6 San Francisco Therapists for Nurses & Healthcare Workers
Healthcare asks a lot of the people who provide it. As a nurse, physician, therapist, social worker, or other healthcare professional, you may spend your days staying calm during emergencies, making high-stakes decisions, witnessing pain, and caring for people at their most vulnerable. Then your shift ends, and somehow you're expected to leave all of that at work. Sometimes, it doesn't stay there.
The exhaustion can follow you home. You might feel irritable with people you love, replay difficult cases in your head, struggle to sleep, or feel emotionally numb when you finally have a moment to yourself. Maybe you've become so accustomed to pushing through that you're not sure what you need anymore.
At Stillpoint Therapy Collective, our San Francisco therapists for nurses and healthcare workers offer warm, relational, trauma-informed care for those navigating burnout, anxiety, trauma, grief, perfectionism, relationship strain, and the cumulative weight of caring for others.
Jump to a therapist
Ellen Ottman: Best for complex trauma
Bayley Azevedo: Best for sexual trauma & intimacy challenges
Amy Toig: Best for chronic illness & chronic pain
Amber Godwin: Best for teens
Jen Ottman: Best for professionals & executives
Lauren Thibodeau: Best for trans & gender-affirming care
Amanda Nance: Best for athletes & body image
Tina Salomon-Tripp: Best for self-esteem & identity
Jen Ottman
Best for perfectionism and pressure to always perform
I work especially well with nurses and healthcare professionals who are capable, high-achieving, and used to holding themselves to extremely high standards. If perfectionism, imposter feelings, or the pressure to always perform are driving burnout, my relational and insight-oriented approach can help you understand the patterns underneath that pressure. You may choose to work with me if you want therapy that explores not just stress, but the identity and self-worth issues that can keep you pushing long after you are depleted.
Credentials: Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #153153
Specialty areas: Professionals and executives, anxiety, stress, burnout, life transitions, relationships, identity, and self-worth
Virtual therapy?: Yes, available across California
Callista Cox
Best for compassion fatigue and caregiver burnout
I specialize in caregiver burnout, grief, chronic stress, and the emotional toll of caring for others. My style is down-to-earth, collaborative, and especially suited to healthcare workers who feel exhausted from constantly absorbing other people's needs, pain, or loss. You may choose to work with me if compassion fatigue, grief, or the weight of being the caregiver has become the central issue.
Credentials: Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #141253
Specialty areas: Caregiver burnout, grief and loss, chronic stress, trauma, depression, disability and chronic illness, LGBTQIA+ and gender-diverse clients
Virtual therapy? Yes, available across California
Ellen Ottman
Best for trauma after high-stakes or distressing clinical experiences
I specialize in trauma, PTSD, complex trauma, and the ways overwhelming experiences can stay active in the nervous system long after the moment has passed. I combine relational therapy with somatic approaches and Brainspotting, which can be especially helpful for nurses and healthcare workers carrying the impact of distressing clinical experiences. You may choose to work with me if trauma exposure, hypervigilance, emotional shutdown, or feeling constantly "on" is at the heart of what brings you to therapy.
Credentials: Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #124702
Specialty areas: Trauma, PTSD and CPTSD, burnout, stress, anxiety, chronic pain, grief
Virtual therapy?: Yes, available across California
Amber Godwin
Best for nervous systems stuck in “on-call” mode
I work with chronic stress, anxiety, trauma, and nervous-system dysregulation through a relational and body-based lens. My somatic approach, including training in Somatic Experiencing, can be especially helpful for healthcare workers whose bodies still feel activated even after the shift is over. You may choose to work with me if you want therapy for nurses and healthcare workers in San Francisco that focuses less on simply talking through stress and more on helping your system learn how to come out of constant high alert.
Credentials: Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #144905
Specialty areas: Anxiety, stress, trauma, complex trauma, nervous-system regulation, emotional regulation, life transitions, and relationships
Virtual therapy?: Yes, available across California
Amy Toig
Best for healthcare workers managing their own chronic illness or pain
I specialize in chronic illness, chronic pain, burnout, and the complicated relationship people can develop with their bodies when health changes what they can carry. I also bring lived experience of chronic illness and pain, which can offer a different kind of understanding for healthcare professionals who are used to being the provider while managing their own health needs. You may choose to work with me if the intersection of caregiving, physical health, identity, and burnout feels especially important.
Credentials: Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #147414
Specialty areas: Chronic illness, chronic pain, burnout, stress, trauma, PTSD, anxiety, identity, and LGBTQIA+-affirming therapy
Virtual therapy?: Yes, available across California
Bayley Azevedo
Best for boundaries when caring for everyone else comes first
I work with burnout, boundaries, communication, relationships, and the patterns that make it hard to stop overextending for other people. My approach can be a strong fit for healthcare workers who leave work depleted because the caregiving role follows them into friendships, family life, or intimate relationships. You may choose to work with me if saying no, protecting your energy, or creating healthier boundaries is the main change you want to make.
Credentials: Associate Marriage and Family Therapist #140730
Specialty areas: Boundaries, burnout, stress, trauma, anxiety, relationships, communication, intimacy, self-esteem, and LGBTQIA+-affirming care
Virtual therapy?: Yes, available across California
What sets our practice apart from other San Francisco therapists for nurses and healthcare workers
At Stillpoint Therapy Collective, we understand that burnout is rarely solved by telling someone to practice more self-care. Healthcare workers often operate within demanding systems while simultaneously managing their own histories, relationships, identities, responsibilities, and nervous systems.
Therapy needs to make room for that complexity. Our San Francisco therapy for nurses and healthcare workers offers:
Trauma-informed care, where you have the space to process both acute traumatic experiences and the cumulative impact of repeatedly witnessing pain, illness, crisis, and loss.
Advanced training in body-based approaches like somatic therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, Hakomi, mindfulness, and nervous-system awareness.
Relational therapy, where we pay attention not only to symptoms, but also to relationships, attachment patterns, identity, boundaries, and the environments people move through every day.
LGBTQIA+ identified and affirming therapists who recognize how identity can intersect with workplace experiences, relationships, and stress.
Flexible scheduling, including both in-person and virtual options, as well as weekend availability so we can work around your busy schedule.
Whatever part of healthcare work has become hardest to carry, our therapists can help you understand what is happening beneath the surface and find a more sustainable way forward.
What to expect from the therapy process
Step 1: Start with a free consultation
We’ll begin with a brief conversation about what’s bringing you to therapy, what you’re hoping for, and what type of therapist might feel like the best match. You can also ask questions and get a sense for whether our practice feels like the right fit
Step 2: Get to know your therapist
Your first sessions give you and your therapist time to better understand what you've been carrying. You might talk about work stress, relationships, difficult clinical experiences, sleep, anxiety, boundaries, grief, or the expectations you hold for yourself. Together, you'll begin identifying what feels most important to address.
Step 3: Understand your patterns
Therapy can help uncover the patterns beneath chronic overfunctioning. Maybe staying busy helps keep difficult emotions at a distance. Perhaps perfectionism creates a temporary sense of control. Or you may have learned long before entering healthcare that taking care of everyone else was safer than needing anything yourself. Understanding these patterns creates more room for choice.
Step 4: Make space for a life outside of work
The goal isn't to stop caring about your work. It's to create enough internal space that your profession doesn't have to consume every part of you. Over time, therapy for nurses and healthcare workers in San Francisco can help you strengthen boundaries, reconnect with relationships and interests outside of healthcare, respond differently to stress, and develop a more sustainable relationship with a career that may still matter deeply to you.
Frequently asked questions about therapy for nurses and healthcare workers
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Therapy for healthcare professionals can provide space to understand what’s contributing to burnout rather than treating exhaustion as an individual failure. Depending on your needs, therapy might focus on boundaries, perfectionism, nervous-system regulation, workplace stress, trauma, grief, relationships, career decisions, or reconnecting with parts of yourself that have become overshadowed by work.
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Employers like to pretend that selfcare is the solution to burnout, but they know that this isn’t an adequate solution. The reality is that most healthcare workers operate in a broken healthcare system, and selfcare is simply not enough to cope with the stressors of being a healthcare worker in America. Actually helpful solutions can include stronger workplace boundaries, adequate rest and recovery, peer support, therapy, trauma processing, schedule changes when possible, and addressing systemic stressors such as chronic understaffing or unrealistic workloads. Therapy can also help healthcare professionals recognize burnout earlier, understand the patterns that keep them overextending, and build a more sustainable relationship with work.
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Some nurses and other healthcare professionals are exposed to events that can be traumatic, including medical emergencies, unexpected deaths, violence, severe injury, or repeated exposure to suffering.
Trauma responses can look different for everyone. Some people experience intrusive memories, nightmares, hypervigilance, avoidance, emotional numbness, irritability, or physical tension. A trauma-informed therapist can help you explore these experiences without assuming every difficult reaction automatically means PTSD.
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Compassion fatigue describes emotional and physical exhaustion that can develop after sustained exposure to other people's distress.
Someone experiencing compassion fatigue may notice numbness, irritability, decreased empathy, guilt, exhaustion, or feeling disconnected from work that once felt meaningful. Therapy can provide a place to process those reactions without judgment while looking at ways to make caregiving more sustainable.
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Not at all. Healthcare may be one part of what brings you to therapy, but you are more than your profession. Sessions can include relationships, family, identity, trauma, sexuality, health, grief, creativity, life transitions, or whatever else feels important.
Sometimes one of the most meaningful parts of therapy for healthcare professionals is having a space where they are not primarily seen as a nurse, physician, therapist, or provider, but simply as a person.
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No, we’re an out-of-network practice, which means our therapists don’t bill insurance directly. If you have out-of-network benefits, many of our therapists can provide a superbill that you may submit to your insurance for possible reimbursement. We also offer a limited number of sliding-scale spots based on financial need and therapist availability.