Career Support Therapy
Career Support Therapy in Chicago | Male & Female Therapists | Work Stress & Professional Development
Feeling stuck in your career, overwhelmed by work stress, or navigating a major professional transition? Our Chicago male and female therapists provide career support therapy for professionals dealing with burnout, career changes, workplace conflicts, and work-life balance. At Modern Therapy Alliance in Chicago, we help you clarify your professional goals and develop strategies to reduce work-related stress. Most of us spend a huge part of our lives at work. The pressure to perform, manage people, hit targets, and keep up appearances can feel endless. You might look successful on the outside but feel worn down by anxiety, second-guessing, or the sense that you can’t show up as your real self.
Reasons People Come to Career Therapy
People come here for many reasons. Early in a career, it might be figuring out how to get noticed without burning out, handling a difficult manager, or making the leap from individual contributor to first-line leader. Later in a career, it might be adapting after a buyout (yes, private equity will slash costs and change the rules), shifting from Director to VP expectations, learning to lead by influence rather than authority, or repairing trust after a public misstep. And if you’re a C-suite executive at a large company, know that you’re not the first to sit across from us—and you won’t be the last. Wherever you sit, therapy can help you reset, grow, and move forward.
Our Background and Perspective
Our Chicago career therapy practice is different. As a male therapist who works with professionals, I’ve lived these realities firsthand: 25 years in senior leadership at Fortune 100 companies and advising startups at the University of Chicago. My background includes an MS in Engineering and an MBA from USC (Go Trojans!), which means I understand both the technical and business sides of the challenges you face.
Long before I became a therapist, my favorite part of management was developing people—interns, new grads, and high performers rising fast. That passion is why I created this kind of therapy practice: one that takes work seriously, that sees career stress as a valid reason for therapy, and that trains younger therapists to support professionals in the same way. Imagine if your professional mentor was also a licensed clinical therapist—that’s the unique lens we bring to this work.
More Than Coaching
This is not career coaching. Coaches can help with résumés and tactics; they can’t treat what actually drives the patterns—shame, fear, family messages, and chronic dysregulation. Here, you get both: the strategic insight you’d expect from a seasoned leader plus the clinical depth that creates durable change. We may use Internal Family Systems (IFS) to untangle self-criticism and people-pleasing, narrative work to rewrite your leadership story, and DBT skills to regulate under pressure so your prefrontal cortex stays online. For executives, this often means learning how to influence and build consensus instead of leaning on positional authority. And for every client, we target work–life balance—because success isn’t success if your home life collapses to fund it.
The Experience
You will start by feeling better right away; then we’ll help you do better at work; and finally, we’ll support you to be better—authentically, without the mask. And this is a judgment-free zone. Nothing you’ve done (or avoided) at work is going to shock us. Here we provide career counseling at our Chicago office or via telehealth across Illinois.
What You'll Get
What you’ll get early in your career:
Stress tools that prevent burnout while helping you get noticed
A promotion roadmap (expectations, feedback, sponsors, visibility)
Strategies for difficult managers and office politics without losing yourself
Transition skills: individual contributor → manager → director
Work–life balance that doesn’t tank performance
Confidence that feels real, not performative
What you’ll get mid-to-late career / leadership:
“What got you here” upgrades rooted in values and authenticity
Presence under pressure: regulate, decide, communicate
Navigating PE buyouts, acquisitions, restructures—without self-betrayal
Learning to lead through influence and build consensus rather than rely on authority or power
Repair after missteps (anger, misconduct, reputational hits) with accountability
Succession, pivots, or post-career options with clarity
Aligning professional success with personal integrity—both pointing the same way
How We Help
✓ Career transitions and job changes
✓ Burnout and work-related stress
✓ Workplace conflict and difficult bosses
✓ Work-life balance challenges
✓ Professional identity and purpose
✓ Impostor syndrome and confidence issues
✓ Career decision-making
Ready for Career Support Therapy in Chicago?
If work stress is affecting your mental health or you’re navigating a career transition, our Chicago male and female therapists can help. Schedule your free 15-minute consultation to discuss your professional challenges.