Therapy for Therapists: Why Clinicians Need Support Too
Who Holds Space for the Healers?
As therapists, we do a remarkable thing every day: we sit with people in their pain. We witness their grief, fear, trauma, hope, and transformation. We show up with presence, empathy, and steadiness. But I’ve learned — sometimes the hard way — that holding space for others doesn’t mean we’re untouched by what we carry. It doesn't make us invincible. And the truth is: we need space too.
The Quiet Toll of This Work
For a long time, I thought I could manage it all internally — that if I just stayed grounded enough, resourced enough, the weight wouldn’t stick. But no matter how skilled or seasoned we are, there’s a cost to being present with pain day after day. It doesn’t always look like burnout or a breakdown. Sometimes it’s subtler — like feeling emotionally numb after a session, dreading your caseload in ways you didn’t used to, or catching yourself zoning out during sessions. Sometimes it’s noticing that you haven’t cried in a year... or that you cry all the time and can’t explain why. We absorb a lot. And without space to release or process it, it builds up in our systems — emotionally, physically, spiritually.
And Then There’s Everything Else
Therapists aren’t just therapists. We’re partners, parents, adult children, friends, humans in a hard world. We go through losses, transitions, trauma, uncertainty — sometimes while still showing up for others in their hardest moments. It’s a strange dissonance, to be guiding someone else through their grief while still figuring out how to tend to our own. That dissonance can be so isolating. And when you’re used to being the one people come to, it can be hard to even admit to yourself that you need someone, too. When my daughter went through a 3 year battle with anorexia, I hit rock bottom as a mom and it started to show up in my work with others. I took some time off and was as transparent as I could be with many of my clients. Struggling through that time, I depended heavily on my own therapist as a grounding presence, voice of reason, and most importantly, a source of validation.
The Hard Part: Reaching Out
There are so many reasons we don’t. We worry about being seen as less competent. We tell ourselves we should know how to manage it. We don’t want to risk being vulnerable with someone who might know someone we know. We’re tired — and adding one more hour of emotional work to the week can feel like too much. But here’s what I’ve learned, personally and professionally: The bravest thing we can do as therapists is allow ourselves to be supported. Not because we’re broken. Not because we’re in crisis. But because we are human. And humans need care.
What Therapy Can Feel Like — When It’s for You
Therapy for therapists is different. Not in its structure, but in its tone. There’s often a shorthand — a mutual understanding of what it feels like to hold trauma, to track twelve things at once, to feel responsible for everyone else’s regulation. It’s a space where you don’t have to explain everything. Where you can put your “therapist self” down for a while and just be you — messy, uncertain, grieving, healing. It’s a place where the questions can be yours, and the silence can be held for your benefit.
In the work I do with other clinicians, we might explore things like:
Processing vicarious trauma that’s settled in your body
Recovering from burnout or compassion fatigue
Navigating personal loss, transition, or change
Tending to the parts of you that don’t get much airtime — the scared one, the angry one, the tired one
Reconnecting with what made you love this work in the first place
Sometimes we use IFS and EMDR or somatic work to move through stuck places. Sometimes we just talk. Either way, it’s a space that’s yours — no hats to wear, no roles to play.
A Personal Note from Me:
Therapists are truly my favorite population to work with. There’s something sacred about sitting across from a fellow clinician and offering the kind of space we so often give but rarely receive. There’s an ease and depth that happens when we speak the same language — when I don’t have to explain what it means to carry sixty stories in your head at once, or how hard it is to rest when you feel responsible for everyone else’s healing. I’ve been the therapist who needed therapy (always will!). I’ve been the one sitting in the client chair, unsure if I was allowed to be struggling. I know how vulnerable it is to ask for help — and I also know the immense relief that comes with finally doing so. If you’re feeling the weight of it all lately, I just want to say: you’re not weak. You’re not failing. You’re human. And you deserve care just as much as anyone you work with. Maybe even more.
Whenever you're ready — I’m here.
With so much respect,
Amy
