Burnout Therapy in California
For Exhaustion from Perfectionism & Pressure
When everything feels like too much — even when you’re “doing fine”
Burnout doesn’t always look like falling apart.
Many women start looking for therapy for burnout when what they’re really experiencing is chronic internal pressure. Often, it looks like functioning. Getting things done. Showing up. Holding it together — while feeling emotionally drained, irritable, numb, or constantly on edge underneath it all.
You might feel tired no matter how much you rest. Easily overwhelmed by small decisions. Disconnected from yourself or others. Less patient, less motivated, less like yourself — and unsure how you got here.
Burnout and emotional overwhelm are signals, not personal failures. Therapy offers space to slow down enough to understand what your system has been carrying — and what it needs now.
WHY BURNOUT ISN'T JUST ABOUT DOING TOO MUCH
Burnout developed in context
It's shaped by what you learned about effort, worth, and what it meant to be enough. What was expected of you growing up. What happened when you slowed down, made mistakes, or needed help. What you absorbed about rest, productivity, and your value to the people around you.
Maybe you learned that being useful kept you loved. Maybe slowing down felt dangerous — like something would fall apart, or someone would be disappointed. Maybe you were praised for how much you could handle, and learned to measure your worth by your output.
Those experiences become patterns. Ways your body automatically responds to pressure, even when your current circumstances are different.
That's why you can know you're burned out and still not be able to stop. Why you can clear your schedule and still not be able to rest. Why you can achieve what you worked toward and still feel like it's not enough.
Your nervous system learned that productivity equals safety. And it hasn't updated.
Now everything costs more than it should. You move through your days slower. The things that used to come easily — the drive, the care, the capacity — feel far away. You're not lazy. You're depleted. There's a difference.
Your burnout didn’t come from working too hard
The cultural context makes it harder
We live in a culture that treats overwork as virtue. That frames rest as something you earn. That measures your value by what you produce and calls exhaustion a badge of honor.
Even when you consciously reject these messages, they still shape how you move through your days. They make it harder to stop. Harder to ask for help. Harder to believe that slowing down isn't the same as falling behind.
Therapy helps you untangle what's yours — your actual capacity, your real needs, your genuine values — from what you've absorbed. The pressure that was handed to you before you were old enough to question it.
What We'll Work On
You might be experiencing...Exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix
You get rest and wake up tired. The exhaustion isn't just physical — it's the accumulated weight of years of pushing, monitoring, and holding everything together. Your body is asking for something rest alone can't give it.Numbness where feeling used to be
Not sad, exactly. Just flat. Things that used to matter don't move you the way they did. You go through the motions and wonder when you stopped feeling like yourself. The numbness is its own kind of signal.Everything taking more effort than it should
Small decisions feel enormous. Simple tasks cost more than they have any right to. The capacity you used to rely on feels thin. You're doing the same things — it just takes everything you have now.A inner critic that gets louder, not quieter
You'd think exhaustion would quiet the voice. It doesn't. Now you're falling behind, snapping at people you love, crying in the car — and the critic has new material to work with.Not remembering when you last did something just because you wanted to
You're still doing it all, but not because you want to. Rest has become something you have to earn. Your own wants are the last thing on the list — if they make the list at all.Why burnout therapy isn’t just about stress management
Burnout develops over time.
It’s shaped by expectations — internal and external — about productivity, caretaking, responsibility, and worth. It’s reinforced by cultural messages that reward overfunctioning and minimize rest, boundaries, and emotional needs.
You may notice that burnout is connected to long-standing patterns: people-pleasing, perfectionism, emotional labor, or feeling responsible for holding everything together.
Burnout doesn’t always start with collapse. It often begins as anxiety fueled by internal pressure — and over time, that pressure turns into depletion.
If you recognize both exhaustion and chronic overthinking, you can learn more about how I approach therapy for anxiety
→ Therapy for Anxiety in California
That’s why tips, hacks, or time off alone rarely resolve it. Burnout doesn’t live only in your schedule. It lives in your nervous system — and in your relationship to yourself.
Therapy for burnout and emotional overwhelm in this practice focuses on how chronic stress, emotional load, and prolonged pressure affect the nervous system over time. The work is grounded in an understanding of burnout as an adaptive response — not a personal failure — shaped by lived experience, relational demands, and cultural expectations around productivity and care.
How therapy for burnout & overwhelm works here
We begin by exploring how burnout has developed in your life, including patterns of overfunctioning, emotional exhaustion, anxiety, or shutdown. Rather than trying to push for relief or productivity, therapy focuses on understanding how your nervous system has been responding to sustained stress and what it needs now to shift toward regulation and recovery.
Approaches
Depending on your needs, sessions may include:
Talk therapy to explore patterns related to chronic stress, emotional overwhelm, anxiety, internalized expectations, and self-judgment.
Brainspotting a body-based approach, to work with the physiological responses that keep the nervous system in overdrive or collapse.
All sessions are offered online to clients located in California. We’ll decide together which format feels most supportive for you.
Learn more about working togetherWeekly therapy or an Intensive
Weekly Therapy
For steady recalibration.
50-minute sessions
Space to gradually untangle perfectionism and over-responsibility
Ongoing support as you experiment with boundaries in real time
Ideal if you prefer consistent structure and integration
Weekly work allows change to unfold alongside your actual life.
Investment: $210 / session
Therapy Intensives
For focused, strategic depth.
Customized session length and scheduling
Fewer transitions in and out of difficult material
Time to work beneath the surface-level exhaustion
Ideal if you want concentrated work without dragging it out over months
Intensives create space to address the pressure system more directly.
Investment: $1,000-2,500
Learn More About Intensives →
Not sure which format is right for you? Schedule a free 15-minute consultation and we'll figure it out together.
What we’ll work on
You’ll walk away with —
More internal space
Less constant pressure and urgency. More moments of quiet, relief, and breathing room inside.
Reduced emotional reactivity
Feeling less overwhelmed by small stressors and more able to respond rather than react.
A clearer sense of limits
Earlier awareness of exhaustion and overload — and more access to choice around boundaries.
Reconnection with yourself
Gradually feeling more present, more engaged, and more like yourself again.
Who can benefit from therapy for burnout
Feel emotionally exhausted, depleted, or overwhelmed even when you’re still functioning day to day
Struggle to recover from stress, or notice that rest doesn’t restore you the way it used to
Experience chronic stress, anxiety, irritability, numbness, or shutdown related to ongoing pressure or responsibility
Carry persistent self-judgment or pressure to keep going, even when something in you feels worn down or depleted
Therapy for burnout and emotional overwhelm may be a good fit if you...
You’ve been carrying too much for too long.
Burnout makes sense in the context of the pressure you’ve been under.
You don’t have to keep doing this alone.
Questions? I’ve got answers.
Frequently asked questions about therapy for burnout & overwhelm
If you don’t see your question here, check out my full FAQs
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Burnout often feels different than temporary stress. Stress tends to fluctuate and resolve; burnout lingers. You may notice ongoing exhaustion, emotional numbness, irritability, or a sense that rest doesn’t restore you the way it used to. Therapy can help you understand what’s happening and what kind of support would be most helpful.
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No. Many people seek therapy when they notice early signs — feeling emotionally drained, disconnected, or overwhelmed more often than not. Therapy isn’t only for collapse; it can be preventative, helping you shift patterns before burnout deepens.
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Therapy isn’t about giving generic advice. It’s about understanding why your system learned to operate the way it does — and helping you access more sustainable ways of living, relating, and responding to demands.
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I’m so glad you asked! First, click the “Schedule free consultation” button 👈to book our initial call. During our call together, we’ll have a short conversation about what’s bringing you to therapy now, answer any additional questions you might have, and overall get a chance to see if we’re a good fit.
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Burnout and anxiety often overlap. Burnout can be what happens when long-term anxiety and pressure exhaust your system.
Learn more about Therapy for Anxiety →