Therapy for Burnout: A Depth Psychotherapy Approach

Burnout is often described as stress, overwork, or poor boundaries. And certainly, those are part of the picture. It’s something I personally became familiar with during my first career in corporate America. From the perspective of depth therapy, burnout is not a motivation or productivity problem. It is a crisis of meaning.

Many clients who seek therapy for burnout are not simply tired. They are existentially exhausted. They have been competent, responsible, and high-functioning for years. They have met expectations. They have achieved. And yet something in them has quietly withered.

In depth psychotherapy, we understand this exhaustion as psychological as well as physical. It is not just the body that collapses. It is the personality structure that has been carrying too much for too long.

Burnout as Compensation: A Jungian View

Carl Jung repeatedly warned about the danger of one-sided development. When consciousness over-identifies with achievement, control, or adaptation, the neglected parts of the psyche compensate. Burnout can be understood as this compensatory movement. The psyche attempts to restore balance by withdrawing energy from a life that has become too narrow.

From this perspective, burnout is not something broken in you. It is your unconscious withdrawing energy from a one-sided life that no longer fits.

Jung wrote, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” Burnout often signals that something in the darkness has been ignored for too long. Is it grief, anger, longing, creativity, or even rage at over-adaptation? The symptom is not the enemy. It is the messenger.

The Persona and the Cost of Over-Adaptation

In modern professional culture, the persona becomes highly developed. We perform competence. We meet metrics. We become indispensable. The persona is necessary; without it, we could not function socially.

But when identity becomes fused with the persona, the inner life starves.

Jung described the persona as “a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be.” We know what "shoulds" do to us, right? Burnout often arises when we have been showing up masked for too long. It often indicates a psychic need to return to who we are beneath the mask.

In my work as a depth psychotherapist, I often see clients who have built successful lives while slowly abandoning parts of themselves. The artist becomes the executive. The sensitive child becomes the unshakeable leader. The caretaker forgets their own needs entirely.

Eventually, the psyche protests.

Burnout and the Shadow

Burnout frequently carries shadow material. The “good employee” may harbor unacknowledged resentment. The “selfless partner” may carry forbidden anger. The “strong one” may have disowned vulnerability.

When we repeatedly suppress these parts, psychic energy constricts. Fatigue, irritability, brain fog, and even illness can emerge as signals of imbalance.

Marie-Louise von Franz emphasized that symptoms often represent unlived aspects of the personality seeking integration. From a depth therapy lens, burnout is not simply depletion; it is confrontation.

What have you been unable to say no to? What desire are you ignoring? What grief has been postponed?

Therapy for burnout in a depth framework does not rush toward quick optimization. Instead, it creates space to encounter these shadow elements with curiosity and compassion, rather than shame.

Descent as Psychological Necessity

In achievement-driven culture, collapse feels like failure. Yet in myth and in Jungian psychology, descent is necessary. The hero enters the underworld before transformation. The old identity must loosen before something more authentic can emerge.

Jung observed, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Burnout may be painful precisely because it dismantles identification with productivity and forces contact with vulnerability.

Rather than asking, “How do I get back to my previous output?” depth psychotherapy asks, “What part of me can no longer live this way?”

That question opens the door to individuation — the lifelong process of becoming more fully oneself.

Dreams, Symbols, and the Burned-Out Psyche

One of the distinguishing elements of depth psychotherapy is attention to dreams and symbolic life. During burnout, dreams often intensify. Clients report images of drowning, being lost, missing trains, wandering through abandoned buildings, or discovering hidden rooms.

These images are not random. They are communications from the unconscious.

James Hillman encouraged therapists to “stick to the image.” Rather than translating dreams too quickly into solutions, depth therapy allows the image to unfold. A dream of fire may signify destruction — but also purification. A hidden room may suggest undiscovered aspects of self.

In in-person therapy, the embodied presence of therapist and client can deepen this symbolic work. The nervous system settles. The psyche feels held. The room itself becomes a container for descent and renewal.

Burnout as Threshold

Burnout feels like an ending. In many cases, it is. It may signal the end of a particular identity, career path, relational dynamic, or internal narrative organized around achievement.

Keep in mind, endings are thresholds.

Depth psychotherapy does not aim to restore the old self. It supports the emergence of a more integrated one. This often includes practical shifts — clearer boundaries, reduced workload, honest conversations. It also requires inner differentiation from the persona and integration of shadow.

When burnout is approached through depth therapy rather than self-criticism, something unexpected can happen. Exhaustion becomes a guide.

From Exhaustion to Alignment

Healing burnout is not about returning to who you were before the collapse. It is about becoming more aligned with who you are now.

If you are seeking therapy for burnout, working with a depth psychotherapist offers more than stress management tools. It offers a space to explore meaning, identity, dreams, and the deeper currents shaping your life.

Burnout may be a psychological summons — an invitation to live less from obligation and more from authenticity.

If this resonates, at Rezak Therapy we offer in-person therapy for individuals navigating burnout, life transitions, and identity shifts. We also provide couples therapy for partners impacted by stress and overwork, and group therapy for those who long to explore these themes in community.

You do not have to navigate this threshold alone. Depth psychotherapy creates space for the soul’s exhaustion to speak, and for something more whole to begin. You are invited to reach out and schedule a free consultation with Sarah Rezak, LMFT.