Burnout therapy that’s more than self-care.
Stop doing what drains you. Start doing what matters.
Depth-oriented trauma therapy for helpers, healers, and high-achieving humans who care a lot…but are very tired.
Raise your hand if you’re an “eldest daughter,” the “therapist” of your friend group, or a “rockstar” at your office.
You’re a high-capacity human who everyone relies on—the one who gets things done, holds space for others, and really gives a sh*t.
Being capable, reliable, and useful isn’t just what you do. It’s who you are.
You push past exhaustion because stopping doesn’t feel like an option.
You throw yourself into work because it’s where you feel competent, needed, and in control.
You didn’t choose this pattern. You adapted to it.
Overfunctioning is a survival strategy. A way to create safety in environments that were unpredictable, demanding, or emotionally unsafe (and man, are we living through one of those environments in real time).
Perfectionism, hyper-responsibility, and self-reliance aren’t flaws. They’re skills.
The problem is:
What once protected you is now burning you out.
THE PROBLEM
You’re not “just stressed.” And you don’t just need more self-care.
To the outside world:
You’re doing more than is sustainable—at work, at home, in relationships, in movements you care about. Trauma history, family dynamics, and social systems rewarded over-responsibility and punished rest, and that’s why everyone else just sees you as a badass.
But inside:
If you slow down, it feels dangerous. If you stop producing, fixing, or holding it all together, you fear losing your safety, relevance, or worth. You fear letting down your community because there’s so much awful in the world that needs your help.
So you stay busy, but with what?. There’s a difference between “capable” and “connected.” There’s a difference between “exhausted” and “engaged.”
You’re not failing at self-care. You’re being drained by systems that depend on your overfunctioning—and then ask you to manage the consequences privately.
Burnout isn’t the problem. Burnout is the alarm.
I work with:
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I work with: *
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You’re a parent, activist, teacher, nurse, or other helping professional and you’ve learned how to stay functional no matter what’s happening around you. And, uh, there’s a lot happening in the world around you.
You’re good at anticipating needs, smoothing things over, and giving until that damn cup is dry. You probably learned early on that being responsible was safer than being needy. Over time, that turned into saying yes to any request, chronic guilt when you rest, and a nervous system that never quite believes you’re doing enough.
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You’re intuitive, thoughtful, and deeply empathic. You might be a therapist, coach, bodyworker, birth worker, or spiritual care provider. You understand trauma—sometimes too well—and you’re often holding space for others while quietly struggling yourself.
You may feel burned out, disillusioned, or resentful, then ashamed for feeling that way. You know all the tools, yet still find yourself exhausted, anxious, or disconnected from your own body. You tell yourself that you should be able to handle this better because of your skills, but sometimes you think you know too much.
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You’re not Type A, you’re Type A+.
You’re driven, capable, and used to being “the one who gets it done.” You might be an executive, entrepreneur, founder, or values-led professional who carries real responsibility—and rarely feels allowed to fall apart.
From the outside, it looks like success. On the inside, it can feel like constant pressure, imposter syndrome, or a sense that if you slow down, everything will collapse. You’ve likely been praised for your resilience while quietly paying the cost in your body, relationships, or sense of self.
Hi, I’m Allison Staiger, LCSW, PMH-C (she/her/hers).
You don’t need a cheerleader.
You need someone who understands why this pattern exists, and knows how to work with it without shaming, pathologizing, or trying to take your ambition away.
I’m a licensed clinical social worker practicing in Chicago, and licensed in Illinois and Louisiana, with over 15 years of experience supporting ambitious, high-achieving perfectionists who are trying to build a better world.
I specialize in trauma work for high-empathy, high-capacity humans: helpers, healers, caregivers, leaders, and deeply responsible people who learned early on that being competent was safer than being cared for.
I won’t ask you to give up your values or your impact.
Instead, I’ll help you:
Understand where burnout comes from (internally and systemically)
Feel safer in your body so change is actually possible
Reclaim agency without blowing up your life
This is deep, relational therapy that goes beyond venting, chit-chat, and symptom management alone.
We get curious together about how you’ve learned to navigate the world. We name what’s really happening around us. We let humor into the room. We build the kind of therapy relationship that gently but firmly calls bullshit on “I’m fine,” and doesn’t expect you to perform in order to earn care.
How We Do It:
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Unlearning survival as a lifestyle
We slow down overfunctioning without asking you to abandon what you care about.
We do this by:
Interrupting chronic urgency through real-time nervous system tracking
Building somatic regulation so rest doesn’t feel dangerous
Reconnecting you to your body through pacing, consent, and choice
Identifying survival roles and experimenting with doing less with more safety
Creating steadiness through predictability and relational trust in therapy
Translation: You stop living like everything is an emergency.
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Trauma, context, and power
We make sense of why competence, self-sacrifice, and over-responsibility became your strategy.
Using parts work, somatic tracking, EMDR, and relational depth, we connect:
Personal history and attachment
Trauma and identity-based stress
Family dynamics and cultural expectations
Systemic conditioning and the political realities that make urgency and reactivity seem necessary
This phase often includes grief, anger, and reclaiming parts of yourself that were never allowed to matter.
Translation: The problem stops living only inside you.
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Living your values without burning out
Healing isn’t opting out of the world. It’s reorganizing and re-entering it with choice, connection, and roots.
We focus on:
Clarifying what you stand for—and what you refuse
Staying engaged without self-erasure or collapse
Trusting intuition instead of just pushing through
Rebuilding rhythms, rituals, and real support
Practicing boundaries and collective care
Translation: You get to help rebuild the world without disappearing in the process.
Burning it all down or burning out aren’t the only options.
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Discern when you’re operating from a place of trauma, socialized expectations, or later-stage capitalism, and how to respond with compassion and agency, instead of freeze mode or avoidance.
Remember you have a whole body from the neck down, and learn to track its signals and respond to its needs.
Notice your overfunctioning in relationships — so you quit being everyone else’s unpaid therapist, manager, or problem-solver, and start to create deeper, more reciprocal community.
Rest without guilt or panic — so early nights and turning off notifications stop feeling like moral failures and more like fortifying yourself for what you care about.
Stay aligned with your values in the chaos — so your work, caregiving, activism, and relationships reflect what matters to you, not just what others demand.
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You move through your days with more ease — hey, I didn’t say “easy,” but maybe no longer running on adrenaline, guilt, or obligation alone.
Your relationships trump your “busy-ness” — no more “we should get dinner sometime” or flaking at the last minute to binge-watch Netflix.
You honor your body, mind, and nervous system — rest, meals, and boundaries aren’t luxuries.
You engage with the world without disappearing — show up to that community meeting instead of being too tired (and then staying up doomscrolling for four hours.)
You carry your trauma and your history differently — patterns that once trapped you are now tools for insight, agency, and connection.
Let’s Talk Best Fit:
This is for you if you:
Give a lot (in your career or personal life) and want to turn your care into a source of power
Want therapy that goes beyond venting
Are open to weekly, depth-oriented work
Are willing to look at trauma, patterns, and systems honestly
This is not for you if you:
Want therapy as a weekly pressure valve only
Prefer irregular or drop-in sessions
Want to focus on brief, skills-based interventions only.
Let’s work together
Ready to have a consultation call or get started? Fill out this form and I will get back to you within one business day.