Counseling for academics

You Thought This Job Was Going to be The One…

You spent your first weeks wandering around campus in awe of the fact that you could be so lucky. You–strolling campus on the brink of promoting lifetime learning in moldable young minds–hell, accessing lifetime learning for yourself. Unbelievable!

And at first you felt energized. The conversations with students and colleagues made you feel excited and got your brain going.

But over time, the other stuff has crept in. Responsibilities have piled on and the tenure clock is always ticking in the back of your brain. You’re never able to pause and savor successes, because you know there’s another thing waiting in the queue. 

Work has really crept into all the corners of your life:

• Weekends are no longer restful. They are spent catching up on the stuff that got backburnered during the week while you watch your loved ones spend time having fun. 

• You say no to everyone except work. Another committee, yes, of course. Drinks with your friends? Who has time for that?

• When you spend time with loved ones, you’re thinking of what you should be doing for work and when you’re working you're carrying the guilt of abandoning your loved ones. 

• Sleep is elusive. And that’s on a good night. 

And The Usual Fixes Aren’t Working…

You are good at solving problems, so you’ve tackled this like any other thing you’ve been faced with. You got through a dissertation, dammit!

So, you’ve researched the hell out of this. You’ve looked at productivity hacks–apps that grow trees to keep you focused, managed and organized task lists, and ADHD (maybe that’s what this is????) self-screeners. But none of this is working.

Yes, those things are cool, but they don’t resolve this problem, because they don’t help you address the actual things contributing to your struggles. You can’t research your way out of:

• The ridiculously high standards you have for yourself that were constantly reinforced throughout graduate school. 

• The pressure (self-imposed) to overprepare for that lecture, because you’re sure the students will know you don’t actually know anything if you don’t. 

• Your abject terror about saying “no” to everything being asked of you (another committee anyone?)

• The constant comparison to colleagues; there’s nothing you hate more than an awards ceremony at a conference. You know you’re supposed to feel happy for that person receiving the award, but FFS who has that many publications?

You never really saw this coming, but here you are trying to figure out if this is what you really want. If you’re going to stay in academia, something has to change, but you have no idea what. If you decide to leave, you have no idea what’s next.

Everywhere you turn, there are unknowns and you hate unknowns.

What I know to be true is that you will never know for sure if you want to stay in academia if you don’t change your relationship with your work. In order to make a real decision about what’s best for you and your life–what you actually want–you have to get some clarity. And that comes with resolving some of the “you things” that contribute to this being so hard in the first place. 

Now, listen carefully, and this part is really important. I’m not saying that this conflict lives only in you. Absolutely not. However, I am saying that to make a clear decision about what’s best for you, you need to sort through the noise. Only then can you decide what’s next.

You’re standing at a choice point…

Most academics wait until they’re completely exhausted: unable to enjoy anything outside of work, paralyzed by decisions, dreading Sunday nights.

By then, therapy feels like damage control.

But you’re not there yet…You still care about your work. You still show up. But you’re smart enough to see the trajectory: if nothing changes, you know where this ends.

What It Looks Like When You’re No Longer White-Knuckling Tenure…

You’re in a faculty meeting and someone floats the idea of a new committee. Your name comes up. Six months ago, you would've said yes immediately, partly because you thought you should, partly because you were terrified of seeming uncommitted. Now you say, “That sounds important, but I don't have capacity for that right now.” The meeting moves on. No one thinks less of you. You don't replay the moment for three days wondering if you made a mistake.

It’s Saturday morning. Your laptop is closed. Your partner suggests a hike and you say yes without mentally calculating if you can “afford” the time. During the hike, you think about work exactly twice, and both times, you notice it, acknowledge it, and come back to the trail. That night, you realize you haven't touched your computer since Friday at 5pm. It feels strange. Then it feels like relief.

A student asks a question you don’t immediately know the answer to. The old version of you would've faked it or felt like an imposter. Now you say, "You know what? I'm not sure. Let me look into that and get back to you next class." The student nods and writes it down. Later, you realize you didn't spend the rest of class session spiraling about whether they think you're incompetent.

You're prepping Thursday's lecture on Tuesday night. You have your core content, two solid examples, and the readings mapped out. You could add that perfect video clip. You could create a more elaborate activity. You could refine the discussion questions for another hour. Instead, you decide it's good enough. You close your laptop at 8pm. Thursday's class goes fine. Students engage, learning happens, and no one knows you didn't spend six hours perfecting every detail.

It’s the week before your annual review and you’re looking at your CV. There are gaps. Things you didn’t publish. Committees you said no to. Service you skipped. The old you would've felt shame, started the comparison spiral, wondered if you're “behind” your cohort. Now you see those gaps differently: they're the space where your life happened. Where you slept. Where you showed up for your family. Where you made choices instead of just reacting to demands. You submit the CV without apologizing for what’s not on it.

Your department chair emails about fall course scheduling. Before, you would've said yes to whatever they needed — evenings, overloads, new preps — because you didn’t know how to advocate for yourself without feeling selfish. Now you respond with what actually works for your life. You suggest alternatives. You say what you need. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you compromise, but you’re no longer abandoning yourself to make things easier for everyone else. The relationship with your chair is actually better now: clearer, more honest, less resentful.

You’re at a conference and someone wins an award for research productivity. Everyone applauds. Six months ago, you would've spent the rest of the conference in a shame spiral, counting their publications versus yours, wondering what's wrong with you, feeling like a fraud. Now? You genuinely feel happy for them. Not because you’ve suddenly become a saint, but because you’ve stopped measuring your worth by someone else’s CV. You know what you’re working toward and why. Their success doesn’t diminish yours anymore.

I know Academia…

You might be thinking, “Why you, Emily?” Now here’s where I am different from other therapists. I know academia. And I know that these things I’m talking about are really hard to do in that system; so, unlike other therapists, I actually get it.

You won’t have to explain tenure and promotion or research/service/teaching to me. I know that your rank contributes to how much power you have in the system, and I know academia’s joys and struggles (though I am excited to know what those are for you specifically).

So, instead of explaining, you can spend your energy focused on the things that matter to you. 

I work from an attachment and neuroscience framework, so we will focus on helping your brain and nervous system communicate well with each other, so that your reactions to situations become information for you to use to help you make decisions, rather than points of distress.

We will help you change your relationship with yourself, so that you can get clarity on what you really want from your work and if you can get it in your current situation. We will clear the noise.