Therapy for physicians

Though this isn't an exhaustive list, the following mental health professionals can provide individual and group therapy for physicians: clinical social workers, pastoral counselors (members of the clergy who have specialized training in clinical pastoral education), marriage and family therapists, and psychologists. Most mental health professionals obtain a master's degree to provide therapy.

As clinical psychologists, we have PhD doctoral degrees in my practice. Many mental health professionals have extensive training and can provide individual therapy, family therapy, and group therapy. However, not all have direct experience as therapists for physicians.

All the therapists in our practice have extensive experience treating doctors in therapy.

Yes, we provide counseling exclusively online. This allows us to offer mental health care to a wide range of medical professionals across the states of California, Texas, and 43 other states, including doctors in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Westwood, West Hollywood, San Francisco, Orange County, Palo Alto, San Diego, Dallas, Austin, Houston, and more.

Many doctors enjoy online therapy for the convenience. Your jam-packed schedule doesn't allow you much extra time, so being able to quickly join virtual sessions can be clutch. All sessions take place via a HIPAA-compliant platform to ensure that your information stays confidential.

Yes, confidentiality is incredibly serious to me. And you’re not alone in this fear. In fact, one study suggests that nearly 40% of physicians are reluctant to seek mental health care out of concern for jeopardizing their medical license. While your concerns are valid, so is your well-being.

Confidentiality is the utmost priority in my practice. As a therapist for physicians, I am not in-network with any insurance companies. This allows us to forgo giving a potentially stigmatizing diagnosis that you may fear having to disclose beyond our client-therapist relationship. Instead, we can support your mental health on your terms alone.

Confidentiality concerns can lead some physicians to seek care without using any health insurance benefits. Nonetheless, if you choose, you also have the option of pursuing out-of-network reimbursement for sessions. Whatever works for you, works for us.

Therapy for physicians is often a good fit for doctors who are outwardly high-functioning and successful, yet privately, they’re deeply struggling. This may include doctors who are experiencing burnout, anxiety, relationship difficulties, a sense of emotional depletion, or so many other possible difficulties (be it internally or externally). 

Many of the physicians we work with are deeply capable in their professional roles, yet they find themselves repeatedly caught in patterns of perfectionism, self-criticism, painful family-of-origin dynamics, and so many other things that no longer serve them. And they come to therapy because they realize that these things are difficult to untangle on their own. This work is well suited for physicians who are ready to look beyond simplistic symptom management and instead explore the deeper emotional patterns shaping how they live and relate.

Many stress-management approaches focus primarily on coping strategies, “quick fixes,” or symptom reduction as the main therapeutic goals. While these tools can be helpful to some extent, many physicians share that they eventually reach a ceiling in how effective these techniques feel—or that they miss the deeper mark altogether.

In our therapy work with physicians, we take a deeper, psychodynamic approach. Together, we explore the underlying emotional and relational patterns that shape how you work, relate, carry responsibility, and move through your life both inside and outside of medicine.

This work helps physicians understand the deeper emotional forces that drive perfectionism, over-responsibility, chronic pressure, and a sense of inner emptiness. Rather than offering tools to simply “manage symptoms,” the focus is on developing lasting insight and internal change, so that relief is not just temporary or surface-level.

Yes, our practice operates exclusively online via a secure, encrypted, HIPAA-compliant video platform. This allows busy medical professionals in Santa Monica and Los Angeles to access depth-oriented care conveniently without the additional stress of commuting to an office for every session—something that many busy doctors find essential for making therapy sustainable.

Yes, many physicians who come to therapy with us are experiencing burnout—not because they lack resilience or coping skills, but because of long-standing internal patterns that make rest, limits, and self-care difficult to sustain. 

In our work together, we look beyond simply the symptoms of exhaustion to understand the emotional and relational dynamics that often drive the chronic overwork, perfectionism, self-pressure, and more. We also work on naming and validating the systemic factors within medicine and society writ large that contribute to their burnout. 

By developing insight into these deeper patterns, therapy can help create change that feels more lasting and meaningful, rather than temporary relief. This work is especially helpful for physicians who find that burnout keeps returning, even when external circumstances improve.

We operate as an out-of-network practice and do not bill insurance companies directly. Many physicians choose this model because it allows for greater privacy, flexibility, and depth in the work.

That said, we are also happy to help if you choose to seek out-of-network reimbursement with your insurance. We can provide monthly superbills or, in many cases, submit out-of-network claims electronically on your behalf, depending on your particular insurance plan.

Many physicians are highly capable problem-solvers and “doers”/“fixers” who are accustomed to being the one who others rely on for help. These are wonderful strengths that often serve them well in medicine, but they don’t always translate when it comes other parts of their lives, particularly those related to emotional, relational, or personal patterns shaped over time.

Therapy offers a space where you don’t have to be the expert or have the answers. Instead, it provides room to reflect, gain perspective, and understand patterns that are difficult (if not impossible) to see clearly on your own.

Therapy in my practice is structured at a minimum of once a week for sessions. This level of consistency is important for the depth-oriented work that we do, as it allows enough continuity to build momentum, insight, and meaningful change over time, rather than our time together becoming primarily about updates, playing catch up, or staying at the surface level due to long gaps between our meetings.

Some physicians also choose to meet more frequently, depending on their needs and goals, and this is certainly something that we can discuss together.