This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nick Sanchez, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
I would say 99% of my clients cite burnout as one of their biggest problems.
As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I see a caseload of about 18 to 20 clients a week, most of whom are very high-performing individuals in Silicon Valley, such as business owners, executives, founders, and people in management within tech.
AI burnout is a newer phenomenon I’ve seen. AI enables us to do deep work on multiple projects at once and learn new skills, but it never stops working. You have to be the one to decide when it’s time to pause, and that’s where AI burnout can come in.
I think the type of person who burns out is the type of person who would work more if they could, so it hasn’t been effective for me to simply tell them to work less. They’re not looking to work less; they’re looking to work smarter. I have to get their buy-in that, if they take breaks, they’ll actually be able to push harder and more effectively.
That’s why I use exposure therapy techniques to help my clients heal from burnout and learn tools to manage it when it returns.
Burnout has varying levels of intensity
I’ve seen burnout play out in numerous ways as far as intensity, but I would describe it as similar to dysthymia, which is a low-grade depression. Burnout can make the things that used to bring us joy no longer bring us joy. Meanwhile, motivation and our desire to get through our to-do list can go out the window.
Clients often come to me saying they’re no longer performing at the level they used to be. I had one client who drove to their office for work and couldn’t even get out of their car. They told me they physically couldn’t get themselves to go in and give any more of themself.
AI burnout is real — I’ve even felt it
In addition to being a therapist, I’m the founder and clinical director of Silicon Valley Therapy, where I manage and train associates on their paths to licensure. I’ve personally experienced AI burnout while growing my business, and I see it in my clients.
AI has increased my capacity to produce higher-quality work and take on roles that I’d previously have to outsource, but it takes a lot of time and is easy to fall down a rabbit hole. I see similar types of things with clients where they’re taking too much on their plates.
They also mention how AI fractures their attention. They’re trying to focus way too granularly on too many different projects. With so many different types of LLMs and agents available, it’s possible to be working deeply on four or five projects at a time, as opposed to being focused on one area at a time. That level of work requires a different muscle to develop in our brain.
I don’t even know if we should be working like that.
It’s important to manage burnout, not just avoid it
If someone was terrified of dogs, I wouldn’t take them to a dog park on day one of therapy. The first rung on the exposure ladder would be something like looking at pictures of dogs.
The same thing goes for burnout. I wouldn’t tell a burnt-out founder to take two weeks off from working and not look at their phone. They’d find another therapist.
Instead, I might ask what they think about taking an hour out of the day to go on a walk, and or eat lunch outside. Ideally, they’ll be off their phone, but it could even be something like watching a fun video.
If they’re not open to it, I’ll go even shorter, like 30 minutes or 15 minutes. Usually, we’ll get to a point where they feel as though it’s doable. Once they start to notice the benefits, like their day going more smoothly when they take time to eat a proper, nourishing meal outside, their buy-in starts to work. Then we build a customized self-care routine or protocol over time. They’re learning the skills to manage burnout, not avoiding the cause.
My advice for managing attention fragmentation is the same as managing burnout. If you’re running six different projects at once, what if you try working on only two and seeing how that goes, or chunking your day so it’s not all spent working on your projects?
AI has become a tool in therapy
From a therapy point of view, I have a lot of clients who use AI to ask for journal prompts or breathing exercises.
It’s really awesome that there’s a place where people can get that information and work through more surface-level versions of therapy. When they come to the session, we’re able to have much deeper human-level conversations.
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