As psychotherapists, our role isn’t to tell you that you do or you do not need help. Our role is to provide you with what you need to move forward in life, no matter what it is that is holding you back.
Some of our most common calls are not for anxiety, not for depression, not for couples counseling – not for any of the most common mental health disorders. One common reason that many people reach out to a therapist is because they’re struggling with an issue that so many of us struggle with: work stress.
Work stress is not a recognized mental health disorder. It is not something that is diagnosed. But it also plays a very real and serious role in our physical and mental wellbeing – so much so that it can be enough to harm our relationship sand our day to day life.
Should work stress be considered a mental health disorder?
The Nature of Work Stress
Work stress arises when the demands of a job exceed an individual’s capacity to cope with or manage those demands. Common sources of work stress include heavy workloads, tight deadlines, lack of control over job responsibilities, difficult interpersonal relationships, and concerns about job security. While these stressors can vary from person to person, the effects of work-related stress are often similar and include:
Physical symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, and muscle tension
Emotional symptoms like irritability, anxiety, and feelings of being overwhelmed
Cognitive issues, including difficulty concentrating or making decisions
Behavioral changes such as withdrawing from social interactions or neglecting self-care
While these symptoms are common to stress in general, when experienced over a long period, they can lead to more severe mental and physical health issues.
Work Stress vs. Mental Health Disorders
Work stress itself is not classified as a mental health disorder. It is generally viewed as a temporary response to challenging situations in the workplace. However, chronic or unresolved work stress can be a significant contributing factor to the development of mental health conditions, including:
Anxiety Disorders – Long-term exposure to work stress can lead to generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or panic attacks, especially when stressors persist without resolution.
Depression – Feelings of helplessness, inadequacy, or burnout from unrelenting work pressure can contribute to depressive symptoms. Prolonged stress, especially when coupled with job dissatisfaction, can make individuals more susceptible to developing depression.
Burnout – Although not a formal mental health disorder, burnout is a condition recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an occupational phenomenon. Burnout results from prolonged exposure to chronic workplace stress and is characterized by emotional exhaustion, reduced job performance, and a sense of detachment from the job. Burnout can significantly impact mental health and lead to more serious conditions if not addressed.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – In high-stress or high-risk professions, such as first responders, healthcare workers, or military personnel, individuals may experience traumatic events that can lead to PTSD. While the trauma may occur in the context of work, the disorder itself is recognized as a mental health condition.
Work stress itself may not currently be a mental health disorder. But it does appear it can CAUSE them, and that alone may be enough to warrant concern.
While work stress itself is not a disorder, it can become a mental health concern when the stress becomes overwhelming, unmanageable, or persistent. If work-related stress leads to ongoing feelings of anxiety, sadness, or anger that do not subside when away from the job, it may indicate that the stress is contributing to a deeper mental health condition.
When work stress begins to spill over into personal relationships or activities, causing withdrawal, irritability, or neglect of responsibilities at home, it can be a sign of a more serious issue. Chronic stress is linked to physical conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and gastrointestinal problems. If work stress is manifesting in physical health issues, it may signal the need for intervention.
If stress is affecting job performance – such as reduced productivity, absenteeism, or difficulty meeting job expectations – it may indicate that the individual is experiencing burnout or another mental health issue.
Why Work Stress Should Be Taken Seriously
While work stress may not be classified as a mental health disorder, its effects on an individual’s well-being should not be underestimated. Unaddressed, chronic work stress can:
Lower job satisfaction and increase the risk of burnout
Negatively affect mental health, leading to conditions like anxiety and depression
Contribute to physical health problems
Diminish quality of life and overall happiness
Recognizing work stress as a legitimate concern is important for both employers and healthcare providers, as early intervention can prevent the escalation of stress into more serious mental health conditions. Employers should prioritize mental health support by fostering a healthy work environment, offering resources such as counseling services, and encouraging work-life balance.
Work stress is significant and important. It may not be considered a mental health disorder, but the mental health world as a whole is moving away from disorders and diagnoses anyway, as it starts to prioritize the needs of the individual. As therapists, our role is to help patients learn more about themselves and get the support they need to thrive in their personal and professional lives, diagnosis or not.
If you are struggling with work stress, or you’d like to learn more about our therapy and mental health services, please feel free and reach out to Flourish Psychology today for help managing work stress and the pressures of high profile work lives.
Many of us use the term “overwhelmed” to discuss how we’re feeling in today’s fast paced, increasingly connected, loud world. It’s a word that we are also using correctly. We ARE overwhelmed. We are frequently finding that there is almost no moment in the day where we are not being stimulated, asked to do things, or surrounded by noise and movement.
Being overwhelmed means that we are stressed, overstimulated, and unable to find opportunities to refresh and replenish our reserves. So it might not come as a surprise to learn that an effective way to help address being overwhelmed is finding yourself in quiet, disconnected, solitude.
Evidence increasingly shows that there are times when what we need to be less overwhelmed is to spend even just a few hours in completely quiet solitude – no noise, no phones, no distractions, no stresses. Sometimes, to address feeling overwhelmed, what need more than anything is silence.
The Psychological Impact of Silence
Silence can have a profound effect on the brain, particularly when it comes to stress reduction. In our daily lives, we are often bombarded with noise – whether it’s the constant hum of urban environments, the chatter of social interactions, or the endless stream of digital notifications. These stimuli can keep our minds in a heightened state of alertness, which can contribute to stress and anxiety over time.
Being alone in silence gives the brain a chance to:
Reset and Recharge – Quiet time allows the brain to enter a more restful state, which can help reduce mental fatigue. When freed from the need to process constant input, the brain can focus on recovery and repair.
Foster Mindfulness – Silence creates the perfect environment for mindfulness, where individuals can focus on the present moment without distractions. This shift in attention can reduce feelings of overwhelm and promote a sense of calm.
Improve Emotional Regulation – Without external noise and distractions, silence allows individuals to become more aware of their emotions and thoughts. This increased self-awareness can lead to better emotional regulation, helping individuals manage stress more effectively.
Silence gives our brain a chance to process the day, free of digital overload and the people and things demanding our attention. Our brains are always processing information, and need a bit of time to do that without distraction.
Physiological Benefits of Silence
Spending time in silence can also have a positive effect on the body. Stress often triggers the “fight or flight” response, which raises cortisol levels and increases heart rate and blood pressure. Silence, on the other hand, can activate the body’s “rest and digest” system, allowing for physical relaxation.
Some of the physiological benefits of silence include:
Lowered Heart Rate and Blood Pressure – When the brain isn’t processing external stimuli, the body naturally shifts into a more relaxed state. Studies have shown that quiet environments can lead to decreases in heart rate and blood pressure, which are key indicators of reduced stress.
Decreased Cortisol Levels – Cortisol is a hormone associated with stress. Spending time in silence can help lower cortisol levels, reducing the physical effects of stress on the body, such as tension, headaches, and fatigue.
Improved Sleep – Silence promotes relaxation, which can help individuals unwind and prepare for better sleep. Since stress is one of the primary causes of sleep disturbances, incorporating periods of quiet into your day can improve overall sleep quality.
In addition to its calming effects, silence can also lead to greater mental clarity and focus. When our minds are free from distractions, we are better able to process information, reflect on important decisions, and think creatively.
How to Incorporate Silence Into Daily Life
As hard as it is to schedule silence when you need it most, there are situations in which it is a good idea to see if, when you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can find a quiet place outside or inside, leave your phone behind, and sit in total silence for awhile if you can. All it may take is a few hours of silence to find that you’re able to take on the stresses of the day.
When it’s not possible to carve out large chunks of quiet time in a busy schedule, there are simple ways to incorporate moments of silence into daily life to help manage stress:
Morning Silence – Start the day by setting aside 10 to 15 minutes for quiet reflection, meditation, or deep breathing. This practice can set a calm tone for the day ahead and reduce stress levels.
Scheduled Breaks – Throughout the day, take short breaks in a quiet environment, whether it’s stepping outside, sitting in a calm room, or simply turning off digital devices. Even just a few minutes of silence can help reset your focus and reduce stress.
Unplug from Technology – Silence isn’t just about the absence of sound – it’s also about disconnecting from digital distractions. Set aside time each day to unplug from phones, emails, and social media to create a more peaceful environment.
Spending time alone in silence, even for a few hours, can be a powerful tool for stress relief. By allowing the mind and body to disengage from constant noise and stimuli, silence fosters relaxation, reduces physical signs of stress, and promotes mental clarity.
Whether through mindful practices or simply taking a break from the daily hustle, incorporating periods of quiet into your routine can significantly enhance your ability to manage stress and improve overall well-being. For more help controlling stress and feeling overwhelmed, please reach out to our team at Flourish Psychology, today.
It is difficult to live through trauma, and the way we experience trauma – based on our age, personality, the type of trauma we experienced, and more – means that different people may benefit from different treatment approaches as we try to help them overcome it and move forward.
We offer many strategies for addressing trauma here at Flourish Psychology, including EMDR and CBT. We are also able to use an approach known as “trauma systems therapy,” which is not right for all patients but can be very useful when appropriate.
What is Trauma Systems Therapy?
Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) is a comprehensive psychotherapy approach designed to support children and adolescents who have experienced trauma. This method recognizes that traumatic experiences can have a significant impact not just on an individual’s emotional state but also on their behavior and relationships.
TST takes into account both the personal experiences of the individual and the environment in which they live, including their family, school, and broader community, all with the goal of helping these younger people better address and overcome trauma-related issues.
The Core Components of Trauma Systems Therapy
TST is built around several key components, each of which plays a role in helping individuals recover from trauma. These components are designed to work together to address both the internal and external factors that can influence a person’s ability to cope with and heal from trauma. It believes in:
Creating a Sense of Safety – The first step in TST is ensuring that the individual feels safe. This involves both physical safety and emotional security, helping the person to feel protected and supported in their environment.
Emotion Regulation – TST teaches individuals how to manage and regulate their emotions. This is particularly important for those who have experienced trauma, as they may struggle with intense emotions that can be difficult to control.
Supportive Environment – A critical aspect of TST is working with the individual’s environment, including their family and community, to create a supportive and nurturing space. This might involve educating family members, training school staff, or connecting with community resources to ensure that the individual has a strong support system.
It can differ from other forms of therapy in that it is very community based, looking at overcoming trauma as something that is fostered around the person in addition to supporting them through therapy.
Why Trauma Systems Therapy Matters
Trauma can have long-lasting effects on a person’s life, particularly if it occurs during childhood or adolescence. TST is important because it recognizes that recovery is not just about addressing the trauma itself but also about ensuring that the individual’s environment supports their healing. By taking this comprehensive approach, TST helps individuals build resilience, develop healthy coping mechanisms, and ultimately move forward in their lives with a stronger sense of well-being.
Therapist for Trauma in NYC with Flourish Psychology
Trauma Systems Therapy is not right for all patients. Part of the process of therapy is discovering what approaches might work best for you or your loved ones, no matter what those needs may be.
Still, in situations when it is appropriate, Trauma Systems Therapy is a powerful tool for helping individuals recover from trauma by focusing on both the person and the systems around them. It provides a structured, supportive approach that addresses the complex nature of trauma and its effects, offering a pathway to healing and growth.
For more information about our trauma therapy services, or to schedule an appointment for yourself or someone close to you, please contact Flourish Psychology, today.
We are inches away from back to school season, and if you’re a parent, you know what that means:
**screaming internally**
Back to school season can be nice for parents that need to focus on work or have an easier time managing their day to day lives. But it also means late nights doing homework, lots and lots of errands, kids that are likely going to be going through their own challenges, and so much more.
It is, for many of us, a stressful time. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be.
Back to school season is also a great time to consider connecting with a therapist you can talk to, to make this after school season both easier on you and easier on your children.
The Annual Stresses of School Build Up
It’s important for parents to understand that seasonal stresses, like back to school season, are not harmless. When we’re stressed every year for a significant portion of the year, those stresses can affect our short and long term mental health. They make us more tense, increase our anxiety, make it harder to enjoy the things we used to enjoy, and impact our relationships.
Some years we might be able to overcome it as things settle down. But what if that doesn’t happen? What if something else goes wrong during back to school season, or it puts added stress on your marriage, or your child is showing more symptoms of ADHD or learning difficulties and needs extra attention?
Many, many issues can arise, and when they do, it becomes something that can lead to further mental health challenges if you don’t have someone to talk to.
Therapists for Adults During September and October
Therapists are not *just* for back to school season. Yet this time period is often one where many parents realize they could use some ongoing mental health support.
Still, because it is such a busy season, it is also not a time when many people seek it out. This school year, it is best for your mental health and wellness to strongly consider speaking with a therapist ready to address your current AND ongoing challenges, help you work through your feelings, and provide you with help for stress, depression, and anxiety so that you can manage this back to school season (and the next one, and the one after that).
If you find that your stress levels are high this back to school season, and you’d like to finally address it, contact Flourish Psychology, today. We’re here to help you better manage your mental health and get the support you need to thrive this year and the next.
aw school trains lawyers to practice law. It teaches case analysis, legal reasoning, courtroom procedure, and the substantive knowledge a competent attorney needs to serve clients. It doesn’t teach how to hire and manage staff, handle payroll, navigate conflict between team members, set operational procedures, or build a functional organization around a legal practice.
Attorneys who open their own firms quickly discover that running a law firm is two jobs. The first is the one they trained for. The second is the one that was never mentioned.
Two Jobs, One Person
The pressure that comes with managing a team on top of practicing law is specific to a professional class that is highly trained in one domain and largely untrained in the other. A managing partner at a litigation firm is responsible for their own cases, their clients’ outcomes, and the operational reality of a business with employees, overhead, deadlines, and the full complexity of a professional organization — all simultaneously.
The legal work is demanding on its own terms. Attorneys deal with a specific kind of stress that comes from operating in a professional world defined by high stakes, adversarial dynamics, and the consistent pressure of win or lose outcomes. Adding the management of a team to that baseline — the personnel decisions, the conflict resolution, the coaching of underperformers, the retention of people who are good at their jobs — produces a load that accumulates in ways that aren’t always visible until they’ve become significant.
Many attorneys manage this for years before acknowledging that it’s affecting them. The professional culture of law doesn’t make it easy to say that something is too much. High achievers in demanding fields tend to absorb more rather than redistribute it — until the absorption capacity runs out.
What Managing a Team Demands Psychologically
Managing people requires a set of skills that are distinct from legal competence and that don’t develop automatically from years of practice. Several specific demands create consistent difficulty for attorneys who are managing teams for the first time or who have been managing without adequate support:
Holding Authority Without Becoming Isolated — Being the person in charge of a team changes the nature of every relationship within that team. Attorneys who were peers with their colleagues before becoming managing partners often find the shift disorienting. The social support that existed in the collegial relationship is no longer available in the same way, and the isolation of leadership in a small firm is real and rarely discussed.
Managing Conflict Between Team Members — Legal training prepares attorneys to manage conflict in an adversarial professional context. Managing interpersonal conflict within a team is a different skill entirely — one that requires emotional attunement, mediation capacity, and the ability to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously without defaulting to the analytical framework that serves well in court.
Addressing Underperformance — Giving difficult feedback, managing someone toward improvement, and making the call to let someone go are among the most psychologically demanding tasks in any management role. For attorneys who haven’t had explicit training or mentorship in these areas, each of these situations generates its own anxiety alongside the professional responsibility it represents.
Balancing Delegation with Accountability — The instinct of a high-performing attorney is often to handle things themselves — quickly, correctly, and without the friction of explaining what needs to be done to someone who might not do it the way they would. Delegation requires tolerating a loss of control and a level of imperfection that perfectionism makes genuinely difficult.
The Emotional Labor of Leadership — Being the person who sets the tone, manages the culture, absorbs the concerns of the team, and maintains composure under pressure is a form of emotional labor that has a real cost. It depletes the same resources that the legal work is already drawing on.
Each of these is a legitimate source of stress — not a sign of inadequacy, but a genuine demand that deserves to be addressed rather than absorbed indefinitely.
The Burnout Trajectory
Burnout in attorneys who are also managing practices follows a recognizable pattern. The early stages look like increased irritability, reduced patience with staff, and the creeping sense that the hours aren’t producing the results they should. Energy goes into tasks that feel endless rather than toward work that feels meaningful. The enjoyment of legal work — the thing that made the investment in law school make sense — begins to erode under the weight of management demands that were never chosen and never trained for.
Left unaddressed, that pattern compounds. Anxiety develops around the management role itself — the anticipation of difficult conversations, the preemptive rehearsal of conflicts that haven’t happened yet, the sense that the team is never quite running the way it should and that the fix is always the attorney’s responsibility. Depression follows when the depletion runs deep enough that the motivation that drove the career in the first place has gone quiet.
The burnout trajectory for attorneys managing their own firms is well-documented in the legal profession’s own research. The rates of anxiety and depression among attorneys are significantly higher than in the general population, and attorneys who own and manage practices carry an additional layer of stress that employed attorneys don’t share.
What Helps
Several specific approaches consistently make a meaningful difference for attorneys managing the dual demands of legal practice and team leadership. Working through these with the right support produces more durable results than attempting to implement them in isolation.
Working with a Therapist Who Understands the Professional Context
Therapy for attorneys at Flourish Psychology is provided by therapists who understand the specific professional pressures of legal practice — the culture, the stakes, the particular psychological demands of a profession built around adversarial processes and high-consequence outcomes. Therapists at Flourish have worked with attorneys at every career stage, including attorneys who have completed their own legal training. The work addresses both the legal profession’s specific stressors and the management challenges that come with running a practice.
Building a Team Aligned with Core Values
The composition of the team surrounding a managing attorney has a direct effect on how much management stress that attorney carries. A team whose members work in alignment with the firm’s values, who can be trusted to handle their responsibilities with genuine competence, and who share the professional standards the attorney holds reduces the management burden significantly. The process of assembling that team — defining what the practice actually needs, hiring deliberately, and being willing to make changes when someone isn’t the right fit — is itself a form of investment in the attorney’s own capacity to manage sustainably.
Delegating With Genuine Commitment
Delegation fails when it’s half-hearted — when the attorney delegates a task but continues monitoring it closely, second-guessing the person handling it, or redoing it when it isn’t done exactly as they would have done it. That pattern produces all the friction of management without any of the relief.
The capacity to delegate with genuine trust — to hand something off and let the person handle it, accepting that their approach may differ from yours without that difference constituting a problem — is something perfectionism specifically undermines. Developing it requires both the right team and the kind of psychological work that makes genuine relinquishment of control possible.
Knowing Your Management Style
Managing people effectively requires enough self-awareness to know how you naturally lead — what you do well, where you create friction without intending to, and how your communication style lands with the people reporting to you. Attorneys who lead by the same approach they use in adversarial professional contexts often find that the directness and pressure that serves them in litigation creates problems in a management relationship. Understanding the distinction, and developing the range to shift between them, makes the management role feel less like a constant improvisation.
Bringing in Operational Expertise
Fractional CFOs, operations consultants, and practice managers can absorb significant portions of the business management burden that attorneys aren’t trained for and don’t need to carry alone. The investment in outside operational expertise frees the attorney to focus on legal work — which is both what they’re best at and what generates the most value for the practice — while ensuring that the business side is handled by someone with the right background for it.
Getting Support
The specific combination of professional demands that attorneys managing their own practices carry isn’t something that willpower and efficiency alone resolve. The stress is real, the sources are specific, and they respond to support that addresses both the psychological dimension and the practical one.
Flourish Psychology’s therapy for lawyers provides exactly that — individualized support for the specific pressures of legal practice and the management demands that come with running a firm. Sessions are available in person in Brooklyn and via online therapy throughout New York. Call 917-737-9475 or reach out through the contact page to get started.
Most of us spend a lot of time working. At minimum 5 hours a week, 8 hours a day, and even more if we include commuting. Work itself is hard, and many of us – in any profession – can find it difficult to go from working all day to feeling happy and comfortable at home. There is a reason that, to address mental health, we often have to discuss the effects that our jobs have on us.
This is especially true, however, in the legal profession, and it is not only because the jobs themselves are fairly high stress. It is also because the legal profession, more than nearly any other profession, is one of the few jobs where a person is faced with black and white thinking – you either win, or you lose.
The Long Term Effects of Win/Loss Thinking
Rarely do we have to think in terms of wins and losses in most of our jobs. Work itself is typically gray area. A landscaper’s job isn’t winning and losing. A therapist’s job isn’t winning and losing. Even doctors do not typically deal with wins and losses every day (though they may have their own stresses related to loss in their profession).
But lawyers are different. Lawyers have to think in terms of winning. They have to look at cases to determine how they can win, and then – when they’re done – they have a peer that will almost literally tell them if they won or lost based on what they put together.
If they go to trial, they have a judge or, potentially, 12 other people that will tell them if they won or lost. Even in cases they win, this type of thinking, where you’re judged on your ability to win or lose, can have long lasting consequences.
This is believed to be why lawyers one of the careers most commonly linked to depression. When a person has black and white, win/loss thinking:
Every loss makes someone a “loser”
Every mistake means you’ve failed.
Every opposing counsel becomes an enemy.
You spend days at a time trying to get the information you need together to “win” a case, and even if you do win, you’re often constantly overthinking your choices and thinking about how someone else may prove you wrong. It is a lot to take on, and it’s something that you keep with you in other areas of your life. When you combine that same style of thinking with the stresses of the profession, it’s easy to see why depression can develop.
Depression, Black and White Thinking, and Therapy
Depression itself is, in many ways, a function of black and white thinking – where someone is either a winner or a loser. When you internalize your failures, you become more prone to thinking negatively about yourself leading to the conditions that can create depression.
Therapy, however, can help address this. Therapists that work with lawyers, like Flourish Psychology, can provide you with mental health tools that can break you out of this win/loss cycle and help you see yourself and the world in ways that are not so psychologically damaging. Through therapy, we can provide you with tools and guidance to get you to feel more comfortable with yourself and better able to function at your job. If you’re looking for a therapist that specializes in working with lawyers and those in high stress positions, contact Flourish Psychology, today.
Location: 300 Cadman Plaza West Floor 12 - Brooklyn, NY 11201
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