Career Stress Therapy in Chicago
Work can be going well on paper and still take over your evenings. You may dread Monday, replay feedback, or feel unable to stop checking messages.
I’m Sam Rustum, LCPC. I work with adults facing work pressure, self-doubt, difficult decisions, and exhaustion. Together, we can look at both the demands of your workplace and the expectations you carry into it.
When Work Stress Follows You Home
A stressful day at work doesn't necessarily end when you leave the office or close your laptop. You might find yourself checking emails during dinner, thinking about an uncomfortable interaction with your supervisor, or mentally preparing for everything you need to accomplish tomorrow.
Sometimes, even enjoyable activities become difficult because your attention keeps returning to work. You may become irritable with people close to you or feel unable to relax without worrying that you're forgetting something important.
This can create a frustrating cycle. The more time you spend anticipating problems at work, the less opportunity you have to recover from them. When the next workday arrives, you're already mentally exhausted.
For some people, this pattern develops gradually. What started as occasional job stress becomes a regular part of everyday life.
Signs Career Stress Is Affecting Your Mental Health
Work-related stress can affect how you think, feel, and behave, both during the workday and outside of it.
Common signs include:
Dreading work or feeling anxious before the workweek begins.
Replaying workplace conversations and worrying about how others perceive you.
Feeling overwhelmed by deadlines, responsibilities, or expectations.
Struggling to disconnect from emails and work-related thoughts.
Becoming unusually irritable or impatient with family and friends.
Questioning your abilities or feeling that you're falling behind.
Avoiding difficult conversations or putting off stressful tasks.
Experiencing headaches, muscle tension, or difficulty sleeping.
Feeling trapped in an unhealthy workplace or dissatisfied with your career.
These experiences don't necessarily mean you need to leave your job. They do suggest that work is affecting your well-being in ways worth addressing.
Why Career Stress Can Become Difficult to Manage
Career stress often involves a combination of workplace circumstances and personal expectations. Understanding how these factors interact is an important part of addressing the problem.
Fear of Making Mistakes or Being Judged
Some people experience considerable anxiety about how they're perceived at work. An upcoming meeting might lead to hours of preparation, while a minor mistake can become something they think about for days.
If you regularly interpret criticism as evidence that you're incompetent, even routine feedback can feel threatening. This can contribute to excessive checking, reassurance-seeking, or avoiding situations where your performance might be evaluated.
Workplace Pressure and Unreasonable Expectations
Not every stressful work situation comes from your own thinking patterns. Unmanageable workloads, unpredictable supervisors, and unclear expectations can create genuine problems.
You might be expected to respond to messages outside working hours or take responsibility for problems beyond your control. When saying no feels risky, these demands can gradually become normal.
In situations like these, managing stress involves recognizing which circumstances can realistically change and what options are available to you.
Difficulty Setting Boundaries at Work
You may find yourself accepting additional responsibilities even when you're already overwhelmed. Perhaps you worry that declining a request will disappoint someone or make you appear unreliable.
Over time, constantly accommodating others can contribute to resentment and frustration. You may also struggle to identify what constitutes a reasonable expectation of yourself.
Tying Your Self-Worth to Your Job
When your work becomes a major source of personal identity, professional difficulties can feel especially painful.
A disappointing review, missed promotion, or mistake at work may leave you questioning your overall worth. You might also compare your progress to others and feel dissatisfied, even when your circumstances are relatively stable.
Therapy can help you examine how these beliefs developed and how they influence your emotional reactions.
Work-Related Anxiety and the Cycle of Overthinking
One reason job stress can persist is that thinking about work begins to feel like a way to prevent problems.
You might repeatedly review something you said in a meeting, imagine how your supervisor could respond to a mistake, or plan conversations that may never happen. In the moment, this mental preparation can feel productive.
However, repeatedly analyzing the same situation often increases anxiety without bringing you closer to a solution.
The cycle can become self-reinforcing. You worry about a possible problem, spend time mentally preparing for it, and temporarily feel more in control. When uncertainty returns, you feel compelled to start thinking about it again.
Therapy can help you distinguish useful problem-solving from repetitive worry and develop greater tolerance for the uncertainties that naturally come with work.
When the Workplace Itself Is the Problem
Sometimes you're stressed because your work environment is genuinely difficult.
A supervisor who regularly criticizes employees, coworkers who create ongoing conflict, or an organization with constantly changing expectations can make it difficult to feel comfortable at work.
In these situations, simply learning to think more positively is unlikely to resolve the underlying problem.
Therapy can provide a place to process difficult workplace experiences, recognize patterns in how you respond to conflict, and consider realistic ways to protect your well-being.
This might involve communicating more directly, establishing limits, or evaluating whether your current environment is sustainable.
It is also important to recognize that some circumstances cannot be resolved through individual effort alone.
Career Dissatisfaction and Feeling Stuck
Not everyone experiencing career stress has an overwhelming workload. Sometimes the difficulty comes from feeling unhappy with the direction of your professional life.
You may have invested years in a career that no longer feels meaningful. Perhaps your interests have changed, or the reality of your profession doesn't match what you originally expected.
Leaving might create financial uncertainty, while staying means continuing in a situation that makes you unhappy.
These decisions can become especially complicated when you feel embarrassed about changing direction or worry about disappointing others.
Therapy can help you better understand what matters to you, identify fears influencing your decisions, and approach uncertainty more thoughtfully.
How Therapy Can Help With Career Stress
My approach involves understanding both the circumstances creating stress and the patterns that influence how you respond to those circumstances.
We can look at situations that regularly trigger anxiety, explore the expectations you place on yourself, and identify behaviors that may be unintentionally maintaining your stress.
Depending on your needs, our work may include:
Reducing work-related anxiety: Learning to recognize unhelpful thinking patterns and respond differently to uncertainty, criticism, and mistakes.
Managing overthinking: Identifying when problem-solving has turned into repetitive worry and practicing ways to disengage from those thought patterns.
Building healthier boundaries: Exploring why saying no feels difficult and developing more effective ways to communicate your limits.
Addressing self-doubt: Understanding how your experiences and beliefs affect your confidence at work.
Responding to workplace conflict: Managing emotional reactions and examining more constructive ways to handle difficult interactions.
Making decisions with greater confidence: Reducing avoidance and learning to tolerate the discomfort that sometimes accompanies important choices.
I draw from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and psychodynamic psychotherapy.
CBT can help you identify patterns of thinking and behavior that contribute to anxiety. ACT emphasizes responding more flexibly to difficult thoughts and emotions, while psychodynamic therapy can help you understand how earlier experiences influence your current expectations and relationships.
The approach depends on your circumstances and what you want to work on in therapy.
I am trained in Internal Family Systems (IFS). When it fits your goals, we may explore the part that keeps working to prevent criticism and the part that wants relief. We can take both needs seriously and consider what a manageable change would look like.
You can read more about IFS, CBT, ACT, and psychodynamic therapy before we talk.
Career Stress Therapy in Chicago and Online
If work has become a consistent source of anxiety or dissatisfaction, it may be worth taking a closer look at what's contributing to those feelings.
I'm Sam Rustum, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor offering individual therapy in Chicago and online. I work with adults experiencing anxiety, perfectionism, and stress that interferes with their everyday lives.
Whether you're struggling with workplace pressure, persistent worry about your performance, or dissatisfaction with your career, we can work together to understand the difficulties you're facing and identify meaningful changes.
Questions about career stress therapy
Do I have to be considering a job change?
You can begin because you want your present work to take up less of your mind. We might focus on a recurring conversation, the pressure to be constantly available, or the way a difficult day affects your evening. Your goals guide the work.
What if the workplace itself is the problem?
We can take the conditions seriously, including unclear expectations, excessive demands, and conflict. Together, we can separate what you can influence from what requires support, a change in circumstances, or a longer decision process. You do not have to make that decision in the first session.
What might we practice between sessions?
One example is deciding how to respond to a request that arrives after your workday ends. We can consider your responsibilities, the consequences you anticipate, and language that communicates your availability. Afterwards, we can review what happened and what you want to adjust.
Explore related concerns
You may also find these pages useful: burnout, work-life boundaries, career transitions, workplace conflict, and overthinking. For practical appointment information, visit Fees & FAQs.
Start with a conversation
You can come to therapy while you’re still sorting out what the problem is. During a free 15-minute consultation, we can talk about what work has been like, what you’re hoping to change, and whether working together feels like a good fit.