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Therapy for Lawyers + Tech Leaders | Seattle, WA

For High-Achieving Professionals Who Don’t Want to ‘Cope’ Anymore

Evidence-based therapy for anxiety, stress, burnout, and overthinking in high-pressure careers.

Inquire for an appt.
Inquire for an appt.

Therapy for Attorneys

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Burnout And Stress Therapy

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Therapy for Career Stress in Tech

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Therapy for Attorneys | Burnout And Stress Therapy | Therapy for Career Stress in Tech |

A pink glass sculpture resting on top of two stacked books, one titled 'The Myth of Normal' and the other 'The Queen's Therapies'.

Because “just push through” isn’t working

From my own experience in big law and big tech, I know how much working hard and holding it together can help you move towards your career goals. But I also know that “just pushing through” for too long can lead to burnout and having stress spill into all areas of life.

In high-pressure careers, running on overdrive can become the only way you know how to cope. Anxiety and exhaustion can start to feel normal. Sleep gets lighter. Patience gets thinner. Your brain stops turning off. You keep performing, but it costs more and more. Sometimes you might feel tempted to walk away from it all.

Consider this permission to stop accepting “fine” or “surviving” as the best that you can feel. You are smart, hardworking, driven, and didn’t work this hard to constantly feel overwhelmed. You don’t have to wait until things actually fall apart to seek help (but if you do feel like they are falling apart, I can help with that too).

Therapy is a place to take the pressure off and figure out how to enjoy both your career and your personal life again.

I would be honored to support you in living a more fulfilled life.

Annasara Purcell icon logo

Rewiring Anxiety And Stress At Every Stage Of Your Career

What therapy can help with:

  • Work stress and burnout

  • Sleep problems and stress recovery

  • Self-criticism

  • Being fully present and able to enjoy life

  • People-pleasing and difficulty saying no

  • Anxiety and overthinking

  • Imposter syndrome

  • Feeling numb, stuck, or “is this it?”

Let’s begin
Let’s begin
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The Approach to Burnout And Stress Therapy | Seattle

What You Can Expect

Clients often describe my approach as collaborative, direct, and nonjudgmental. While I bring expertise in clinical modalities, you remain the authority on your life and objectives. We will work together to establish clear priorities and continuously assess our progress, refining our focus as your needs and goals evolve.

I use approaches that are backed by strong research, and I adapt the work to your needs.

I pull from a variety of different therapeutic techniques, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Solution-Focused Therapy, and Narrative Therapy. In addition, I have specialized training in two evidence-based modalities that are particularly good at fostering long-term change:

  • EMDR helps the brain process past difficult experiences, and transform the maladaptive beliefs and feelings that grew out of these experiences. This can include big, obvious events (like abuse), but it can also include smaller experiences that shaped core beliefs. For example many high-achievers have memories of disappointing their parents, and formed beliefs such as “I have to be perfect” or “I can never make mistakes” out of such memories. 

    Once these formative memories are processed and the associated beliefs and feelings shift, clients often find that present-day situations that once triggered distress no longer carry the same emotional intensity.

  • IFS helps you understand the different “parts” of you that show up under pressure. The part that overthinks. The part that pushes harder. Instead of trying to eliminate these parts, we get curious about what they are protecting and what they have learned over time.

Therapy for High Performers

Ways to Work Together

Individual Therapy
(50 minutes)

A standard session length for ongoing support. Sessions are available in person or online.

Individual Therapy
(80 minutes)

A longer session for clients who want more space to process, especially when using EMDR or when going deeper in a single session. Sessions are available in person or online.

Therapy Intensives

For those who want to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. Intensives allow us to do several months’ worth of work in a week or less.

    • Several hours a day

    • Three to five consecutive days

    • Designed for focused, deeper work

Inquire for an appt.
Inquire for an appt.
A woman with dark curly hair, wearing a white blouse and pinkish-brown pants, is sitting on a wooden bench, posing indoors near large windows with beige curtains and a potted plant nearby.

Therapist for Lawyers and Leaders

Annasara Purcell | LMFT

I’m Annasara Purcell. I’m a licensed therapist in Seattle, WA, and I work with high-achieving professionals in law, tech, and executive leadership.

Before I became a therapist I graduated from Stanford Law School, worked as a litigator at a top law firm, and served as Senior Corporate Counsel at Amazon. So when I say I get the professional stressors that my clients face, I actually do.

That understanding, along with my Masters degree in Marriage and Family, shape the work I do as a therapist.

I believe my clients are incredibly smart and driven. Many of the people I work with are used to solving complex problems at work, and they bring strength and insight into the therapy room. My role is to create a dedicated space for your self-care and to help you understand what is happening beneath the stress, then build practical ways forward.

How it works

You do not need to explain your world first. We can get to the work faster.

01

Inquire
Fill Out the Inquiry Form

02

Connect
I will reach out to have an initial 15 min chat

03

Book A Session
If it’s a good fit, then we will book our first session

Start Therapy
Start Therapy

faq

  • Burnout is not a clinical term or a formal diagnosis, so there is no definitive list of diagnostic criteria that would tell you if you qualify. The World Health Organization, however, defines burnout as “a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive, prolonged stress, often resulting from unmanaged workplace pressure.” In more human terms, when people identify as experiencing burnout, they often describe a constant feeling of overwhelm, feeling like they can’t keep up and desperately need a break. This can also manifest as emotional numbness, cynicism, a short temper, and lack of motivation.

  • Every person’s experience is different, but many people experience major improvements in work performance as a result of therapy. Most commonly, people report that when their stress feels more manageable they are able to think more clearly and prioritize more effectively. In other words, when the nervous system stops treating everything like an emergency, what is actually important can rise to the top.

  • Not every lawyer needs therapy to protect their wellbeing, but lawyers face a number of specific stressors that can make therapy particularly helpful. Many lawyers report that they don’t feel they can meaningfully talk to anyone about their stress because non-lawyers don’t get it, and other lawyers might view it as weakness or hold it against them. In addition, client confidentiality concerns make any degree of talking about work fraught. Therapy provides a non-judgmental, safe space to share without holding back, with someone who gets the pressures of being a lawyer firsthand.

  • I wish I could give you a timeline for this online but there is no way of knowing how long it will take any specific person to recover from burnout (and if someone promises you healing within a certain period of time, you should run the other way). How long healing takes and what exactly it looks like depends on a number of factors including how burnt out you are, how much you still have to engage in the activities that led you to burnout, the strength of your support network, and many others. The important thing to know is that burnout can improve and our goal will be to create changes that prevent burnout from coming back, not just giving you a crutch to deal with it.

  • I am a fully-licensed out-of-network provider, meaning that clients pay me at the time of session and I am able to provide a receipt called a superbill that they can submit to their insurance company for reimbursement.

  • Yes! Even if your office is just down the street from mine, I get that sometimes virtual is easier. We can meet using my secure telehealth platform.

  • Yes. If you are a lawyer practicing public interest law or a professional otherwise working in public service (such as for the government or for any non-profit organization), please inquire about my sliding scale pricing. Also, thank you for the important work that you do.

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