Best Therapy for Burnout in Women in Medicine & Healthcare

PHYSICIAN MENTAL HEALTH • June 2026

7:22 a.m.: A Scene Before the Day Has Even Started

It’s 7:22 a.m. Camille, a 43-year-old attending physician in internal medicine at a major academic medical center in Boston, stares at her reflection in the darkened screen of her laptop. She’s already charted on nine patients before her first official patient of the day. The fluorescent hum of the hospital corridor outside her office feels like a constant, low-grade assault. A bright-eyed medical student hovers nearby, and Camille forces a smile, knowing she doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth to offer the mentorship she wishes she could.

Her inbox blinks with 147 unread messages. A familiar, hollow ache settles in her chest. She knows, with a certainty that chills her to the bone, that she’s in the wrong business. Yet she also knows she’ll be here until 7 p.m., and the relentless churn of work will occupy her until midnight. For three years, the thought of quitting has been a constant companion — a whispered temptation she’s never dared voice. Physicians, she reminds herself, don’t quit.

This is burnout in women physicians. And it isn’t simply exhaustion. It’s something far more clinically complex — a layered collapse that conventional medicine, with its emphasis on individual resilience and grit, has catastrophically misunderstood.

What Is Physician Burnout?

In my work with driven women, particularly those in demanding professions like medicine, burnout is frequently dismissed as mere stress or fatigue. But it’s far more insidious. The foundational understanding comes from the work of Christina Maslach, PhD, professor emerita of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-developer of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, who defines burnout as a psychological syndrome with three core dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment.

Emotional exhaustion manifests as profound depletion — the feeling of being drained and unable to cope. Depersonalization, often a coping mechanism, involves developing a cynical or detached attitude toward patients or colleagues, treating them as objects rather than individuals. And reduced personal accomplishment refers to feelings of ineffectiveness despite working tirelessly. All three dimensions can coexist in the same physician on the same Tuesday afternoon.

Research consistently shows these symptoms aren’t evenly distributed across genders. Tait Shanafelt, MD, professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief wellness officer at Stanford Health Care, a leading researcher in physician burnout, has extensively documented that women physicians experience higher rates of burnout across almost every specialty studied compared to their male counterparts. This disparity isn’t anecdotal — it reflects systemic issues that disproportionately affect women in medicine.

Beyond the traditional definition, many women physicians also grapple with what’s known as moral injury. Originally coined in military contexts, moral injury in healthcare is a deeper wound to one’s moral compass — it occurs when professionals are forced to perpetrate, witness, or fail to prevent acts that transgress their deeply held beliefs. In medicine, this often arises when systemic constraints prevent physicians from providing the quality of care they know their patients need and deserve.

Understanding the distinction between burnout and moral injury matters clinically, because it shapes what healing actually requires. Rest won’t fix moral injury. Neither will a weekend retreat. What’s needed is a deeper reckoning — with the system, with identity, and with the self.

The Neurobiology of Burnout in the Physician Body

The relentless demands of medical practice take a significant toll on the nervous system. Our bodies aren’t designed for chronic, unremitting stress. When a physician consistently overrides her body’s signals — skipping meals, delaying bathroom breaks, suppressing fear or overwhelm to maintain operational continuity — the body keeps a meticulous record.

Bessel van der Kolk, MD, psychiatrist and trauma researcher, author of The Body Keeps the Score, has extensively documented how trauma and chronic stress are somatically encoded — stored in the body itself. For the driven woman in medicine, years of overriding her physiological needs can lead to a dysregulated nervous system, perpetually stuck in hyperarousal or, conversely, profound shutdown.

This constant state of alert — chronic sympathetic activation — is further exacerbated by the unique relational demands of medicine. Physicians are expected to remain relationally present and empathetic with patients, even when their own nervous systems are screaming for relief. Stephen Porges, PhD, distinguished university scientist at Indiana University and developer of Polyvagal Theory, explains that the social engagement system, which facilitates connection and empathy, is intricately linked to the parasympathetic nervous system. When the body is in a sustained threat response, the capacity for genuine social engagement is compromised — creating a profound internal conflict for physicians who are wired to care.

The intersection of moral injury, compassion fatigue, and burnout creates a clinical picture that’s genuinely complex. These aren’t separate diagnoses; they’re overlapping layers of a system under siege. Understanding this is the first step toward treatment that actually reaches the roots rather than pruning the visible symptoms.

How Burnout Shows Up Specifically in Women Physicians

The landscape of physician burnout is particularly harsh for women. While systemic pressures affect all physicians, women often navigate an additional layer of gendered expectations, biases, and disproportionate responsibilities that amplify their vulnerability. In my practice, I consistently see how these factors converge to create a unique and often isolating experience.

Consider Elena, a 45-year-old cardiologist at an academic medical center in St. Louis. Elena sees forty patients a week and maintains a research portfolio that demands an additional twenty hours outside her clinical time. She’s been on the clinical faculty for nine years and has been told, repeatedly, that she’s on track for promotion. Yet she’s also been told — implicitly and explicitly — that she’s “too emotional.” She cried once, in a Morbidity and Mortality conference, about a patient loss.

Elena is not too emotional. She’s a physician with a functional empathy response in a culture that pathologizes feeling. She’s developed what she calls her “work face” — an expression of confident neutrality she’s worn for so long she’s forgotten what her actual face feels like. This emotional suppression, a common coping mechanism for women in demanding male-dominated fields, further contributes to the somatic burden on her nervous system, reinforcing the cycle of burnout and detachment.

The gender disparity in burnout rates is a critical aspect of this crisis. Women physicians have higher burnout rates in almost every specialty studied, yet they’re less likely to seek help and less likely to report symptoms. This reluctance is rooted in a complex interplay of internalized societal expectations, professional stigma, and the very real fear of professional repercussions. Questions about mental health on licensing applications have historically been a significant barrier — a fear that isn’t unfounded.

Women physicians, often juggling disproportionate domestic and caregiving responsibilities, may also perceive seeking help as an additional burden or a sign of weakness in a profession that values unwavering strength. The result is that the women who most need support are precisely the women who have the most structural barriers to accessing it.

There’s also the particular loneliness of perfectionism in medicine. The woman who always has it together, who manages her department and her home with apparent effortlessness, is rarely asked how she’s doing. She looks fine. The question doesn’t come. And she doesn’t volunteer the answer, because in medicine, “I’m struggling” can feel professionally catastrophic.

Physician Identity and the Terror of Stopping

For many driven women, the identity of “doctor” is not merely a profession — it’s a fundamental aspect of selfhood. Years, often decades, of rigorous training, deferred gratification, and immense personal sacrifice are invested in achieving this credential. The entire self-concept becomes inextricably linked to the role, leaving little room for alternative identities.

In my clinical experience, when burnout begins to erode clinical performance and professional satisfaction, it triggers a profound existential crisis. It’s not just about being tired — it’s about the perceived disintegration of who one is. Dike Drummond, MD, family physician, founder of TheHappyMD.com, and executive coach to physicians, speaks extensively about this “physician identity constellation” — which often includes the roles of the good doctor, the helper, and the expert. When burnout compromises a physician’s ability to embody these roles, the threat isn’t simply to their career but to their very sense of self.

The fear of stopping, of stepping away from medicine, is rarely about laziness or lack of commitment. Instead, it’s often a deep-seated terror that without the role, there is no self. This fear can trap physicians in unsustainable situations, perpetuating the cycle of burnout while the cost accumulates — physically, relationally, spiritually.

For women physicians navigating this identity crisis, trauma-informed therapy offers a critical intervention: one that can hold the complexity of professional identity without either dismissing the career or treating it as the only thing that matters. The physician’s ambition doesn’t have to be pathologized. It can be understood as something that has meaning — and also as something that has, in its current form, stopped working.

Both/And: Burned Out AND Still a Healer

The experience of physician burnout is rarely monolithic. More often, it’s a paradox — a “both/and” reality where profound exhaustion coexists with an enduring, albeit often buried, commitment to healing. It’s possible to feel utterly depleted, cynical, and even contemplate leaving medicine, AND still possess the inherent capacity for profound presence and compassion on one’s best days. Both truths can, and often do, exist simultaneously.

Consider Priya, a 47-year-old hospitalist at a community hospital in Sacramento. Priya’s burnout has been building for six years, a slow erosion of her initial idealism. She’s stopped attending grand rounds, finding the academic discussions hollow and disconnected from the daily grind. She’s started calling in sick on days she isn’t physically ill — simply to carve out a precious day where no one needs something from her. She loves her patients in the abstract, a theoretical affection for the humanity she serves. Yet she struggles to locate that love on a Tuesday at 4 p.m., when the EMR has crashed for the third time and she has seven more complex charts to complete.

The love for her vocation is still within her — a flickering ember. AND the system has systematically stripped away the conditions in which that love can be freely expressed. Her burnout is real, palpable, and deeply painful, AND it isn’t the final word on who she is as a physician. It doesn’t negate her fundamental identity as a healer.

This both/and perspective is crucial for healing. It acknowledges the very real pain and systemic failures without invalidating the physician’s inherent calling. It creates space for self-compassion and recognizes that the presence of burnout doesn’t erase the vocation. The challenge lies in creating conditions — internal and external — where the love for medicine can once again find room to breathe.

What I see consistently in my work with physicians is that the capacity for compassion doesn’t actually disappear under burnout. It goes underground. The task of trauma-informed coaching and therapy is to help it surface again — safely, sustainably, without demanding that the physician pretend it was never buried.

The Systemic Lens: Medicine’s Structural Violence Against Women Physicians

Physician burnout, particularly among women, isn’t a personal failing or a deficit of individual resilience. It’s the predictable and often devastating output of a healthcare system designed to extract maximum clinical productivity with minimal structural support. This is a form of structural violence — where systemic arrangements harm individuals by preventing them from meeting their basic needs or realizing their full potential.

One significant driver is the Relative Value Unit (RVU) model — a compensation system that prioritizes volume over value. This model often fails to account for the additional time women physicians spend with patients on psychosocial concerns, a documented reality that research shows can run 20–30% longer than their male counterparts. This uncompensated labor contributes to a higher workload and a feeling of being chronically undervalued.

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) burden is another pervasive systemic issue. Christine Sinsky, MD, Vice President of Professional Satisfaction at the American Medical Association, has extensively researched how the EHR, while intended to improve care, has become a significant source of clerical burden — contributing to burnout and reducing time for direct patient care. The endless clicking, charting, and administrative tasks extend the workday, often into personal time, further eroding any possibility of genuine work-life integration. This burden disproportionately affects women physicians, who often bear the brunt of domestic responsibilities.

The “too emotional” charge, leveled against women who express normal human emotions in the workplace, is a classic example of the double-bind faced by women in male-dominated professions. They’re expected to be nurturing and empathetic, yet penalized for displaying the emotions that make empathy possible. This creates a constant tightrope walk, where authenticity is sacrificed for perceived competence.

The child-care and parenting penalty also falls disproportionately on women physicians. The lack of adequate institutional support for childcare, flexible work arrangements, and parental leave forces many women to make impossible choices — often at the expense of their careers, their relationships, or their well-being. The systemic villain is not individual physicians or even individual institutions, but a healthcare system’s relentless optimization for throughput at the expense of humanity.

I think about Elena often — her “work face,” the one she’s worn so long she’s forgotten her actual face. That face is the cost of a system that never budgeted for her humanity. Understanding this doesn’t excuse the system. But it does name it clearly. And naming it clearly is the first act of resistance.

How to Heal: Therapy That Actually Works

Healing from physician burnout — especially for women in medicine — requires a path forward that transcends superficial “self-care” platitudes. It isn’t about practicing more self-care or setting better limits in a system that actively undermines both. True healing involves deep, clinical work that addresses the multifaceted layers of trauma, identity, and systemic oppression that contribute to burnout. In my trauma-informed practice, this often involves several key areas:

Somatic Work: Reconnecting with the Body’s Wisdom

For a body that’s been overridden for decades, somatic therapies can help physicians reconnect with their physiological signals, releasing stored tension and trauma. Peter Levine, PhD, developer of Somatic Experiencing, focuses on the body’s innate capacity to heal trauma by gently discharging activation held in the nervous system. Through guided exercises, women physicians can learn to track their internal experience, regulate their arousal states, and complete the physiological responses that were interrupted during overwhelming experiences. This helps restore a sense of safety and agency within their own bodies — moving out of chronic fight-flight-freeze and into a more regulated state where healing can occur.

Grief Work: Acknowledging What Was Lost

There’s often profound grief for the physician self that was buried under institutional demands — for the idealism lost, and for the sacrifices made. This grief is multifaceted: it can be for the lost dream of medicine, the erosion of personal time, the strained relationships, and even the loss of a vibrant, unburdened self. Engaging in grief work, through therapeutic modalities that create a safe space for emotional expression, allows women physicians to honor these losses rather than suppressing them. It’s through this process that a more authentic and resilient self can emerge.

Identity Work: Beyond the White Coat

Exploring the question — “Who am I if I am not always the most capable person in the room?” — is crucial. This involves disentangling self-worth from professional achievement and cultivating a more expansive sense of self that exists independently of the medical role. For many women physicians, their identity has been so deeply intertwined with their profession that any threat to their professional efficacy feels like a threat to their very being. Identity work in therapy helps to broaden this narrow definition of self, encouraging the exploration of other passions, roles, and relationships. This process can be liberating — allowing them to step into a more holistic and integrated sense of self, where their value is intrinsic rather than externally derived.

Values Clarification: Realigning with Purpose

Reconnecting with the core values that initially drew them to medicine can help physicians discern what aspects of their practice are still aligned with their purpose — and where adjustments need to be made. Through guided reflection, women physicians can identify their fundamental values — be it compassion, intellectual curiosity, service, or advocacy — and assess how well their current practice aligns with these values. This clarity can empower them to make conscious choices about their career path, advocate for changes within their current role, or seek out different practice settings. It’s about reclaiming agency and intentionally shaping a professional life that is congruent with their deepest sense of purpose.

For women physicians ready to embark on this healing journey, trauma-informed therapy offers a powerful pathway. I’m licensed in 9 states, which can be particularly beneficial for traveling physicians or those seeking specialized support. For those navigating leadership roles within academic medicine or private practice, executive coaching can provide strategic support alongside the deeper inner work. The Fixing the Foundations course also offers a structured pathway for those who want to begin this work at their own pace. And if you’re ready to take a next step, you can connect with our team here.

If you or someone you know is in acute distress, please reach out. The Physicians Support Line (1-888-409-0141) and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline are available to provide immediate support. Seeking help is a sign of strength. In a profession that has long punished vulnerability, choosing to reach toward something better is, in itself, an act of courage.

Camille is still at her desk at 7 p.m. She still has charts to complete. But somewhere in the past few months, she’s also started therapy — the first thing, she says, that’s actually made her feel like herself again. Not the self she performed at the hospital. Her actual self. That’s what’s possible.

Related Reading

1. Lyubarova, R., Salman, L., & Rittenberg, E. (2023). Gender Differences in Physician Burnout: Driving Factors and Potential Solutions. Front Med (Lausanne), 10, 1133484. doi:10.3389/fmed.2023.1133484.
2. Talbot, S. G., & Dean, W. (2018). Reframing clinician distress: moral injury not burnout. STAT News.
3. van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
4. Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
5. Figley, C. R. (1995). Compassion Fatigue: Coping with Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder in Those Who Treat the Traumatized. Brunner/Mazel.
6. Sinsky, C. A., et al. (2016). Allocation of Physician Time in Ambulatory Practice: A Time and Motion Study in 4 Specialties. Annals of Internal Medicine, 165(11), 753–760. doi:10.7326/M16-0961.
7. Duarte, D., et al. (2020). Male and Female Physician Suicidality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 77(3), 324–332.
8. Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (1996). Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual (3rd ed.). Consulting Psychologists Press.

Medical Disclaimer

Medical Disclaimer