Therapy for professionals can best address the challenges busy professionals face. That’s because professionals seek therapy for a range of reasons that may not always overlap with the general population. Whether it’s pressures at their job, feeling burned out, seeking healthier boundaries with their work and employees/coworkers, or a number of other symptoms, professionals who seek therapy often face unique challenges.
In this blog, we’ll explain why professionals seek therapy. Then, we’ll talk about what therapy can do for these professionals. Lastly, we’ll share our strategy for finding the right therapist for you.
Why do Working Professionals Seek Therapy?
Professionals seek therapy for reasons related to their work and reasons perhaps unrelated to their day jobs. Anxiety, depression, burnout, and perfectionism can be common concerns. Some professionals seek therapy for better work/life balance, help identifying and implementing boundaries at work, support in life and work transitions, and much more.
Here’s a list of symptoms that can be addressed by therapy for professionals:
- Insomnia
- Self-doubt
- High stress
- Exhaustion
- Grinding teeth
- Stomach problems
- Relationship issues
- Feeling under appreciated
- Difficulties with work peers
- Inability to cope with stress
- Alcohol and substance use
- Low motivation and low energy
- Difficulties with public speaking
- Inability to or trouble with focus
- Body tension worsened by stress
- Strengthening organizational skills
- Low confidence or low self-esteem
- Managing a healthy work-life balance
- Transitioning into a new career or field
- Trouble letting thoughts about work go
- Feeling helpless or apathetic in your work
- Issues with concentration and adult ADHD
- Adjusting to a new town or work environment
- Not feeling satisfied and fulfilled by your work
- Effectively communicating to co-workers and loved ones
- “Imposter Syndrome” or feeling undeserving of your achievements
While this list is not exhaustive, the most common symptoms are represented.
Who Can Benefit from Therapy Centered on Professionals?
Glad you asked. At Destination Therapy, we’ve helped various kinds of professionals feel better. Our professional clients have included doctors, nurses, lawyers, consultants, attorneys, CEOs, entrepreneurs, high-ranking company personnel, marketers, engineers, managers, and other types of busy professionals.
These clients may be experiencing workloads and pressures that other employees don’t have to deal with. This can cause stress to accumulate if self-care and rest aren’t adequate.
Additionally, as your expertise grows, you may have more responsibilities and less colleagues or friends who can relate to your work pressures. This can be one reason why therapy for professionals is so important. Professionals can benefit from having someone to talk to like we all do at times.
How Can Therapy for Professionals Help Me?
If you’re a busy or perhaps stressed professional, talk therapy can be an amazing way to get relief for your symptoms. But there’s more to therapy than just talking. The right therapist will be able to help you identify negative thought patterns and beliefs, and potentially trace them back to experiences from your past.
Negative self-talk from our inner critic can be crippling at times. In his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche said, “you yourself will always be the worst enemy you can encounter.” This is often paraphrased as “You’re your own worst enemy.”
Some professionals feel the truth of this statement every day in their roles. As pressures mount, the inner critic can grow louder and more unrelenting. Perfectionism and self-talk can be common focuses in therapy for professionals. Luckily, a mental health professional can help isolate this voice and give strategies to counter it in real time.
The Dark Side of High Ambition
Another way therapy can help professionals is to get insight on any potential negative sources of motivation that are causing unhealthy patterns of behavior.
For example, Henry, a married accountant in his early 40s, has been realizing how much his drive to succeed comes from a fear of being homeless and financially broke. In the process of therapy, Henry’s therapist helps him find the root cause of this fear and assuage it. After this process, Henry feels less negatively driven to work long hours. Additionally, he is not fighting himself when he feels the need to rest and can enjoy getting a massage or sitting in the movie theater.
While Henry’s fear of being homeless and financially broke can be a common negative driver of motivation, there are many more. Other examples include feeling the need to prove one’s worth through high work output, feeling the need to meet others’ needs at the expense of one’s own, and not wanting to upset people in positions of authority.
How Therapy for Professionals Can Help You Have Your Own Back
One other way therapy can help ease your burden is by helping you to advocate for yourself.
Because professionals can be high-achievers, responsibilities can stack up on their plates. Being reliable can mean more people will seek to rely on you. This is okay if consciously chosen and you can handle it. But some professionals find themselves overburdened and stretched too thin.
Due to this, therapy for professionals can help you find your “line in the sand” and begin to set and maintain boundaries at work and in your personal life. Whether it’s telling your boss (or employees, or coworkers) “no” in a respectful yet firm manner, or not overcommitting to new projects, or developing a guideline for making decisions, therapy can help you.
Why Do Working Professionals in Houston Choose Destination Therapy?
Destination Therapy helps professionals overcome many kinds of emotional challenges or concerns. We recommend that every therapy client get matched with a therapist who can meet their needs. Luckily, we can match you with one of our therapists who will be able to help with your concerns.
To ensure our pick is a good match, we offer a free 15-minute consultation call. This is to make sure you feel that your therapist is right for you.
If you’re ready to explore therapy as an option for easing your concerns, we recommend that you reach out to us. We’re happy to help you get back to balance and confidence.
