From Classroom to Couch: Why Teachers Need Therapy

Teaching isn’t just a job—it’s a calling that demands heart, resilience, and creativity every single day. As you dive into a new school year, are you feeling a familiar mix of excitement and stress? You’re not alone. The responsibility of shaping young minds brings an undeniable weight—expectations are high and the pressure, often relentless. As back-to-school jitters ramp up, so can the anxiety that lingers long after the final bell. With a history as a teacher and a current role as a therapist at Lifeologie Counseling Dallas, I understand that no teacher should bear this journey in isolation. Counseling isn’t just a lifeline for weathering tough times—it’s a proactive tool to help you reclaim balance, manage mounting stress, and protect your passion from burnout, so you can keep inspiring students and thrive in your own life, too.

A Stressful Profession

As a former teacher myself, I know that teaching is so much more than lesson plans and grading. This profession requires a seemingly constant stream of energy, patience, ideas and resilience as you work towards meeting the demands of the school system while also juggling how to be there for your students both academically and emotionally every day. Teachers are called upon to be experts in so many areas  – all while almost always facing some sort of pressure for an upcoming standardized test or data collection that will ultimately be judged and used as a method to tell you if you are doing a good job or not. 

This pressure, combined with the increasing stress of classroom management due to elevating social and emotional needs of students, would make anyone feel like they are never doing enough. Teaching is often a profession that people get into because of a passion for learning and working with children, but the demands that are put on teachers today has left very little room for them to be able to do their job without feeling like they are drowning in the constant barrage of expectations and responsibilities. 

moving from burnout to balance

During my years in the classroom, I constantly felt that I was having to ignore certain needs of my students as well as my own needs in order to keep up with the ever-growing workload that just seemed to increase with every email or staff meeting that popped up. 

As I reflect back on this time now, it has become evident to me that something I was missing was any sort of self-care or dedicated time to recharge so that I could keep up with these demands. Now as a counselor, I feel that my understanding of the pressures that are weighing on teachers’ shoulders, whether looking at the workload or the desire to support students or the expectations of parents and administrators, helps me to effectively guide teachers towards a life of balance and self-care in order to avoid becoming one of the teachers that is overwhelmed by burnout and compassion fatigue. Being able to call back on my time in the classroom and combine that understanding with the skills I have gained on my journey to becoming a counselor, I feel that I can help these unique and vital professionals achieve a life that allows them to serve not only their students but themselves in a positive and healthy way. 

managing stress with mindfulness

Through an emphasis on self-care and mindfulness-based stress reduction in combination with actionable steps for making life more manageable, counseling can be a tool for teachers to maintain a sense of peace and balance in a career that so often does not prioritize either of these. Utilizing my skills as a counselor along with my experience as a teacher, our counseling sessions can offer a safe, judgment-free space to explore relevant topics, such as emotional exhaustion, boundary-setting, and burnout prevention. Through our one-on-one therapy sessions, I hope to give teachers an avenue to really understand and work through the overwhelming pressures that they face on a daily basis and to help them find ways to manage those challenges so that they can focus on the invaluable work that they do. 

As a Lifeologie Counseling Dallas counselor who specializes in working with teachers, I am here with the tools to support your goals as your school year gets going. Call me to learn more at (214) 357-4001 if you’re in the Dallas area, or reach out to request an appointment. Or, if you’re a teacher who’s reading this far away from Texas, search for a Lifeologist near you at wefixbrains.com/therapists!

You spend every day supporting others – let’s create a space to support you!