Burnout Therapy in Los Angeles

You're not lazy. You're not weak. You're running on a battery that died months ago and you're still trying to power through on willpower alone.

You wake up tired. You go through the motions at work. You come home with nothing left for the people who matter most. The things that used to excite you feel like obligations. The weekends don't recharge you. The vacations don't help. You keep thinking "I just need to get through this week" but the weeks never end and the feeling never lifts.

I'm Dr. Jené Verchick, a licensed clinical psychologist with over 26 years of experience. I work with adults throughout California who are burned out and can't figure out how to stop the cycle without blowing up their lives.

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Burnout is not Just Being Tired

Tired goes away with rest. Burnout doesn't. Burnout is what happens when you've been giving more than you have for so long that your nervous system stopped cooperating.

It's not a time management problem. It's not a motivation problem. It's a psychological and physiological collapse that happens when the demands on you consistently exceed your capacity to meet them, and you have no permission (from yourself or anyone else) to stop.

Here's what burnout actually looks like in the people I work with:

• You're performing well at work but you feel nothing about it. The success is hollow.

• You're irritable with your partner and kids and you don't know why. You used to be patient. Now everything sets you off.

• You can't make decisions. Your brain is foggy. Simple things feel overwhelming.

• You've stopped doing things you used to enjoy. Not because you're depressed exactly, but because you have no energy for anything beyond the bare minimum.

• You're physically sick more often. Headaches, stomach problems, insomnia, jaw clenching, back pain. Your doctor says it's stress. That's not a diagnosis. That's a description.

• You fantasize about quitting, disappearing, or burning it all down. Not because you actually want to. Because your brain is desperate for an exit that doesn't exist.

Who Burns Out

Everyone thinks burnout happens to people who don't take care of themselves. That's wrong. Burnout happens to the people who care the most.

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High achievers and perfectionists

You set impossible standards for yourself and then meet them, over and over, at enormous personal cost. The bar keeps rising because you keep raising it. Learn more about anxiety therapy.

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Founders and entrepreneurs

our company needs everything you have. There's no one to delegate to, no one who cares as much as you do, and no boundary between work and life. Learn more about therapy for founders.

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Finance professionals

The markets don't sleep and neither do you. The pressure is constant, the stakes are real, and showing weakness is not an option. Learn more about therapy for hedge fund traders.

 

Working parents

Two full-time jobs: your career and your family. Neither one gets your best. Both get whatever's left. The guilt of not being enough in either role is its own kind of exhaustion.

 

Caregivers

You're taking care of an aging parent, a sick spouse, a struggling child. Everyone relies on you. Nobody asks how you're doing.

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Executives and professionals

You've built a career that looks exactly like what you wanted. It's also consuming you. The meetings, the travel, the decisions, the people who need things from you, the loneliness of being the one everyone depends on.

Why Burnout Gets Worse Without Help

Burnout doesn't plateau. It escalates. What starts as tiredness becomes cynicism. Cynicism becomes detachment. Detachment becomes depression. And depression in a high-functioning person looks nothing like what most people imagine. It looks like someone who's still performing but has stopped feeling anything.

The other thing that happens: your relationships absorb the damage. You're short with your partner. You're checked out with your kids. You're isolating from friends. The people closest to you are getting the worst version of you because work is getting everything you have. Learn more about couples therapy.

If this sounds familiar, you're not at the beginning of burnout. You're deep in it. And the strategies that got you here (work harder, push through, just get through this quarter) are the same ones making it worse.

How I Work With People Who Are Burnt Out

I don't tell you to take a bubble bath or practice mindfulness. If that worked, you wouldn't be here.

My approach goes deeper than coping strategies. We figure out what's driving the burnout, not just what it looks like on the surface.

Sometimes it's a pattern you've carried since childhood: the belief that your worth is your output. Sometimes it's a relationship dynamic where you've become the person who holds everything together and can't ask for help. Sometimes it's a career that no longer fits who you are but the golden handcuffs make it impossible to leave. Sometimes it's all three.

We identify the pattern. We understand where it came from. And we change it. Not by quitting your job or abandoning your responsibilities, but by rebuilding your relationship with work, rest, and the people in your life so that the equation actually balances.

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26+ Years of Experience

I've worked with burned out professionals for over two decades. The pattern is always the same: someone brilliant, capable, and driven who has been running on fumes for so long they forgot what full feels like. They come in thinking they need a strategy. They leave understanding that the strategy was the problem.

What Clients Say

"I ran a company and ran my home and ran myself into the ground. I thought burnout was just what ambition felt like. Dr. Verchick helped me see the difference and gave me permission to stop treating my nervous system like an engine that never needs rest." -- Beverly Hills

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"I was having panic attacks on Sunday nights before the work week started. I hadn't taken a real vacation in four years. I was proud of that. Dr. Verchick asked me why I was proud of self-destruction. That one question changed everything." -- Brentwood

 

"My wife told me I'd become a ghost. I was home every night but I wasn't there. I had nothing left after work. Dr. Verchick helped me see that I'd built a life that had no room for me in it. We're rebuilding. I'm still working hard, but I'm actually present now." -- Manhattan Beach

 

"I'm a surgeon. I was trained to push through everything. Sleep deprivation, emotional exhaustion, impossible hours. Burnout wasn't a word anyone used. Dr. Verchick was the first person who said out loud that what I was doing to myself wasn't sustainable. That validation alone made me feel less crazy." -- Encino

Frequently asked questions

Is burnout the same as depression?

Not exactly, but they overlap. Burnout is driven by chronic stress, usually from work. Depression can exist without burnout and vice versa. But untreated burnout often leads to depression. I assess for both and treat what's actually happening, not just what it looks like on the surface.

 

I can't take time off work. Can therapy still help?

Yes. Therapy for burnout isn't about telling you to quit or take a sabbatical. It's about changing the patterns that are draining you so that the same work costs less. Most of my burned out clients stay in their careers. They just stop being destroyed by them.

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How long does burnout therapy take?

It depends on how deep the pattern goes. Some people feel significant relief in a few months. Others need longer to untangle the identity, relationship, and career patterns that created the burnout. There's no set timeline.

 

I'm not sure if I'm burned out or just stressed.

If rest fixes it, it's stress. If rest doesn't fix it, and you've felt this way for months, and the things that used to matter feel hollow, that's burnout. Come in and we'll figure it out together.

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Can burnout therapy be done via video?

Yes. All sessions are secure video. For burned out clients, the convenience of not adding a commute to an already overloaded day matters.