10 Reasons Every Doctor Should Consider Therapy
Doctors are often seen as the healers, the fixers, the calm in the storm. But, if the doctors are healing everyone, who is healing the doctors? As a therapist who has been working along side and supporting physicians for years, I realized that doctors need therapy too. Behind the white coats and clinical composure are human beings who shoulder immense emotional, physical, and psychological burdens. One of the more complex parts of being a doctor is that you need to leave your emotions to the side in order to think logically and caretake your patients.
Therapy has been a long stigmatized topic in medical culture. It is now being recognized for what it truly is: a powerful tool for maintaining mental wellness, processing trauma, and building resilience. However, doctors, despite needing therapy to process their emotionally sterile environments, are often not given ample options for support.
Boutique Psychotherapy is a concierge mental health therapy practice in New York, New Jersey and Florida that supports doctors in the same way as doctors support everyone else: straight to the point, goal-oriented and geared towards living a healthy life.
One important thing that doctors should consider when thinking of working with Boutique Psychotherapy is that many of the clinicians at at this practice have experience working in hospitals, understand the hierarchy and bureaucracy and the pressure associated with the job. Our team is also medically aware and informed, which makes supporting your life easier since you don’t have to inform us about what you day is like.
Here are 10 compelling reasons why every doctor should consider therapy.
1. Unprocessed Trauma from Patient Care
The moment you stop caring is the moment you’re burnt out. In positions like ours, as caretakers of living beings our first responsibility is to do no harm and then to look out for the care of others. Your first time seeing a patient die may lead you to your attending or chair, whereas when you’ve seen it enough, it becomes a part of the job, despite the fact that it never stopped being sad and life ending. From delivering devastating diagnoses to witnessing suffering and death, doctors are exposed to intense emotional situations. Over time, this can build up into secondary trauma or compassion fatigue. Therapy for doctors provides a safe, confidential space to process these experiences and avoid long-term psychological harm.
2. Burnout is Epidemic in Medicine
Physician burnout affects over 60% of doctors, with symptoms like emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. In a recent article, we discuss the silent struggle of physicians and how it has even led to suicide over the years. Therapy helps doctors understand burnout's root causes, set boundaries, and develop coping strategies to preserve both mental health and career longevity.
3. Doctors Often Suppress Emotions and Forget to FEEL Them At Work
Medical training teaches emotional detachment—often necessary in emergencies but detrimental over time. Therapy helps doctors reconnect with their emotional lives in a healthy, constructive way, preventing emotional numbness or outbursts that can damage relationships at work or home.
4. Imposter Syndrome is Rampant
Despite years of education and experience, many doctors secretly fear they’re not “good enough” or feel an everlasting need to try harder and continuously excel. Therapy can dismantle these destructive thought patterns, helping doctors recognize their worth and build genuine confidence in their skills and decisions.
5. Work-Life Balance is a Constant Struggle
Juggling 80-hour work weeks, on-call shifts, and personal obligations leaves little time for reflection or rest. Therapy can be a structured space to sort out priorities, redefine goals, and regain a sense of control in and outside the hospital. Being held accountable to developing and sticking to behavioral strategies is half the battle. At Boutique Psychotherapy, we focus on providing goal-oriented therapy that is focused on getting our clients to meet their goals expressed in therapy, including finding work-life balance in lifestyles that often make it feel its impossible.
6. Medical Culture Requires Disassociation to Think Clearly
The traditional medical hierarchy values stoicism and endurance, often shaming those who admit they’re struggling. Therapy offers a confidential, stigma-free space where doctors can drop the armor and be honest about their needs. Doctors also often fear working with a therapist within their healthcare system in fear of colleagues knowing about their therapy. Boutique Psychotherapy provides HIPAA compliant, confidential and concierge care to physicians so they can feel like they’re in the client seat for once, without the need to take care of anyone but themselves.
7. Doctors Face Unique Ethical and Moral Stress
Having to make life-altering decisions—or witnessing systemic failings—can lead to moral injury. Therapy provides a framework for navigating these dilemmas without carrying guilt, shame, or helplessness long after the shift ends.
8. Therapy Improves Patient Care
When doctors are mentally and emotionally balanced, they’re more empathetic, communicative, and present. This leads to stronger patient-doctor relationships, better diagnoses, and improved treatment outcomes.
9. Suicide Rates Are Alarmingly High
Physicians have one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. Therapy can be life-saving, offering early intervention, support, and strategies to manage depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts. Often times doctors also struggle with feeling depressed, low, lonely or pressured without anyone to talk to. These feelings can be detrimental to ones self esteem and emotional composure if not expressed in a safe environment. Therapy gives doctors the safe space to talk about their feelings and process their complex emotions. At Boutique Psychotherapy we are an integrative psychotherapy practice. This means that we have relationships with many providers and work hand-in-hand with many other physicians, including psychiatrists who can help support you when you need it most.
10. It’s an Act of Leadership and Self-Compassion
When doctors engage in therapy, they model healthy behavior for peers, patients, and trainees. It signals that mental health is a priority, not a weakness—and gives others permission to seek help too. It takes self reflection, accountability and self-love to be a true leader.
Here at Boutique Psychotherapy, we say, “we’re in control, so you don’t have to be.” We say this because we work with high profile, high pressure hard working individuals who have to be in control as a part of their job and we understand what that feels like. We want to give you and everyone we work with the space to surrender your control for 50 minutes of your week and find relief, validation, guidance and accountability to guide you to your best life.
We understand that doctors devote their lives to caring for others, often at great personal cost. But healing shouldn’t be one-sided. Therapy is not just for moments of crisis—it’s a proactive, empowering practice that strengthens resilience, enhances relationships, and ultimately leads to better care for everyone.
If you’re a doctor, consider therapy not as a last resort, but as a vital part of your well-being toolkit. You deserve the same level of care that you so generously give to others. Feel free to email us at info@boutiquepsychotherapy.com to get started today.
