Burnout Therapy in Austin, TX

You used to be good at this. Energized by challenges, able to handle pressure, capable of pushing through. Now the thought of Monday morning fills you with dread. You're running on fumes, and even rest doesn't seem to help.

This isn't laziness or lack of grit. This is burnout—and it's your system telling you something has to change.

What burnout actually is

The World Health Organization recognizes burnout as an occupational condition defined by three dimensions: exhaustion that doesn't resolve with rest, mental distance from your job (cynicism, detachment, going through the motions), and reduced professional effectiveness.

However, burnout isn't solely about work. Caregivers burn out. Parents burn out. People maintaining impossible standards in every area of life burn out. The common thread is sustained stress that exceeds your capacity to cope for too long.

Burnout is different from ordinary tiredness. When you're tired, sleep helps. When you're burned out, you wake up exhausted. When you're tired, you can still care about things. When you're burned out, everything feels flat, pointless, like pushing through mud.

How burnout develops

Burnout rarely arrives suddenly. It builds through a progression that frequently escapes attention until you're deep in it:

First, there's the honeymoon—you're engaged, maybe even overcommitted, but it feels sustainable. Then stress creeps in: the workload increases, or the support decreases, or the goalposts move. You compensate by working harder, sleeping less, and letting go of the things that used to recharge you.

Chronic stress follows: you're irritable, your sleep suffers, and you get sick more often. But you push through because that's what you do. Then comes the crisis phase: your body and mind start refusing to cooperate. Concentration tanks. Anxiety spikes. You feel hollow, cynical, trapped.

Full burnout is the final stage: you can barely function. Everything feels impossible. You may feel like a failure, even though what's actually happened is that your system has been pushed beyond what anyone could sustain.

Burnout in Austin

Austin's professional culture has particular burnout risks. The tech industry's always-on expectations. Startup grind culture that treats boundaries as weakness. Jobs that merge into evenings and weekends because Slack never stops. The financial pressure of a city where the cost of living keeps climbing, while salaries don't always keep pace.

There's also the comparison trap: everyone on LinkedIn seems to be crushing it, launching projects, getting promoted. Meanwhile, you're struggling to get through your inbox. The gap between the performance of success and your internal reality widens.

Healthcare workers, teachers, social workers—anyone in a helping profession faces additional risks. You're supposed to care for others, often without adequate resources, while your own needs get deprioritized. The pandemic accelerated burnout in these fields to crisis levels.

Signs you might be burned out

• Exhaustion that doesn't improve with rest

• Dreading work or feeling unable to face it

• Cynicism or detachment from things you used to care about

• Decreased effectiveness, more mistakes, difficulty concentrating

• Physical symptoms: headaches, stomach issues, frequent illness

• Sleep problems—either unable to sleep or sleeping excessively

• Irritability or emotional flatness

• Neglecting personal needs: exercise, relationships, hobbies

• Using alcohol, food, or screens to cope more than usual

• Feeling trapped, like there's no way out

Burnout versus depression

Burnout and depression share symptoms—exhaustion, anhedonia, sleep disruption, and difficulty functioning. Sometimes burnout triggers depression, or they occur together. But they're not identical.

Burnout is situational. It's tied to specific circumstances, usually work or caretaking. Depression is more pervasive, affecting all areas of life. In burnout, removing the stressor often helps. In depression, even when external circumstances are fine, the internal experience remains dark.

The distinction matters because treatment may differ. Burnout calls for addressing the underlying cause, not just treating the symptoms. If we treat burnout like depression without changing the conditions that created it, you'll keep burning out.

How therapy helps with burnout

Recovery from burnout involves multiple layers:

Immediate stabilization: When you're in crisis, we focus on what will help right now. Sleep hygiene, basic self-care, and permission to let some things slide. Sometimes the first step is acknowledging that you're actually in trouble.

Understanding what got you here: Burnout usually isn't just about external circumstances. It commonly entails internal patterns—perfectionism, people-pleasing, difficulty saying no, and tying your worth to productivity. We examine these patterns so you can change them, not just survive until the next burnout.

Nervous system work: Chronic stress dysregulates your nervous system. You might be stuck in fight-or-flight, unable to relax even when you have the chance. Somatic approaches and nervous system regulation techniques help your body remember how to shift out of survival mode.

Values clarification: Sometimes burnout is a signal that you're living according to expectations that aren't actually yours. What do you genuinely want from your work and life? This question can be surprisingly hard to answer when you've been running on autopilot.

Practical changes: Therapy isn't just talk. We'll look at concrete changes—boundaries, workload, communication with employers or family, possibly bigger decisions about career or life direction.

Prevention: Once you recover, how do you keep from ending up here again? What warning signs should you watch for? What structures need to be in place?

A vacation won't fix this

Well-meaning advice frequently boils down to "just take a break." But if you return from vacation and within a week, feel exactly as burned out as before, the problem isn't that you needed more rest. The problem is that something about how you work or live is unsustainable.

That might require hard conversations, difficult decisions, or the examination of beliefs you didn't know you held. This is where therapy comes in—helping you not just survive but change what needs to change.

You're not failing

Burnout often comes with shame. You're supposed to be able to handle this. Other people manage. What's wrong with you?

Nothing is wrong with you. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it's designed to do—shutting down when demands exceed capacity for too long. The failure isn't yours. It's a mismatch between what's being asked and what's humanly possible.

Recovery isn't about becoming more resilient to impossible conditions. It's about creating conditions that allow you to thrive.