Burnout sneaks up. Late nights, an “I can just finish one more thing” mindset, and promises to rest that never materialize. Burnout is not laziness. It is emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion from pushing beyond your limits in the context of prolonged stress. Therapy can help you restore energy, rebuild sustainable habits, and prevent relapse.

Signs of Burnout

• Physical: Constant fatigue, headaches, muscle tension, digestive issues, poor sleep, frequent illness

• Emotional: Irritability, anxiety, agitation, numbness, loss of motivation or joy, sadness

• Cognitive: Brain fog, forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, indecision

How Burnout Develops

Burnout often grows from years of over-functioning, perfectionism, and people-pleasing. These patterns are not personal failures. They are strategies that once helped you cope, succeed, or stay safe, but over time they can leave the nervous system stuck in survival mode.

When worth becomes tied to productivity, responsibility, or holding things together, rest can start to feel risky rather than restorative.

Therapy for Burnout

Recovery from burnout is more than taking time off. In therapy, we will:

• Map how your roles, expectations, and coping strategies were shaped and reinforced

• Restructure daily life with realistic limits, delegation, and prioritization

• Reframe perfectionistic and people-pleasing beliefs that drive chronic overwork

• Learn body-based tools to calm your nervous system and restore regulation

Holistic Approach

My work is integrative and trauma-informed. I combine CBT, ACT and mindfulness, DBT skills, attachment-based and psychodynamic therapy, and somatic and trauma-informed approaches so your nervous system, habits, and beliefs shift together.

I also have specialized training in recovery from narcissistic and emotionally unavailable parenting, a background that often contributes to burnout rooted in chronic self-pressure, over-responsibility, or difficulty resting without guilt.

This integrated approach supports real change, not just insight, so relief is sustainable.

What Therapy Can Offer

• More balanced mood and physical energy

• Clearer thinking and decision-making

• Healthier boundaries and less guilt around rest

• Sustainable balance and work that fits the life you want

If you are exhausted and ready to refill your tank, I offer in-person burnout therapy in Danville, CA, and secure online sessions across California and Hawaii.

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Are you often saying yes when you want to say no, apologizing for simply existing, weighed down by guilt, or stuck in constant motion? Chronic people-pleasing quietly drains energy and blurs who you are. I help adults shift from automatic caretaking into living with authenticity and balance.

Signs you might be a people-pleaser

• Saying “yes” when you want to say “no”

• Avoiding conflict or difficult conversations

• Feeling responsible for other people’s feelings

• Neglecting your own needs, rest, or priorities

How therapy helps
Therapy gives you practical tools and a safe space to change patterns. Together we will:

• Identify the core beliefs that keep you people-pleasing

• Practice healthy boundary skills you can use immediately

• Rebuild self-worth that’s not tied to doing or pleasing

• Shift self-critical thinking toward self-compassion and clear action

My integrated approach
For many people-pleasers, these patterns began in families where love felt conditional or where a parent’s needs came first. I am certified in Dr. Karyl McBride’s 5-Step Recovery Model, an approach for healing the long-term impact of narcissistic or emotionally unavailable parenting.

My work is integrative and individualized. I combine CBT to loosen self-critical thinking, ACT and mindfulness to build awareness and values-based choice, psychodynamic and attachment-focused therapy to understand where these patterns began, and somatic and trauma-informed approaches to help release emotion and stress held in the body.

Together, this approach supports meaningful, sustainable change that is not just insight, but a different way of relating to yourself and others.

What to expect in recovery

• Clearer, kinder boundaries that feel natural

• Less anxiety about others’ approval

• Deeper, more connected relationships

• More energy and time for what matters to you

• Greater ease asking for and receiving help

Ready to reclaim your voice? I offer in-person therapy in Danville, CA and online across California and Hawaii for adults ready to get unstuck.

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Perfectionism can look productive from the outside, but underneath it often carries relentless self-criticism, procrastination, and burnout. If your sense of worth feels tied to results or flawless performance, therapy can help you keep what’s useful and let go of what’s costly.

Signs of Perfectionism

• A harsh inner critic and difficulty celebrating wins

• Procrastination driven by fear of failure

• Over-functioning and all-or-nothing thinking

• Chronic shame, guilt, or fragile self-esteem

How It Develops

Perfectionism often begins as a survival strategy: being “the good one,” the reliable one, or the one who doesn’t need much in order to earn safety or approval. In families where love felt conditional or emotionally inconsistent, performance can quietly become the measure of worth. Over time, this turns into an internal rulebook that narrows possibility, joy, and rest.

Therapy for Perfectionism

Therapy is not about lowering standards; it’s about increasing flexibility so you can perform sustainably rather than at the cost of your well-being. Together, we will:

• Trace the roots of your perfectionism to understand how and why it once protected you

• Address the inner critic using evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

• Practice “good enough” experiments and values-driven action (ACT)

• Rebuild curiosity, creativity, and rest alongside productivity

Integrated Approach

My work is integrative and developmentally informed. I combine CBT and ACT to soften self-critical thinking and build psychological flexibility, attachment-based and psychodynamic work to understand how early relationships shaped your self-expectations, and somatic and trauma-informed therapies to help your nervous system step out of constant “prove yourself” mode.

I also have specialized training in recovery from narcissistic and emotionally unavailable parenting, which often underlies perfectionism rooted in chronic self-doubt or conditional approval.

Signs of Healing

• More energy and less burnout

• A broader emotional life and more joy

• Increased creativity and risk-taking without paralysis

• A kinder inner voice and steadier sense of self

• More satisfying and balanced relationships

If perfectionism is costing your health or relationships, therapy can help you achieve without exhaustion. I offer in-person therapy in Danville, CA, and secure online sessions across California and Hawaii.

Book a free consultation to learn more about how I can help.

Codependency isn’t just being “too helpful.” It is a set of survival strategies that developed when your emotional needs were not reliably met. These strategies may have kept you safe once, but over time they can leave you drained, anxious, resentful, or unsure of who you are. Therapy helps you untangle old patterns and reconnect with yourself.

What Codependency Can Look Like (Adapted from Pia Mellody)

Boundaries:

Struggling to know where you stop and others begin. You may take on other people’s emotions as your responsibility or swing toward emotional distance to protect yourself. Staying connected while honoring yourself feels difficult.

Self-worth:

Basing your value on external measures such as being needed, being approved of, or being seen as competent rather than on a steady internal sense of “good enough.”

Reality:

Difficulty fully owning your own thoughts, feelings, and needs, or respecting others’ reality. You may minimize what you feel or assume responsibility for how others feel.

Self-care:

Neglecting rest, nourishment, or emotional needs while prioritizing others. Even pausing can feel selfish rather than necessary.

Moderation:

Difficulty finding balance. You may oscillate between over-giving and withdrawal, intensity and shutdown, effort and exhaustion.

These patterns are not character flaws. They are adaptive responses to early relational experiences. Over time, however, they can quietly erode well-being, intimacy, and self-trust.

How Codependency Develops

Codependency often develops in environments where emotions were dismissed or punished, boundaries were inconsistent or ignored, roles were reversed and children learned to care for adults, or love and approval felt conditional.

In these settings, attunement to others becomes a way to stay safe, connected, or valued. What once protected you may now leave you depleted, resentful, or unsure how to prioritize yourself without guilt.

Therapy For Codependency

I use an integrative, trauma-informed approach tailored to your history and nervous system. I am certified in Dr. Karyl McBride’s 5-Step Recovery Model, a framework for healing the long-term effects of narcissistic or emotionally unavailable parenting, dynamics that frequently underlie codependent patterns.

Depending on your needs, therapy may include:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to identify and shift beliefs and behaviors that keep you stuck

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills to strengthen mindfulness, emotion regulation, and healthy boundaries

• Psychodynamic, attachment-based, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) work to heal early relational wounds and meet protective parts such as the People-Pleaser or Inner Child

• Somatic and trauma-informed therapies to release emotion and stress held in the body and support nervous system regulation

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and mindfulness practices to cultivate flexibility, self-compassion and values-based action

Healing Goals

In therapy, we will work toward:

• Understanding your patterns so they finally make sense

• Building boundaries by saying no without guilt and yes without resentment

• Reclaiming self-worth independent of caretaking or performance

• Reconnecting with and effectively attending to your needs, preferences, emotions, and body

• Carrying what is truly yours and letting go of what isn’t

Codependency recovery is not about becoming someone new. It is about coming home to yourself.

If codependency has left you feeling stuck, depleted, or resentful, you do not have to do it alone. I offer in-person therapy in Danville, CA, and secure online sessions across California and Hawaii.

I offer consultation and support to mental health professionals navigating challenging cases, burnout, or the development of their private practices. Whether you seek clinical guidance or professional growth support, I’m here to help.