However, it may not address:
- Perfectionism
- Boundary deficits
- Trauma-driven overfunctioning
- Identity tied to productivity
- Fear of disappointing others
Burnout as a Pattern, Not Just a Phase
When you engage in self-care, it can help lessen symptoms of burnout in the moment. But many people often experience repeated cycles of burnout because they return to their old ways because they don’t address the root causes of their burnout.
This may be especially true for high-achievers, since there’s a correlation between high-performance work practices and burnout, according to 2014 research from the International Conference on Science Engineering and Management Research. High achievers like to be the best at what they do, according to Walden University, and are motivated to reach their goals through self-discipline.
Finally, cognitive distortions (negative, often irrational, thoughts that skew reality) may reinforce overwork, leading to feelings of burnout over and over again. For instance, you may think that if you don’t perfectly complete a task, you’ll get fired, so you log long hours and stress yourself out over it.
When Therapy Becomes Essential
Here are the signs you might want to seek burnout syndrome treatment from a professional:
- If your burnout hasn’t improved with self-care
- If symptoms are impacting your personal life (like relationship problems)
- If you’re experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression
Types of Therapy for Burnout: Evidence-Based Options
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is a form of talk therapy that can help with mental health conditions, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
How It Works
- It identifies unhelpful thought patterns.
- It restructures problematic beliefs (like those about performance and worth) and gives you the tools to cope with them.
Techniques
- Cognitive restructuring: Identifying and challenging negative thought patterns
- Behavioral activation: Engaging in rewarding activities to improve mood and motivation
- Exposure to “doing less”: Working on making doing less at work a habit, so you’re less likely to feel burnt out
- Boundary rehearsal: Practicing setting boundaries at work to avoid burnout
Best For
- Perfectionism
- Catastrophic thinking
- Work-related anxiety
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT is a form of therapy that helps you understand and sit with your thoughts and feelings versus trying to change them, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
How It Works
- It shifts from achievement-driven identity to values-driven living.
- It reduces avoidance and emotional rigidity.
Focus Areas
- Psychological flexibility: Working on being open to uncomfortable thoughts and adapting your behaviors to align with your values
- Values clarification: Working on identifying and prioritizing your core beliefs
- Acceptance of discomfort: Working on acknowledging uncomfortable feelings without struggle
Mindfulness-Based Therapies
Mindfulness-based therapy combines mindfulness meditation practices with CBT in order to recognize negative thought patterns and adopt more positive ones, according to ScienceDirect.
How It Works
- It can help prevent burnout relapse.
- It helps manage physiological stress.
Focus Areas
- Downregulation of stress response: Calming your nervous system
- Increased emotional regulation: Modifying your emotions in a given situation
- Reduced rumination: Not dwelling on something negative
Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy is talk therapy that centers on how your past thoughts and feelings affect you today, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Focus
- Unconscious drivers of overworking yourself
- Early conditioning around achievement
- Attachment patterns (how you behave within a relationship — secure, anxious, avoidant, or disorganized)
Best For
- Chronic burnout cycles
- Identity-based overfunctioning (where your identity is based on being the person that others rely on)
- Deep-rooted self-worth issues
Explore Different Types of Therapy to Choose Yours
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Somatic and Nervous System-Informed Approaches
Burnout may involve chronic sympathetic activation, in which case somatic and nervous system-informed therapy approaches may help treat it.
Somatic therapy helps you release negative emotions by using mind-body techniques, like acupressure, hypnosis, and breathwork, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
Other nervous system-informed approaches include polyvagal informed therapy, which helps people understand and regulate their autonomic nervous system (which regulates involuntary bodily functions like heart rate and breathing) to heal from mental health conditions, like burnout, according to the Polyvagal Institute.
Coaching vs. Therapy: Know the Difference
It can be helpful to know the difference between coaching and therapy so you can decide which option will be most helpful to you in treating your burnout.
- Coaching focuses on how people can optimize aspects of their life and overcome challenges, according to Grand Canyon University.
- Therapy focuses on the underlying reasons behind certain behaviors and thought patterns and how understanding these things can lead to meaningful change. Therapists can also diagnose mental health issues, while coaches cannot. (Coaches don’t need formal education, credentials, or licensing, while therapists require higher education, clinical experience, and a licensing exam.)
What to Expect from Therapy
Session Structure
Most therapy sessions last 45 to 60 minutes and occur on a weekly or biweekly basis, according to Therapy Group of DC. Keep in mind that this is just an average, and based on your specific symptoms, and you may need more or less time depending on your therapist’s recommendations.
Your first session is typically an assessment that can last anywhere from 50 to 90 minutes. Here, your therapist will learn more about you, and the two of you will create goals you want to accomplish.
Measuring Progress
How do you know if therapy is working? There are a few ways to measure your progress recovering from burnout:
- You have more emotional energy.
- Your cynicism has been reduced.
- You’re better at setting work boundaries.
- You’re able to rest without feeling guilty.
Burnout recovery is gradual, and can take anywhere from a few months to a few years, depending on the severity and the type of therapy used, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Therefore, your therapy sessions may also last that long. It’s important to remember that everyone is different, and there’s no set timeline from when you specifically will recover from burnout.
How to Find the Right Therapist for Burnout
The first step in finding the right therapist for you is to recognize which type of burnout you have:
- Anxiety-driven burnout
- Trauma-related overworking
- Leadership exhaustion
- Caregiver fatigue
There are many therapy options for professional burnout. You can find therapists on licensed therapist directories and professional associations, like our States of Mind Providers directory, or the APA. You can also check for therapists through employee assistance programs (EAP) at work.
Questions to Ask During Your Therapy Consultation
Once you choose a therapist, it can be helpful to ask a few questions during your first session to make sure they’re the right fit for you, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
For instance, you can ask:
- What is your experience treating burnout?
- Which therapeutic modalities do you use?
- How do you measure progress?
- Do you integrate nervous system regulation techniques?
Burnout isn’t a sign of weakness or personal failure. While self-care, like a vacation or weekend off, can provide temporary burnout relief, seeking therapy addresses the underlying causes for your burnout and can help recover long-term.
Find Your Experienced Burnout Therapist
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FAQ
Expert Board Member
Although self-care is frequently recommended as the cure for burnout, it is ineffective on its own. Burnout can cause severe distress, relationship problems at work, and emotional exhaustion. This article explores the different types of therapy to alleviate symptoms of burnout.
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