Adults, 18 and overIn person in West Hartford

Burnout & work stress in West Hartford, CT

Sometimes nothing is technically wrong on paper, and nothing feels manageable. When months of overwork, caregiving strain, or a major life change leave you exhausted, irritable, and staring at simple emails for twenty minutes, we offer in-person therapy and psychiatric evaluation for adults in West Hartford.

Request an appointment See the signs

Illustration of open books and leafy branches in a sage vase on a wooden shelf.

Adults 18 and overBuilt for real work, caregiving, and family demands

Clear assessmentSorting out burnout from depression, anxiety, or ADHD

Practical therapyCBT, ACT, and DBT skills rather than generic pep talks

A place to beginYou can request an evaluation directly

How we can help

If someone tells you to cure burnout with a scented candle or a long weekend, they have never had it. We work on the internal rules, the boundaries, and the medical pieces that keep the cycle running.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)

High-functioning adults rarely burn out because they are lazy. They burn out because they carry an unspoken rule that saying no, delegating, or turning in B-plus work on a low-priority task will bring the roof down. In CBT, we test those predictions in the real world and stop treating every request as a five-alarm fire.

ACT and DBT boundary skills

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is useful when your life has narrowed down to a treadmill of obligations you no longer care about. We look at what you actually want your week to contain and what has to give. When the obstacle is a boss, a client, or a relative who pushes past every limit, we use DBT interpersonal scripts to say no clearly without spending three days feeling guilty about it.

Psychiatric evaluation & medication

We will not prescribe a pill to help you tolerate an impossible schedule. What a prescriber can do is check whether months of chronic stress have triggered a clinical depression, daily panic, or chronic insomnia, or whether undiagnosed adult ADHD or a thyroid issue is the reason every workday takes twice the effort it should.

Your first visit

An hour to sort out whether the problem is the load you are carrying, a condition underneath it, or both.

What we discuss

We talk through what your days look like right now: when the exhaustion started, what changed at work or at home, how you are sleeping, and how much you are relying on caffeine to get started or alcohol to shut your brain off at night. We also ask the questions that separate occupational burnout from major depression, generalized anxiety, and adult ADHD.

Planning the next step

You do not have to decide before you arrive whether you need therapy, a psychiatric evaluation, or both. We lay out the options plainly and agree on a plan.

All visits take place in person at 10 Princeton St, Ste N, West Hartford, CT 06110. Leaving your desk and sitting in a quiet room with no laptop open is part of why people come in.

Preparing for your first appointment

What is underneath
chronic exhaustion

People use the word "burnout" for four very different problems. Treating the right one starts with telling them apart.

Burnout vs. clinical depression

The World Health Organization defines occupational burnout by three things: deep exhaustion, growing cynicism or numbness toward your job, and feeling ineffective even when you work longer hours. In the early stages, burnout stays tied to the job; if you take ten days off, you feel like yourself again by day four. When burnout runs too long without relief, however, it often crosses over into major depression, where a week off does nothing and even the things you used to love feel flat.

Life transitions and the "ADHD burnout" wall

Not all exhaustion comes from a cubicle. Caring for an aging parent, going through a divorce, losing a job, moving, or adjusting after a serious medical diagnosis can outstrip anyone's normal reserves, which clinicians call an Adjustment Disorder. We also see a specific pattern in adults with undiagnosed ADHD or generalized anxiety: years of masking daytime focus problems by working until midnight on deadline adrenaline, until one year the adrenaline stops working.

Signs you may recognize

These examples can help you describe what has been happening. They are not a self-diagnosis.

Common experiences

Waking up tired after eight hours in bed and dreading the day before your feet hit the floor
Feeling cold, detached, or short-tempered with patients, students, clients, or your own family
Reading the same paragraph three times and taking an hour to answer a five-minute email
Staying up past midnight scrolling because those are the only hours nobody is asking you for anything
Sunday-afternoon stomach knots, headaches, or chest tightness when you think about Monday

When to reach out

You do not have to wait until you quit your job on impulse or have a panic attack in the parking lot to ask for help. If stress or a life change is wrecking your sleep, your temper, or your health, that is enough reason to call.

Bring a rough picture of what a typical weekday looks like and what you have already tried to fix it.

Request an appointment

If you need immediate support

Call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call 911 if there is immediate danger. Do not wait for a routine appointment or a reply to the website form.

Questions about burnout and work stress

Plain answers to what adults ask most often before booking.

How do you tell burnout apart from clinical depression?

Early burnout is usually tied to a specific role, like a job or caregiving situation, and lifts a little when you get away from that role for a week. Clinical depression follows you on vacation. It flattens interest across the board and often brings heavy guilt or worthlessness. Because long-running burnout frequently turns into clinical depression, we check for both at your evaluation.

Does insurance cover therapy for burnout or a major life change?

Burnout by itself is an occupational description, not a medical billing code. However, when chronic stress or a major life transition impairs your sleep, focus, or day-to-day functioning, an evaluation often identifies an Adjustment Disorder, an anxiety disorder, or a depressive episode, which most commercial and Medicare plans cover. The office checks your benefits before you book.

What kind of therapy actually helps with burnout?

Venting for fifty minutes a week rarely fixes burnout. We use Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to go after the perfectionism and over-responsibility that keep you working at 10 p.m., Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to sort out what you actually care about versus what you are doing out of habit, and DBT interpersonal skills to set limits that hold.

Could my burnout be undiagnosed adult ADHD?

Yes, and we see that pattern often. Many bright adults get through school and their twenties by compensating for ADHD with late-night panic sprints and over-preparation. By their thirties or forties, when job and family demands double, the compensation stops working and they hit a wall. A psychiatric evaluation can sort out whether ADHD is underneath the exhaustion.

Would you prescribe medication for work stress?

Not to mask a bad schedule. No pill fixes a seventy-hour workweek. If chronic stress has tipped into major depression, daily panic attacks, or severe insomnia that keeps you from recovering, our prescribers can discuss whether medication makes sense alongside therapy.

Are appointments in person or online?

All appointments are in person for adults 18 and over at 10 Princeton St, Ste N in West Hartford. We do not offer telehealth.

Related care and information

Conditions that frequently overlap with workplace exhaustion and major life changes.

Sources: World Health Organization: Burn-out an occupational phenomenon (ICD-11), NIMH: So Stressed Out Fact Sheet. This page provides general information. Your clinician can help determine what applies to you.

Care starts with a conversation

Contact our West Hartford office to request an in-person visit. You can tell us what has been difficult and ask about the next step.

Request an appointment Call the office