Therapist Burnout: How to Recognize It and Protect Your Energy

Therapist burnout is a state of chronic physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that can result from long-term occupational stress. 

Characterized by symptoms such as chronic fatigue, sleep problems, difficulties with decision-making, and a sense of numbness toward clients, therapist burnout can take a serious toll on both a therapist and the people they support. 

To protect against burnout, therapists can set clear boundaries around work hours and caseload, connect with peers, spend time on hobbies outside of work, and seek therapy for their own needs.

What is therapist burnout?

As a therapist, your average morning might involve helping one client process childhood trauma, another client work through grief, and another manage an intense bout of depression. 

After a lunch “break” spent organizing session notes and submitting insurance claims, your afternoon might be made up of even more client sessions tackling even more difficult topics. 

And when the workday is over, your mind might be heavy with the memories you waded through and the feelings you held space for, while worrying about your clients’ progress and questioning whether you could have done more for them. 

This can be incredibly fulfilling work, but it can also be incredibly draining. 

For many therapists, the intense demands of this profession can ultimately lead to burnout.

Burnout is closely related to, but distinct from, compassion fatigue, which can also affect many therapists. Compassion fatigue involves similar feelings of exhaustion, but the feelings stem specifically from the emotional toll of consistently tending to others’ trauma. 

With burnout, exhaustion may stem partly from the emotional toll, but also from workplace stressors like an excessive workload and a lack of support.

Common signs and symptoms of therapist burnout

Therapist burnout may not rear its head suddenly or all at once; rather, signs and symptoms may appear gradually and be easy to overlook, until they’re not.

Symptoms of burnout can be grouped into four main categories: 

• Exhaustion, which can involve headaches, chronic fatigue, and sleep problems 
• Mental detachment, which can involve feeling disconnected from work and developing negative attitudes (such as frustration) toward clients 
• Cognitive impairments, which can involve difficulties with decision-making, creativity, and planning for sessions 
• Emotional impairments, which can involve a reduced capacity for empathy and emotional support, as well as a sense of numbness or paralysis during sessions

Emotional and physical signs to look for

Since symptoms of burnout often arise subtly over time, paying attention to any mental, emotional, or physical shifts can be key. 

Potential signs of therapist burnout to keep an eye out for can include: 

• Feeling completely drained and depleted at the end of the day, and struggling to manage the many responsibilities on your plate
• Experiencing persistent tiredness and exhaustion that rest doesn’t alleviate 
• Having frequent headaches, body aches, or weight loss
• Dreading sessions or feeling relieved when clients cancel 
• Going numb or “freezing” during sessions and wanting to end sessions early
• Feeling disconnected from your clients’ emotions and experiences
• Having trouble concentrating and coming up with new approaches during sessions 
• Feeling frustrated or even resentful toward clients, often due to feeling unable to support them effectively 
• Feeling inadequate and doubting your abilities as a therapist

What causes therapist burnout?

The exact dynamics that lead to burnout may look slightly different from one clinician to the next, but there are several common risk factors for therapist burnout. These include: 

• Frequent exposure to narratives of trauma 
• An immense sense of responsibility for clients’ progress 
• High caseloads and administrative demands, but with limited support

In addition to these factors, which we’ll dive into more below, research has shown that burnout rates tend to be higher among newer therapists who are earlier in their career. 

Emotional labor and exposure to narratives of trauma

As a therapist, talking through painful stories of trauma, grief, loss, and distress is often a major part of your job. This frequent exposure to trauma and the accompanying emotional labor needed to help clients through these painful moments can make therapists particularly vulnerable to burnout.

Immense sense of responsibility for clients’ progress

A recent study found that a key stressor for many therapists experiencing burnout was the strong sense of duty and responsibility they felt for their clients’ treatment and well-being. Some therapists may even start to tie their own self-worth to the progress their clients make in sessions, which can add further stress and pressure.

High caseloads and limited support

Finally, organizational factors such as excessively high caseloads, heavy administrative demands, and limited support from peers and supervisors can also contribute to burnout. Other stressors, such as inadequate training, time pressure, and lack of control over policies and procedures, may also play a role.

How therapist burnout can affect client care

Therapist burnout can have significant impacts on both the therapist and the clients they support. 

• Impact on clients: Research shows that therapists experiencing burnout are less likely to provide adequate levels of empathy and emotional support, which negatively impacts clients’ recovery and well-being. In addition, therapist burnout symptoms such as difficulty concentrating and diminished creativity can reduce a therapist’s effectiveness.
• Impact on therapists: For therapists, burnout can also lead to reduced productivity, increased absenteeism, and a higher risk of developing mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.

If you’re currently experiencing burnout as a therapist, remember that you are far from alone: burnout in this profession is all too common. Experiencing therapist burnout is not a personal failing but rather a signal to adjust your workload, seek support, and ensure you’re not neglecting your own self-care. 

By recognizing and addressing burnout early, you’re helping to safeguard your own well-being as well as the well-being of the clients you care for.

How therapists can prevent and recover from burnout

As a therapist, there are meaningful steps you can take to both protect against and recover from burnout. These can include: 

• Setting clear boundaries around your work hours and caseload
• Prioritizing rest and hobbies outside of work 
• Practicing mindfulness and self-compassion
• Seeking clinical supervision to help manage client sessions effectively
• Connecting with fellow therapists who have faced similar experiences
• Getting therapy for your own needs

To recover from mental and emotional burnout, therapist support can be especially crucial. As mental health professionals themselves, many therapists often become so busy supporting others that they may forget that they deserve (and can benefit from) professional support, too. 

Seeking therapy for burnout and any other concerns you’re facing can help you manage symptoms, reduce stress, and learn new ways to cope. But if you’re feeling burnt out, finding the time and energy for your own therapy can be a challenge. 

This is one of the benefits of BetterHelp. When you join BetterHelp as a therapist, you get a free membership for yourself, which gives you convenient online therapy from the comfort of home. You also get access to a network of more than 30,000 peers, so you can easily connect with and learn from other therapists.