Supporting healthcare workers through burnout, trauma, and compassion fatigue
Counselor burnout can happen to anyone. Much to my surprise, last year I discovered that included me.
After returning from maternity leave, I realized that I could not stay 100% in remote private practice for much longer. The stress of the role was outweighing any fulfillment I once felt as a counselor and I embarked on a journey to remember why I had wanted to go into the helping field in the first place.
I have reconnected a part of myself that I thought I had lost in my graduate program—the part that believed this work could make a difference.
Once I accepted what was happening in my clinical work, I was able to find resources for what I know now is counselor burnout.
Now I want to help other counselors prevent professional burnout.
If you are like me, maybe finding this article between sessions and a long day of wondering why this job seems so difficult suddenly, I want to offer you some hope.
I’m here on the other side of persistent burnout, once again finding joy and fulfillment in this incredible profession.
You don’t have to stay in burnout in counseling. Healing is possible and so is returning to a happy and fulfilling clinical career.
What is counselor burnout and why does it happen?
I used to joke that I could tell when I needed a vacation because I felt like my clients were just complaining, already hinting at a long-term problem with repeated burnout I hadn’t learned to recognize in daily practice. I didn’t know at the time that losing empathy for your clients was a symptom of counselor burnout. It's one of the most overlooked signs of burnout in counselors—because it creeps in slowly, not all at once.
Common signs of burnout in counselors include:
A growing lack of empathy
Difficulty sleeping
Inability to focus
Poor boundaries with clients or around working hours
Learning to recognize the early signs of burnout in counselors can make the difference between catching it in time and reaching a true crisis.
It can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling to help someone else work through the worst moments of their lives. That’s why so many of us got into counseling in the first place.
Without proper therapist self-care to address burnout in counseling, that same work that once brought a sense of purpose and fulfillment can turn someone cold or make us feel disconnected from the humanity that is central to our work.
That’s where I was toward the end of 2025, looking at my caseload and thinking, “I just can’t do this anymore.”
How can counselors prevent professional burnout?
There are five main lessons that I learned in the past year as I took the time to intentionally heal from persistent counselor burnout.
1. Maintain firm professional boundaries
Our clients look to us to be a safe place, and safety requires us all to fully understand the boundaries of the therapeutic relationship.
Those boundaries might be tested from time to time by clients looking to better understand their role in life. Even during, or maybe especially during, difficult clinical moments, maintaining firm professional boundaries is best for you and for your clients.
Shifting your schedule outside of your working hours will not allow you to show up as a present therapist in that session. Using too many sliding-scale spots and not having money for your own groceries will not help your clients.
Find your boundaries. Keep them strong. Boundaries protect you, your work, and your clients from the consequences of counselor burnout.
2. Keep up with personal interests
Take the time to keep up with who you are outside of your work.
When you allow this work to become all that you are, you’ll become reliant on clinical success for personal fulfillment and counselor burnout is sure to follow.
Not sure where to start to keep up with personal interests and prevent counselor burnout? Think back to the last time you engaged in your favorite hobbies from when you were younger. There could possibly still be joy in those activities.
If those activities don’t sound interesting to you as an adult, it might be time to try things you’ve always wanted to try or even time to try things that have never sounded interesting to you at all.
There is joy in learning the contours of our own minds and abilities. Allow yourself regular time away from your clinical work to pursue your own personal interests to prevent counseling burnout.
3. Recognize small wins
In counseling, the big wins are easy to notice. Getting the funding for your program or having a full caseload are clear signs of your success.
Unfortunately, those big moments are often few and far between.
Part of staying attuned to the signs of counselor burnout is noticing when those small wins stop registering at all—that shift is often one of the clearest signs of burnout in counselors to watch for.
When addressing counselor burnout, try to notice the smaller daily wins, like a kind word from a client or even starting and ending every session on time that day.
Noticing small wins creates a cycle of feeling continuously rewarded and motivated toward your work.
We find what we are looking for. The more you look for the small wins, the more you’ll find.
4. Regular digital detoxes
Practicing digital detoxes won’t necessarily fix counselor burnout, but not taking them can absolutely make things worse.
Studies show that too much screen time can impact our ability to focus, so if you’re struggling to stay on topic when you’re in session or can’t decide what to cook for dinner after a long day of clinical work, it might be time to let your brain be bored.
Creating a digital detox practice to address counseling burnout can be challenging. It can be daunting to spend time without scrolling, checking your notifications, or even just having your phone nearby.
The discomfort of decreasing your screen time is worth the benefit of increasing your psychological flexibility, just like going to the gym when you’re not especially motivated or bathing even if it’s cold out.
5. Diversify your income
At the beginning of trying to heal from chronic burnout, I wasn’t sure what else I could do with my degree and license. After all, I had specialized in micro-work in grad school and spent the next seven years taking every CEU I could find on clinical work.
What else could I do to diversify income as a clinician?
It turns out, a whole bunch!
Currently, I am running my private practice (with joy!), seeing clients, supervising pre-licensed clinicians, freelance writing, working a few days a week at a nursing home, and signing clinical documentation for the Department of Developmental Services.
Yes, my schedule is a lot to juggle. Organization is key and a must for success.
That being said, my schedule now is a lot healthier for my mind, health, family, clients, and personal well-being than working 35 hours a week as an outpatient therapist slowly drowning in a storm of my own creation.
Healing from counselor burnout
Other counselors, good counselors, have, do, and will experience counselor burnout.
Being burnt out doesn’t make you a bad counselor—it simply means that you need a break from the emotional weight of the life-changing work that we do.
Please take care of yourself. If you're noticing the signs of burnout in counselors in yourself right now, that awareness is actually the first step toward healing.
Sources
American Psychological Association. (2015). Frequently monitoring progress toward goals increases chance of success.
Freudenberger, H. J. (1974). Staff burn-out. Journal of Social Issues.
Hermawati, D., Rahmadi, F. A., Sumekar, T. A., & Winami, T. I. (2018). Early electronic screen exposure and autistic-like symptoms. Intractable Rare Dis Res.
Khammissa, R. A. G., Nemutandani, S., Feller, G., Lemmer, J., & Feller, L. (2022). Burnout phenomenon: Neurophysiological factors, clinical features, and aspects of management. J Int Med Res.
Leonhardt, C., Danielsen, D., & Andersen, S. (2025). Associations between screen use, learning and concentration among children and young people in western countries: A scoping review. Children and Youth Services Review.
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