Neoliberalism, Burnout, and Mental Health
A Licensed Brooklyn Therapist on Why So Many People Feel Exhausted and Disconnected
As a licensed Brooklyn therapist in New York, I work with clients who feel chronically overwhelmed, burnt out, anxious, and quietly convinced they are failing at life. Many arrive in therapy believing something is wrong with them. They assume they are not resilient enough, disciplined enough, or motivated enough.
What often becomes clear in therapy is that these feelings are not personal deficits. They are predictable responses to neoliberalism, the dominant economic and cultural system shaping work, relationships, and identity in the United States and especially in New York City.
At Equanimity Therapy Collective, I help clients understand how broader systems affect mental health, so they can stop blaming themselves for conditions they did not choose.
Neoliberalism and Mental Health in New York City
Neoliberalism emphasizes individual responsibility, constant productivity, self-optimization, competition, and the belief that personal worth is measured by output. These values are treated as neutral or inevitable, but they deeply shape emotional life.
In Brooklyn and throughout NYC, neoliberal pressure is intensified by:
High cost of living
Competitive work environments
Long hours and limited downtime
Constant comparison
Financial precarity
Scarcity of rest and space
Many people are not just tired. They are exhausted from living in conditions that require continuous self-management and endurance.
Seeing the Water We Are Swimming In
David Foster Wallace once described two young fish swimming along when an older fish asks, “How’s the water?” Afterward, one fish turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?”
Neoliberalism functions like that water. It is so pervasive that people experience its effects without recognizing them as environmental. By the time many people seek therapy, they are not questioning the system. They are questioning themselves.
Therapy helps make the invisible visible. It helps people recognize that distress often reflects the conditions they are living under, not a personal failure to cope.
Inner Child Reparenting Without the Pop Psychology
The idea of inner child or reparenting work is often misunderstood. In my work as a Brooklyn therapist, I frame it as developing a relationship with yourself that is responsive, attuned, and flexible rather than rigid.
This means learning how to respond to your actual wants and needs in context, rather than forcing yourself to follow scripts that no longer fit your life.
This is not about avoiding difficulty. It is also not about doing hard things simply because they are hard. Hard work is not inherently meaningful. It is sometimes part of the process of pursuing what matters, but it is not the goal itself.
Neoliberal culture reverses this logic. Effort becomes the point. Endurance becomes proof of worth. Therapy helps put things back in the correct order.
Labor of Love vs Love of Labor
This distinction shows up clearly in work, relationships, and caregiving.
A labor of love arises when effort flows from meaning, care, and choice. It allows for limits, pacing, and discernment. It recognizes that commitment does not require self-erasure.
A love of labor, promoted by neoliberal culture, demands that identity be organized around productivity. Exhaustion becomes a badge of honor. Boundaries feel like failure. Rest feels undeserved.
This is why many people feel trapped even in work they once cared about. Therapy helps people reconnect effort to meaning rather than obligation.
Why Motivation Matters More Than Effort
Consider relationships. There is a critical difference between giving from anxiety and giving from care.
One kind of effort is driven by fear. Fear of abandonment. Fear of losing security. Fear of not being enough. This effort feels rigid, compulsive, and draining.
Another kind of effort is rooted in genuine care and connection. It still involves sacrifice, but it feels chosen rather than coerced.
The same applies to work, creativity, community involvement, and activism. When something truly matters, people approach it with strategy, patience, and self-awareness. Effort becomes intentional rather than self-destructive.
Therapy helps people identify when they are working hard out of fear rather than meaning.
Humans Are Not Efficiency Machines
One of the most damaging assumptions of neoliberal culture is that people should function like machines. Always available. Always improving. Always productive.
Humans are not robots. We have bodies, emotions, limits, histories, and relationships. We require rest, connection, creativity, and variation. We cannot optimize indefinitely without cost.
When people attempt to live as efficiency machines, they experience burnout, anxiety, emotional numbness, and disconnection from themselves. Therapy provides a space to return to a way of living that is human rather than extractive.
Therapy That Acknowledges Social and Economic Reality
As a licensed Brooklyn therapist accepting major insurance, I offer therapy that is relational, trauma-informed, and grounded in real-world conditions. I work with adults experiencing burnout, anxiety, depression, relationship strain, and the emotional toll of modern life in New York.
Therapy is not about fixing you or helping you tolerate an intolerable system better. It is about helping you see the water you are swimming in, reclaim agency where possible, and relate to yourself with clarity rather than coercion.
Effort matters. Discipline matters. Commitment matters.
But only when they are in service of a life that actually belongs to you.
Looking for a Licensed Brooklyn Therapist?
If you are seeking therapy in Brooklyn with someone who understands the emotional impact of neoliberalism, burnout, and structural pressure, I would be glad to connect.
You deserve care that takes your full reality seriously.
