Support for doctors, nurses and medical teams
Clinical work exposes you to things that are not ordinary, at a pace that does not allow you to stop on them. We can look at that here, with someone who has worked inside hospital teams.
A free 15-minute call first. I usually reply within 2 working days.
You might recognise
- I am functioning. I am simply not there any more.
- I have started to resent the patients, and I do not recognise that in myself.
- There is one case I still return to, and I have never said it out loud.
- I know exactly what I would tell a colleague in my position. I have no intention of doing it.
- The dread starts the evening before the shift, not during it.
- I have become careful in a way that is not about the patients. It is about being blamed.
Why it happens
Burnout in clinical work is produced mainly by the conditions of the job rather than by the person doing it: workload, understaffing, administrative burden, rotas that fight your body clock, and limited control over your own day. Emotional detachment and a falling sense of accomplishment are predictable outcomes of that, and they appear in people who are competent and committed. Compassion fatigue is a different thing. It comes from sustained exposure to other people's suffering, and it works by depleting the very capacity you rely on. Feeling less for patients is usually experienced as a moral failure, when it is closer to a protective mechanism that has been running for too long. Moral injury is different again. It arises when you have to act - or watch yourself fail to act - against what you believe is right: discharging someone you know is not ready, rationing your time, following a protocol you disagree with, working under war or emergency conditions. It produces guilt and shame rather than fear, which is why trauma models alone do not fully account for it. To all of this add the professional culture. Medicine selects for people who cope, and treats needing something as a liability. That is why people arrive late, and why the wait before they contact anyone is long.
How therapy helps here
- Separating what is yours from what belongs to the system
- A large part of the early work is diagnostic in the plain sense: how much of this is workload and structure, how much is grief, how much is a trauma response, and how much belongs to your own history. The intervention is different for each, and treating them as one thing is why the usual advice fails.
- EMDR for a specific case
- Clinicians often carry one or two events with unusual precision: a resuscitation, a conversation with a family, a patient who reminded you of someone. These can be targeted directly, without you having to give a full clinical account.
- CBT and behavioural work on sleep, shifts and detachment
- Practical work on sleeping across rotating shifts, on the boundary between the ward and home, and on the thoughts that make handing over feel unsafe. Concrete, and usually the first thing to move.
- Schema therapy for the pattern underneath
- For many clinicians, unrelenting standards and self-sacrifice long predate medical school. Schema work looks at where that began and what it costs now, which matters if leaving this post would only reproduce the same pattern in the next one.
- Short-term, goal-focused work
- If you want something time-limited and defined, we can agree a number of sessions and a focus at the outset. That is a legitimate way to work here, not a lesser one.
What the first sessions look like
- The first session is a working conversation, not an intake form. You decide how much identifying detail to give, including where you work.
- We look at the shape of your week - rotations, nights, on-call - and find a time that does not depend on a fixed diary.
- We define what you want out of this: sleeping, staying in the profession, leaving it well, or dealing with one specific case.
- I will tell you if what you describe needs a psychiatric opinion or occupational health input, and that decision stays yours.
You do not have to arrive here as a case, and you do not have to justify it with a diagnosis. Talking it through with someone outside your hospital is a reasonable professional decision, not an admission.
What this does not replace
This is psychological therapy. It does not replace psychiatric care, occupational health, legal advice about a complaint or an inquiry, or medical treatment of a physical condition. Where there is significant depression, dependence on alcohol or medication, or a real question about your current fitness to work, in-person and multidisciplinary care is safer, and I will say that to you directly rather than behind your back.
Common questions
How long is a session and what does it cost?
An individual session is 45-50 minutes and costs €130. A group session is 90 minutes and costs €70-100. All sessions are online, in Hebrew or English.
Will my employer, my colleagues or the licensing body ever know about this?
Nothing about the treatment reaches them from me. I do not report to your workplace, your department, your health fund or the Ministry of Health, I do not confirm to anyone that you are a patient of mine, and none of this appears in any occupational file. The only exceptions are the ones the law imposes on every psychologist in Israel, principally an immediate danger to life. If such a situation ever arose, I would discuss it with you first wherever that is possible.
I work shifts. Can this realistically be scheduled?
Sessions are online and can move from week to week rather than sitting on one fixed hour. We agree in advance how changes are handled, so that a change in the rota does not end the treatment.
Do I have to stop working, or take leave?
No. Most of this work happens while people continue in post. If at some point stopping looks clinically necessary, that is a conversation, not something I decide or set in motion.
Can this be arranged for a team or a department?
I teach medical teams - psychological coping with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, obesity, motivation, and brief intervention in the consulting room - and group sessions are available. A group commissioned by your department is not confidential in the way individual therapy is, and I make that distinction clear before anything is arranged.
Related areas
PTSD and medical trauma
Intrusive memories, avoidance and heightened alertness after a frightening medical event or another trauma. EMDR and related evidence-based work.
Read moreAnxiety and health anxiety
For health anxiety and worry that follows the body: checking, searching, and reassurance that never lasts.
Read moreChronic illness and diabetes
For living alongside a long-term diagnosis: the appointments, the numbers, and the self-management that never quite finishes.
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Unsure whether to write?
Write one sentence about what is going on. I will say if I work with that, and if not, where else to look.
A free 15-minute call first. I usually reply within 2 working days.