Burnout therapy in Calgary.
Burnout isn’t laziness, isn’t depression (though it often becomes that), and isn’t something a weekend off fixes. Therapy that names what’s actually happening and works on the internal and structural pieces together.
The kinds of burnout we treat.
Professional burnout — knowledge work, oil-and-gas cycles, healthcare workers, lawyers, teachers. The exhaustion that comes from doing too much for too long, often in systems you can’t change alone.
Parental burnout — under-recognised, deeply real. The cumulative depletion that comes with chronic caregiving, often compounded by partnership inequities and isolation.
Caregiver burnout — aging parents, chronic-illness household, special-needs caregiving. Grief, anticipatory grief, and exhaustion stacked.
Educator burnout — the specific shape of moral injury and exhaustion in teaching.
Burnout-depression overlap — when prolonged burnout has tipped into clinical depression and the two are no longer easy to separate.
Recovery after burnout — not “manage stress better”; the work of rebuilding capacity, redefining what sustainable looks like, and changing the conditions that produced the burnout.
The World Health Organization classifies burnout in the ICD-11 as an occupational phenomenon — a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed (WHO, 2019).
Internal and structural, both.
Initial mapping — what’s structural (the job, the household, the system), what’s internal (perfectionism, identity wrapped in productivity, the “just keep going” pattern), and what’s both. Therapy that ignores either side usually doesn’t work.
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) — values clarification, decoupling self-worth from output, building a different relationship with the “you must keep going” rules. ACT has good evidence for depression, anxiety, and somatic health problems (A-Tjak et al., 2015) — well-matched to the depression/anxiety mix that often accompanies burnout.
CBT — for the catastrophic thinking, the all-or-nothing patterns, the cognitive distortions that burnout amplifies.
Boundaries work — not the cliché; the actual work of changing what you say yes to, who you say it to, and what the cost is.
Couples or family inclusion — when the household is part of the system producing the burnout, the household often needs to be part of the work.
What we don’t do: turn burnout into a productivity problem. The goal isn’t to make you better at the thing that’s breaking you.
Therapists on the team who do burnout work.
Browse and click into a bio. The free consult is a call to talk through fit, fees, and insurance.
“Your trust in me is a privilege, and I am here to support and guide you every step of the way.”
“Taking the step to start therapy is an act of courage and self-care — and I'm here to support you.”
“Every story, identity, and experience deserves to be understood, honoured, and met with compassion.”
Burnout therapy, asked and answered.
How is burnout different from depression?
They overlap and often co-occur. Burnout is specifically tied to chronic role-stress (work, parenting, caregiving) and tends to lift when the role conditions change or are renegotiated. Depression is broader, can occur in any life context, and doesn’t always respond to changing external conditions. Many people present with both. A consult helps clarify what you’re actually working with.
I can’t take time off — can therapy actually help?
Yes, though the work is harder when the structural conditions can’t change. We’ll be honest about the limits and work on what can shift — internal frame, micro-changes in the role, communication with people in your system, and protective practices for the time you do have.
How long does burnout therapy take?
Varies. Mid-stage burnout often responds within a few months of focused work. Advanced burnout that has tipped into depression or affected physical health usually takes longer and may benefit from coordination with your family doctor.
What if my partner doesn’t understand?
Common. We can bring them in for a session or two if you both want, specifically to map the household dynamics that are part of the picture. That’s different from couples therapy — the goal is shared understanding of what’s happening, not relationship repair.
Are sessions covered by insurance?
Most extended health plans cover Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists. Direct billing is available with Blue Cross.
In-person or online?
Both. Sessions at our Calgary office (2640 30 St SW) or by encrypted video for clients across Alberta.
References
WHO. (2019, May 28). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases. World Health Organization. who.int
A-Tjak, J. G. L., Davis, M. L., Morina, N., Powers, M. B., Smits, J. A. J., & Emmelkamp, P. M. G. (2015). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy for clinically relevant mental and physical health problems. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(1), 30–36. doi:10.1159/000365764
Twenty minutes. On the phone. Free.
Tell us what’s going on and ask anything — insurance, format, fees, what a first session looks like. You’ll be on the call with one of our therapists, and we’ll go from there together. If we’re not the right practice for you, we’ll say so.