If you’re a therapist who has transitioned to owning a group practice, you may be experiencing group practice burnout. In addition to common feelings of therapist burnout, your new responsibilities as a small business owner could exacerbate your symptoms.
Summary
- Track time spent on tasks that drain you the most, then delegate or outsource these activities to qualified team members or external professionals to maintain your leadership effectiveness and prevent burnout.
- Schedule mandatory breaks between client sessions and administrative work by blocking time in your calendar for physical movement, breathing exercises, or mindfulness practices to restore mental clarity and emotional balance.
- Establish a structured delegation system by creating detailed documentation of repeatable tasks, training team members in these procedures, and gradually transferring responsibilities.
- Create clear boundaries around your availability by setting specific "office hours" for team communications and using technology tools to automate routine communications.
- Develop a leadership support network by joining professional peer groups, scheduling regular consultations with mentors, and creating opportunities for shared decision-making within your practice to reduce isolation and distribute responsibility.
It may feel like your work never ends—as the scope of your work vastly increases to include the clinical and business needs of your patients and practice.
While you recognize the importance of supporting your team, you might also find the day-to-day challenges of leadership leave you feeling exhausted.
When there’s always an important deadline to meet, an employee to follow up with, or a billing or operations error to address, you are constantly pulled away from your current work to solve the newest problem.
This leads many therapy group practice owners to experience burnout.
In this article, we cover why group practice burnout happens. We also provide a checklist of steps you can take to reduce the impact of therapist burnout—on yourself and on the therapists who work in your group practice.
What is burnout and why does it happen?
Burnout is often described as feeling exhausted, depleted, as well as experiencing apathy and a sense of depersonalization. In October 2023, SimplePractice found that more than half (52%) of therapists reported experiencing burnout during the previous year and nearly a third (29%) said they were currently burned out.
You might find that you’re no longer interested in reaching your initial group practice goals. And you might even have daydreams about taking a long sabbatical or closing your business altogether.
Group practice burnout can be further compounded by feelings of loneliness and isolation.
"There is often this false belief that you, as the leader, need to have all the answers, complete everything on your own, or be an endless container of emotional support to your employees," says Julianne Guinasso, LMFT, co-founder of Level Up Leaders Inc.
These beliefs and experiences can lead to burnout, which is often accompanied by decision fatigue.
The more tired, stressed, and detached you are, the more you doubt your ability to make decisions and take aligned action. If you’re experiencing burnout, every decision you have to make feels like further depletion—creating a cycle of overwhelm that feels impossible to break.
If you wait until the weekends to prioritize self-care and nurture your well-being, over time you can expect your energy and focus to run out and your executive functioning to deplete. Here are some strategies to prevent burnout before it happens.
And, if you’re currently experiencing therapist burnout symptoms, there are actionable steps you can take to overcome it. For example, you can use the THRIVE Method to bounce back from burnout—by taking holistic actions, prioritizing time alone, and identifying your support systems, including peers and team members.
Here are some steps you can take to avoid group practice burnout.
Delegating to avoid group practice burnout
Similar to high-performance athletes or musicians, your rest and recovery are just as important as your sustained focus and efforts.
It can be useful to evaluate what is causing you the most exhaustion and depletion, then bring in support where necessary. It’s important to lean into the support around you—including your peers and your team.
Effective delegation is about developing your people and systems in order to create space for your replenishment.
Follow these steps to determine if you need to hire someone for your practice or delegate tasks:
1. List your daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and responsibilities.
2. Do the tasks you listed have to be done by you, as the group practice owner?
- If yes, time-block these tasks into your calendar to ensure you can realistically complete them. If it can't be reasonably scheduled into your calendar, you should consider delegating or outsourcing it.
- If not, consider delegating or outsourcing.
3. Is there something you spend too much time on or that depletes your energy?
- If yes, consider delegating or outsourcing.
- If not, consider what tasks could be enriched by someone on your team and consider sharing responsibilities for these tasks.
4. Do any of the things you listed deplete you because of fear, boredom, or exhaustion?
- For the items that bore or exhaust you, consider delegating or outsourcing.
- For the items that bring up fear, consider peer or professional support. Fear and self-doubt, or imposter syndrome, can loom large as a leader. It’s important to normalize social and professional support and feedback to move beyond our perceived limitations.
5. Are any of the tasks you listed repetitive?
- If yes, training and defining clear expectations for the person or position that takes over these tasks will be more accessible.
- If not, delegation is still a great solution, as long as you have clear expectations and allow your team autonomy in completing the task. They may not do it just like you, and that’s OK. Micromanaging can often be more depleting or time-consuming than completing the task yourself.
6. If you assign a task to someone else, can you give them full permission to complete the task from start to finish?
- If yes, consider delegating or outsourcing.
- If not, consider how to give them further autonomy so you don’t unintentionally create more work for yourself and have to supervise each step along the way.
Hiring decisions that prevent burnout
Inviting your employees to participate actively can enhance your organization's systems and create a culture of growth and development for all team members.
Based on what you identified above, answer the following questions to address group practice burnout:
1. Has anyone on your team expressed interest in these tasks or their leadership growth?
- If yes, consider training and delegation to provide growth opportunities. This might lead to creating a new position or expanding their current position as indicated.
- If not, start by choosing projects directly impacting your employee’s day-to-day work and elicit feedback to enhance their involvement and leadership skills. This will help you identify future employees who are interested in, and qualified for, growth opportunities.
2. Do the tasks you identified for delegation warrant creating a new position, such as starting or adding to your leadership or administrative teams?
- If yes, consider if this is financially feasible and move forward as indicated.
- If not, consider offering a therapist an expanded position that includes leadership duties with increased compensation, but without adding direct reports. This will help you evaluate if leadership is a good fit for them and if they would be interested in pursuing an opportunity to lead in the future.
3. Do you have resistance to these tasks being completed by someone else or a new position?
- If yes, consider the story you are telling yourself about having to do everything yourself and give yourself permission to try a new mode of leadership and people development.
- If not, proceed forward as indicated.
Your employees who seek growth will want to continue developing alongside your group practice. They will appreciate the opportunity to contribute and develop their leadership skills, when it aligns with their future goals and ambitions.
Ways to take time for yourself throughout the day
When you model boundaries and center your well-being, you give your employees permission to do the same.
Minimizing the effects of therapist burnout and decision fatigue is not about taking time off or going on that sabbatical, although these can be incredibly beneficial.
The true source of your sustainability comes from your daily rituals and how you set up your day-to-day.
Consider the following habits that might replenish your emotional, mental, or physical capacity.
If these examples appear overly simplistic, consider practicing these habits at higher frequencies—implementing at least one per category per day.
When you practice these consistently, you will provide a sustainable solution to burnout and therapist fatigue.
Emotional replenishment
- Open your meetings with a 3 minute grounding or breathing exercise.
- Schedule a 3-5 minute self-compassion exercise at the end of each workday.
- Set boundaries around your time and availability with your employees.
- Schedule peer or community support with like-minded leaders to reduce isolation or feelings of loneliness in your leadership role.
Mental replenishment
- Set boundaries around how many meetings you schedule back-to-back.
- Choose to mindfully focus on one task at a time to stay in the present.
- Start social media consumption towards the end of your day to avoid depletion.
- Listen to music, nature sounds, or green and pink noise to help you stay focused.
Physical replenishment
- Get up and stretch for 90 seconds after each meeting.
- Swap out one scheduled meeting a day as a walking meeting.
- Do a body scan mid-day to see where you’re holding any tightness or tension. Schedule these throughout your day or attach this task to another activity to make it easier to remember.
- Consider working while standing or sitting crossed-legged on the floor.
Your sustainability as a leader depends on building your support system and consistently practicing rituals that restore your energy and well-being throughout the day to prevent therapist burnout. Working collaboratively with your teams and empowering them to take on new leadership roles can also help.
How SimplePractice helps you confidently manage your group practice
SimplePractice is an all in one practice management software that helps you confidently manage a group practice and handle everything from insurance billing and client work to team management and business operations.
Streamline insurance billing with easy-to-use tools that enable you and your clinicians to create, submit and manage batches of claims all within SimplePractice. Or, opt to let professionals handle insurance billing on your behalf, from claim submission to claim resolution.
Plus, your group practice clinicians benefit from integrated client care and management tools. Clinicians can automatically send and analyze client measures like the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, while keeping track of client outcomes over time, and seamlessly manage client engagement from one Client Portal.
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