Therapy for Therapists Exploring ADHD, Autism & Burnout
Dr. Christine Henry, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist with over 20 years of clinical experience. She offers online therapy for mental health professionals who are questioning or discovering their own ADHD or autism, exploring how neurodivergence has shaped their personal and professional lives, or experiencing burnout. Available throughout Texas and PSYPACT states.
You're Good at Helping Others. So Why Is Everything Getting Harder for You?
You're the therapist who notices patterns, makes connections, and remembers the little details about your clients' lives that others might miss. But behind the scenes? Your notes are piling up. You're exhausted after sessions, struggling to get started on tasks, and wondering how other therapists seem to manage their workload without feeling so overwhelmed.
Maybe you've started recognizing ADHD or autistic traits in yourself, especially after working with neurodivergent clients. Things you once attributed to anxiety, trauma, or just your personality are starting to look a little different. You might be looking back at your childhood, relationships, or even your clinical training and realizing how much of yourself you've spent years masking.
And if perimenopause has entered the picture? The strategies you've relied on for years may not be working as well anymore. You're forgetting things, feeling more overstimulated, or finding it harder to follow through on things you know you need to do.
It's confusing when you have years of clinical training and personal insight but still can't quite explain why everyday things feel so difficult. And being a therapist doesn't mean you should have to figure it all out on your own.
There's More for You Than Just Getting Through the Day
Sometimes that self-doubt starts creeping into your clinical work, too. You begin questioning whether you're actually a good therapist, even when your clients are making progress. You might catch yourself thinking, "I don't know what the heck I'm doing anymore."
Maybe you've spent years trying to meet expectations about how a therapist should communicate, interact with clients, or manage their workload. Graduate school, supervision, and clinical settings aren't always particularly accommodating of neurodivergent differences. You may have learned to mask, say yes when you don't have the energy, or push through until you're completely depleted.
And when things fall apart, you blame yourself rather than questioning whether the expectations you've been trying to meet actually work for you.
Therapy isn't about finding new ways to squeeze more productivity out of an already exhausted brain. It's about understanding why certain things are difficult, recognizing what you've been carrying, and finding ways to work and live that fit how your brain actually works.
What We Can Work on Together
Explore your own neurodivergence. Make sense of how ADHD, autism, or AuDHD may have shaped your identity, relationships, and experiences as a therapist. This might include looking back at your clinical training, supervision experiences, or years of masking through a new lens.
Understand burnout and your limits. Explore how back-to-back sessions, emotional demands, sensory overload, and the pressure to always be available may be contributing to exhaustion. Figure out what a more sustainable way of practicing could look like for you.
Understand and accommodate executive functioning differences. Explore challenges with documentation, task initiation, managing your caseload, and keeping up with administrative responsibilities without making every unfinished note another reason to criticize yourself.
Untangle complicated family dynamics. Explore how childhood experiences, trauma, and family expectations may have shaped your tendency to take responsibility for others, both personally and professionally.
Make sense of hormonal changes. Explore how PMDD, perimenopause, or menopause may be affecting your attention, emotional regulation, sensory sensitivities, and ability to manage the demands of clinical work and everyday life.
Make more room for yourself outside of work. Explore what happens when you're so used to caring for others that your own needs get pushed aside. Make space for your relationships, interests, and an identity that isn't entirely wrapped up in being a therapist.
My Style
My approach is conversational, curious, and collaborative, with some humor mixed in. You don't need an agenda, organized thoughts, or a perfectly clear explanation of what's bothering you. Bring the tangents, half-formed questions, and things you're still trying to make sense of.
I know therapists can have a hard time stepping out of their professional role, especially when they're used to analyzing everything or taking care of everyone else. You don't need to explain things in clinical terms, have insight into every pattern, or worry about how you're coming across.
And if you're squeezing therapy in between your own client sessions, feel free to eat lunch while we talk. Need to fidget, keep the lights low, change positions, or get up and move around? That's all fine with me.
You don't have to be the therapist in our sessions. You get to be a person, too.
Why I Work With Therapists
I've worked in university counseling centers, community mental health, residential treatment settings, and private practice. I've also supervised and trained therapists in APA-accredited training programs. Those experiences have given me a pretty good understanding of the different expectations therapists face, both in and outside the therapy room.
When I discovered my own neurodivergence later in life, I was surprised by how much I still didn't know about myself. I'd been a therapist for years, had done my own therapy, and thought I was pretty self-aware. Turns out, I had some pretty big blind spots!
That experience gave me a new appreciation for what it means to explore your own neurodivergence, especially when you've spent years helping other people understand themselves.
My Theoretical Approach
My work draws from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), interpersonal and relational approaches, attachment theory, and neurodiversity affirming care. I also bring a trauma informed perspective, recognizing how early experiences and relationships can shape the way we understand ourselves and relate to others.
I don't believe every struggle needs another coping skill or strategy. Sometimes therapy is about understanding patterns you've carried for years, questioning expectations that no longer work for you, or recognizing how much energy you've spent trying to meet standards that weren't designed with your brain in mind.
I'm flexible in my approach because what works for one person, or even what worked for you five years ago, may not be what you need now.
Let’s Connect
Maybe you're exploring what it means to be a neurodivergent therapist, wondering how much burnout has been affecting you, or realizing that the way you've been managing things isn't working anymore.
I offer a free 20-minute consultation so we can talk about what you're looking for and whether working together feels like a good fit.
Online therapy available in Houston, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Texas, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio and several other cities, states. See therapy locations.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Absolutely. Some therapists begin recognizing their own ADHD or autistic traits after working with neurodivergent clients, learning more about how these traits present in adults, or noticing similarities in their own experiences. You may have spent years attributing certain struggles to anxiety, trauma, or personality differences without considering neurodivergence. You don't need a formal diagnosis to explore these questions in therapy.
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They can overlap, which makes it difficult to tell them apart. Therapist burnout often involves emotional exhaustion, increased detachment, and feeling overwhelmed by professional demands. Neurodivergent burnout may also involve the cumulative effects of masking, sensory overload, executive functioning demands, and years of trying to meet expectations that don't fit how your brain works. We can explore how these factors may be affecting you without assuming there's only one explanation.
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That’s such a common fear. Most of us have a part of our brain that stays in therapist mode analyzing, observing, even critiquing ourselves while we talk. You don’t have to switch that part off to be here. We can name it, notice it, and still make space for the rest of you. Therapy can be the one place where you don’t have to give the help, you get to receive it.
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That’s more common than people admit, and it’s often a burnout/compassion-fatigue signal not a personal failing. Therapy can help you name what’s happening, regulate your system, and figure out what’s sustainable (repair, boundaries, caseload changes, or a bigger career shift) without shame.
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Yes. Therapy can help you slow down, hear yourself clearly, and make decisions from a regulated place, whether that means staying, shifting, scaling back, or changing lanes.
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Yes. Knowing what to do and being able to follow through are not always the same thing. Therapy can help you understand what's getting in the way, including task initiation difficulties, avoidance, overwhelm, shame, or burnout. Rather than simply giving you another list of productivity strategies, we can explore what actually works for you and how to approach these challenges with less self-criticism.
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Hormonal changes during perimenopause, along with sleep disruptions and other midlife changes, can affect attention, memory, emotional regulation, and sensory sensitivities. If you're a therapist with ADHD or autistic traits, you may find it harder to stay focused during sessions, keep up with documentation, manage your schedule, or recover after a full day of clients. The strategies you've relied on for years may no longer work as well, leaving you wondering whether you're experiencing burnout, hormonal changes, neurodivergence, or some combination of all three. Some of these challenges may continue into postmenopause.
It’s okay if you’re not ready right now.
You’re allowed to take your time. Feel free to save this page, sit with it, and reach out when the timing feels right for you.
Keep Your Momentum
In the meantime, feel free to explore my self-help resources.
You’re already moving toward change just by being here—and even small steps, like reading or reflecting, can keep it going until you're ready for more.