I work with high-achieving women across California, including many in the SF Bay Area, who are living with a lot of pressure. For some, pressure shows up as anxiety, burnout, disconnection, or the sense that life has started to feel harder to inhabit than it used to. My work is relational, engaged, and built for people who want something deeper than surface-level coping. Therapy can be a place to understand what is driving the pattern, build trust over time, and begin to feel more like yourself again.
When work starts taking more than it gives back.
Many of the people I work with are good at what they do and used to be able to keep up with the pace, but over time, something starts to shift. Sleep gets shorter, patience wears thin, and it becomes harder to recover. There can be a sense of always pushing or carrying tension, even when nothing urgent is happening.
For many, it’s not about wanting to walk away, but about noticing that the way they’ve been carrying everything is starting to feel unsustainable. There’s a steadier way to carry what you’re responsible for.
Therapy for work stress can offer space to understand what may be driving the cycle beneath the surface, build tools that work in real time, and create room between pressure and response. Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes role, recovering from burnout, or trying to figure out what sustainable success actually looks like, this is where we start. I also work with people addressing anxiety, major life transitions, and relationship challenges.
Work stress therapy is often a fit if you:
You don't have to keep running on fumes to prove you're capable.
Work stress therapy can offer space to understand what may be driving the cycle beneath the surface, not only what’s happening on the outside. We look at the patterns keeping the nervous system activated, the beliefs that may be pushing toward overwork, and the ways stress shows up in the body, in relationships, and in the sense of yourself. Some sessions focus more on what is happening in the body.
Others make space to understand long-standing beliefs, patterns, or experiences that still shape how stress is carried now. I draw from mindfulness, somatic therapy, and EMDR, always tailoring the work to the person in front of me.
Here’s what the work actually involves:
Better you, better world.
I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist working with high-achieving women, couples, and co-founders across California. Many of the people I work with are not new to therapy. They’re often looking for something more attuned, more committed, and more capable of reaching what stayed untouched before.
I focus on building trust over time so we can go beyond what’s comfortable and get to what’s actually holding the pattern in place. My approach is interactive and relational. That means building enough trust to talk about what’s difficult, and staying with the process as the work deepens. For many people, the healing is not only in insight, but in having a relationship where difficult things can be named, explored, and worked through.
What I offer:
I draw from multiple approaches depending on what you’re working with and where you are in the process. Some people need nervous system tools first. Others need to examine the beliefs driving the overwork. Most need both. What matters is that the approach fits the person, not the other way around.
When your mind is running ahead of you, and your body is stuck in overdrive, mindfulness brings you back to what’s actually happening right now. It’s not about emptying your mind or forcing calm. It’s about noticing when stress is taking over before it spirals, and creating space between the trigger and your response. For high achievers, this often means learning to observe self-critical thoughts without immediately believing them or acting on them.
What this looks like in sessions:
Work stress often shows up in the body, sometimes long before there are words for it. The tight shoulders, the clenched jaw, the shallow breathing, the exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix. Somatic therapy helps recognize when the nervous system is stuck in activation and offers tools to regulate it. This isn’t about relaxation techniques that don’t last. It’s about understanding how the body responds to pressure and teaching it that it’s safe to come down.
What this looks like in sessions:
EMDR helps process experiences that are still activating your nervous system, even when they happened months or years ago. If a specific work event, conflict, or failure keeps replaying in your mind or shows up in your body when similar situations arise, EMDR can help your brain finish processing it so it stops feeling like it’s happening now. This is particularly useful for burnout recovery, workplace trauma, or perfectionism rooted in past experiences.
What this looks like in sessions:
Gestalt therapy focuses on what’s happening right now in the room, not just what you’re reporting happened last week. It’s about noticing the gap between what you’re saying and what you’re feeling, between what you think you should want and what you actually need. For people dealing with work stress, this often means examining the conflict between ambition and exhaustion, between what you’ve been taught success looks like and what actually feels sustainable.
What this looks like in sessions:
Control Mastery Theory looks at how early experiences shape the beliefs you carry about work, success, and self-worth. If you learned that your value depends on achievement, that rest is weakness, or that slowing down means falling behind, those beliefs will show up in how you approach stress now. This approach helps identify the unconscious patterns driving overwork and test whether those beliefs are still true or helpful.
What this looks like in sessions:
There's a steadier way to carry what you're responsible for.
Work stress shows up differently for different people. For some, it’s the physical toll. For others, it’s the way achievement stopped feeling good, relationships started feeling like one more thing to manage, or there’s a sense of being disconnected from yourself. Beneath the stress, many people are also longing to feel more at home in themselves. These are some of the most common patterns I see in my practice.
Burnout isn’t just being tired. It’s when your nervous system has been running on overdrive for so long that it stops being able to recover. You might feel emotionally flat, disconnected from work that used to matter, or unable to access the motivation that once came easily. Rest doesn’t help because the issue isn’t lack of sleep. It’s that your system has been in survival mode for too long and has forgotten how to come down. Therapy for burnout focuses on regulation first, then examining what’s been driving the cycle and building a different relationship with work.
Work anxiety often shows up as racing thoughts, constant worst-case thinking, or the feeling that no matter how much you do, it’s never enough. Your body might be tense even when nothing urgent is happening. You might check your email compulsively, have trouble sleeping because your mind won’t turn off, or feel a low-level dread that something’s about to go wrong.
This type of anxiety is often rooted in perfectionism, fear of failure, or beliefs about self-worth being tied to achievement. Therapy helps interrupt the spiral, regulate the nervous system response, and address the underlying beliefs keeping the pattern active.
When work takes over everything, relationships suffer, personal time disappears, and there’s no space left for the things that used to bring you joy. You might tell yourself you’ll set boundaries next week, but when the pressure builds, those boundaries dissolve. This pattern often reflects deeper beliefs about what’s allowed, what’s required to be valuable, or what will happen if you actually protect your time. Therapy helps clarify what sustainable balance looks like for you and build boundaries that hold up under real-world pressure, not just in theory.
Perfectionism drives you to work harder, longer, and with higher stakes than necessary. It shows up as never feeling satisfied with good work, constantly moving the goalpost, or believing that any mistake reflects fundamental inadequacy. The self-criticism that comes with it can be relentless and exhausting. Over time, it stops being motivating and starts being punishing. Therapy addresses where this pattern came from, what it’s trying to protect you from, and how to build a different relationship with achievement that doesn’t require constant self-attack.
Imposter syndrome is the persistent belief that you’re not as competent as people think you are and that eventually someone will figure it out. No amount of evidence—promotions, positive feedback, completed projects- seems to stick. The fear of being exposed drives overwork, perfectionism, and constant self-monitoring. It’s exhausting and isolating. Therapy helps examine the roots of this belief, challenge the evidence your mind keeps using against you, and build a more accurate and compassionate understanding of your actual competence.
Whether you’re changing roles, leaving a company, starting something new, or questioning your entire career path, transitions bring stress even when they’re chosen. The uncertainty, the identity shift, and the fear of making the wrong decision can be overwhelming. Therapy provides space to process the anxiety, clarify what you’re actually looking for, and build confidence in navigating the unknown. I also work with co-founders, managing the specific pressures of startup life and entrepreneurship.
Work stress isn’t just about having a lot to do. It’s about what happens when your nervous system stays activated for too long, when the strategies you’re using to cope stop working, and when the life you’re building starts costing more than it gives back.
Work stress activates your nervous system the same way a physical threat would. Over time, chronic activation shows up as:
Burnout develops over time. Recognizing where you are in the progression can help you intervene before it gets worse:
The SF Bay Area tech environment creates unique stress patterns. Fast-paced product cycles, constant performance evaluation, and cultures that glorify overwork can make burnout feel normal. Common experiences include:
Coping with work stress isn’t about working harder at self-care. It’s about building tools that actually work when pressure hits. Effective strategies include:
The first session is about understanding what’s happening and where you want to go:
You don’t need to have everything figured out before we start. A lot of the people I work with come in feeling stuck, burned out, or unclear about what’s actually wrong. Some arrive feeling frustrated that therapy has stayed on the surface before, or hasn’t quite fit. My work is more relational and ongoing, with space to build trust over time and understand what’s underneath the pattern. Therapy can become a place where clarity, self-acceptance, and a steadier way of living begin to grow.
Sustainable success doesn't require sacrificing everything else.
Workplace stress shows up differently depending on the person, but there are common patterns that signal your nervous system is overwhelmed. These signs often appear gradually and can be easy to dismiss as just part of working hard, which is why they go unaddressed for too long.
Burnout is distinct from everyday work stress. It’s what happens when chronic stress depletes your nervous system to the point where recovery becomes difficult even with rest. The key signs are emotional exhaustion, detachment from work, and a sense that nothing you do makes a difference.
Work stress itself isn’t a mental health diagnosis, but chronic work stress can absolutely impact your mental health. When your nervous system stays activated for too long without relief, it can contribute to anxiety, depression, and burnout. The stress response is a normal protective mechanism, but it’s not designed to stay on indefinitely. When it does, mental and physical health suffer. Addressing work stress through therapy is a legitimate mental health intervention, even if you don’t have a formal diagnosis.
Work stress comes from multiple sources. Some are external, demanding workloads, tight deadlines, difficult dynamics, and job insecurity. Others are internal, such as perfectionism, fear of failure, and beliefs about self-worth being tied to achievement. Often, it’s a combination. High-achieving environments like the SF Bay Area tech industry add their own layers: constant performance evaluation, rapid change, cultures that glorify overwork, and social pressure to keep up with peers who also appear to be thriving.
For many people, the stress also comes from a mismatch between the pace required and what feels sustainable, or between what work demands and what you actually value. Therapy helps untangle which parts of the stress are coming from external demands and which are being amplified by internal patterns.
Yes. Therapy for work stress addresses both the immediate stress response and the deeper patterns keeping it in place. In sessions, we work on nervous system regulation so your body can actually calm down, examine the thoughts and beliefs driving overwork, and build tools that help you respond to pressure instead of reacting from overwhelm. We also look at the ways stress might be connected to perfectionism, self-worth, or past experiences that are still influencing how you show up at work now. Therapy can’t change your job, but it can change how you carry what you’re responsible for.
Therapists help with work stress by providing tools for regulation, examining the patterns driving the cycle, and creating space to process what’s actually happening instead of just pushing through it. This includes:
You don’t need to be in crisis to benefit from therapy for work stress. Many people wait until they’re completely burned out, but earlier intervention is more effective. Consider therapy if work stress is affecting your sleep, your relationships, your physical health, or your sense of yourself. If you’re running strategies that used to work but aren’t anymore, if you’re questioning whether this is just what high performance costs, or if you’re noticing patterns you want to change but haven’t been able to shift on your own, therapy can help.
Seek therapy when work stress starts affecting multiple areas of your life or when you notice patterns you can’t shift on your own. Red flags include persistent sleep disruption, physical symptoms that won’t resolve, emotional numbness or irritability, difficulty concentrating, increased self-criticism, or withdrawing from relationships. If you’re using unhealthy coping strategies like overworking, avoiding, or relying on substances to manage stress, that’s another signal. You don’t have to wait until you’re completely depleted. Earlier intervention prevents burnout from progressing.
When you’re extremely stressed at work, the first step is regulation. Your nervous system is activated and needs to come down before you can think clearly. Try grounding techniques like deep breathing, stepping outside, or moving your body. Once you’re slightly more regulated, assess what’s actually urgent versus what feels urgent because you’re overwhelmed. Reach out for support, whether that’s a trusted colleague, a friend, or a therapist. If the stress is ongoing and not situational, therapy can help you build tools to manage it and examine what’s driving the intensity.
Decompressing from a stressful job requires more than just collapsing on the couch. Your nervous system needs active regulation to shift out of work mode. Effective decompression includes:
Burnout risk is higher for people in demanding roles with limited control, those who tie their self-worth to achievement, and individuals working in unsupportive or chaotic environments. High achievers, perfectionists, and people-pleasers are particularly vulnerable because they push past their limits and have trouble setting boundaries. Caregivers, people managing multiple responsibilities, and those in fast-paced industries like tech also face elevated risk. If you have a history of trauma, anxiety, or difficulty advocating for your needs, you’re more susceptible to burnout under prolonged stress.
Consider leaving a stressful job when the environment is actively harmful, when you’ve tried to create change and it’s not possible, or when staying is compromising your mental or physical health in unsustainable ways. Signs it might be time to leave include persistent anxiety or dread about going to work, health issues directly tied to job stress, toxic dynamics that won’t shift, or feeling like you’ve lost yourself completely. That said, leaving isn’t always the solution. Sometimes the stress is coming from internal patterns that will follow you to the next role. Therapy can help clarify whether the issue is the job or the way you’re relating to work.
Yes. Therapy for burnout focuses on nervous system recovery first, then addresses the patterns that led to depletion. We work on regulation tools, examine beliefs about rest and productivity, and rebuild a relationship with work that doesn’t require running yourself into the ground. Burnout recovery takes time because your system needs to learn that it’s safe to slow down. Therapy provides structure and support through that process.
Burnout research identifies three main types:
Most people experience a mix of these. Therapy helps identify which type you’re dealing with so we can address the specific drivers.
Jobs with high demands and low control create the highest burnout risk. If you’re responsible for outcomes but don’t have authority over decisions, resources, or processes, stress compounds. Other factors include unclear expectations, lack of recognition, inadequate support, toxic culture, and work that feels meaningless. Roles that require emotional labor, managing others’ feelings while suppressing your own, are also high risk. In the SF Bay Area, tech jobs often combine several of these: fast pace, high stakes, ambiguous goals, constant change, and cultures that normalize overwork.
The timeline depends on what you’re working with and what you’re trying to achieve. Some people feel relief within a few sessions as they build regulation tools and gain clarity. Deeper pattern work, addressing perfectionism, self-worth issues, or long-standing beliefs about work, takes longer. I focus on mid-to-long-term therapy because that’s where meaningful change happens. Most people I work with stay in therapy for several months to a year or more, meeting weekly. We’ll talk about your goals in the first session and adjust the timeline as the work unfolds.
Therapy for work stress is effective when there’s a good fit between the therapist’s approach and what you need. Not all therapy works for all people, which is why I focus on getting feedback and adapting to what’s actually helpful for you. The approaches I use, mindfulness, somatic therapy, EMDR, and psychodynamic work, are all evidence-based. What makes therapy effective isn’t just the method. It’s the relationship, the timing, and whether you’re ready to look at the patterns keeping stress in place.
Yes. I provide online therapy to clients across California. Online therapy works well for work stress because it’s accessible, flexible, and removes barriers like commute time. Many of the people I work with have demanding schedules, and online sessions make it easier to fit therapy into their lives without adding another logistical burden.
I do not accept insurance, but I can provide superbills for you to submit to your insurance company for potential out-of-network reimbursement. Many clients receive partial reimbursement this way. I recommend contacting your insurance provider to confirm your out-of-network mental health benefits before starting therapy.
Therapy is offered online to clients across California
Sessions take place through a secure video platform
Clients are based throughout the SF Bay Area, including:
The first step is a free 30-minute consultation. We’ll talk about what you’re dealing with, I’ll explain how I work, and we’ll figure out if this feels like the right fit. We’ll figure out what you need, whether that’s working together or connecting you with someone else.
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