HMN 2026: How When therapists can’t take off the ‘hat’

Licensed professional counselors have reported experiencing burnout and emotional exhaustion due to high workplace demands, a problem that has intensified over the past six years. On top of workplace pressures, mental health professionals also sometimes report feelings of confusion and conflict when separating their role as therapists from their interpersonal relationships, leading them to feel even more burned out.

In a new study published in the Southern Communication Journal from the University of Texas at Arlington, titled “‘Taking off the therapist hat’: Boundary Setting as Self-Advocacy for Mental Health Providers,” Department of Communication Senior Lecturer Damla Ricks and Associate Professor Grace Brannon investigated how licensed professional counselors navigate boundary-setting in their everyday lives.

The researchers found that while professional counselors understand the importance of setting boundaries because they often recommend it to clients, they can find it difficult to set those same boundaries in their own lives.

Ricks, who is also a licensed professional counselor in Texas, said it is surprising to see that even therapists can struggle with boundary setting.

“The most interesting discovery was seeing how therapists will stop having a relationship with someone because conversations become less friendly and those friends come to them more in a therapist role,” Ricks said.

“As therapists, we should be asking ourselves how we would talk to a client through this, but even that gets tiring. It’s really hard because of how easily the lines blur between being a therapist and just someone else.”

The researchers spoke with 20 licensed professional counselors and analyzed the data using communication accommodation theory.

Brannon said they were interested in learning how therapists applied the principles of the theory, particularly by underaccommodating or overaccommodating conversations based on how they believed friends or family members would respond.

“When we think about how we’re going to communicate with others, oftentimes we choose certain strategies based on past experiences,” Brannon said. “Maybe we think the person we have to speak to won’t like what we have to say, so we increase social distancing with that person to avoid having to talk about a difficult subject.”

The researchers found that professional counselors were both underaccommodating and overaccommodating others in their everyday lives, and this was leading them to experience negative outcomes and feelings, like friendships ending and high levels of work-induced stress.

In their study, Ricks and Brannon provided three recommendations that can help therapists feel less burned out and maintain a positive work-life balance: systemic change in mental health organizations to allow therapists to “recharge” between clients, therapists prioritizing self-care routines, and therapists engaging in clear communication that sets proper boundaries in close interpersonal relationships.

“As a licensed counselor, the ways this research has helped me is recognizing when there is too much going on and realizing I probably shouldn’t have dinner plans after a long day at work,” Ricks said.

“It is a continuous challenge, especially if I want to keep doing all the things I enjoy and my work, but just having the perspective of setting that boundary has been helpful.”

The content is provided for information purposes only.