Helm Psychology in the Press
Our founder, Dr. Annia Raja, writes a regular column for The White Coat Investor, contributes to KevinMD, and sits down with physician podcasts to talk about burnout, grief, identity, and why doctors who know they need help so often do not go get it. Reporters at Forbes, Medscape, and U.S. News call Helm Psychology when they need someone to explain what is happening underneath high-functioning distress.
Everything on this page is here for one reason: so you can hear how we actually think before you ever book a consultation.
Full episodes, columns, and the pieces where reporters asked us to explain something.
Podcast Appearances
Three conversations with physician audiences, all with Dr. Annia Raja. Each one goes somewhere different, so the summaries below tell you which is which.
Burnout Isn't What You Think
Drive Time Debrief with The Whole Physician, Episode 211
Three emergency physicians asked Dr. Raja what is actually happening underneath physician burnout, and spent half an hour taking the usual explanation apart with her. Working too many hours is real, but it does not explain why time off stops helping, why rest can feel unsafe, or why a doctor can be doing everything right and still feel dead inside at the end of a shift.
They got into moral injury, repeated trauma exposure, the helper identity that usually forms long before medical school, and the reason depth therapy takes a different route than a coping-skills toolkit. This is the closest thing to hearing how she works with a physician client.
What we covered
- Why "burnout" is a term she does not love, and what it flattens
- Moral injury, including insurance denials of evidence-based treatment
- Repetitive and vicarious trauma exposure outside of trauma settings
- Why humans cannot numb selectively, and what that does to joy
- Parentification, martyr complexes, and the helper identity
- The arrival fallacy, and the wall doctors hit three to five years after training
- Depth therapy versus CBT, and why she asks doctors to shelve the urge to problem-solve
- Licensure fear, confidentiality, and why Helm stays out of network
- Early signs it is time to get deeper support
“We are not capable of selective numbing. So what ends up happening over time is you're also numbing yourself to the capacity for joy, for contentment, pleasure, happiness, fulfillment, and everything in between.”
Dr. Annia Raja on Episode 211
Why more doctors are seeking therapy to sustain their careers and lives
The Podcast by KevinMD, with Dr. Kevin Pho
Kevin Pho and Dr. Raja talked through her KevinMD article "Why more physicians are quietly starting therapy," and what she is seeing from inside a practice that specializes in doctors. More physicians are reaching out, and not because they are failing. Something has shifted in what doctors are willing to say out loud.
She also explained why she puts the word resilient in quotation marks, and why telling already-resilient people to be more resilient individualizes a problem that is structural.
What we covered
- What is driving more physicians into therapy right now
- The pandemic, generational change, and the end of the invincible doctor myth
- Why institutional resilience programming often makes burnout worse
- What makes physician burnout different from burnout in other professions
- The three-to-five-years-post-training wall, and what it looks like in the consulting room
- Questions to ask yourself before starting therapy
- Therapy as maintenance rather than repair
Embracing Emotions: Burnout, Grief, and Healing
Girl Doc Survival Guide, Episode 187, with Dr. Christine Ko
A short, personal conversation about a word most physicians would never use for their own working life: grief. Not only patient death, though that is part of it. Grief for lost years, missed milestones, abandoned hobbies, and the version of yourself who existed before training reshaped you.
Christine Ko and Dr. Raja talked about how grief and burnout feed each other, and why naming grief is the step that makes everything after it possible. Fifteen minutes, so it is an easy first listen.
What we covered
- The many faces of physician grief beyond patient loss
- Grieving time itself, and grieving a former version of yourself
- How grief and burnout hold each other in place
- Emotional intelligence as a skill you can build, not a trait you have
- Why social support changes what grief does to you
“Telling doctors to be more resilient when these are already deeply resilient people is not only missing the mark, I think it's harmful.”
Dr. Annia Raja on The Podcast by KevinMD
“Physicians often come to me in a state of burnout, and I would say grief. They have lost a sense of themselves along the way. Often a sense of, 'I don't even know who I am outside of my doctor identity.'”
Dr. Annia Raja on Episode 187
Writing
Where Dr. Annia Raja writes for physician audiences on her own terms, at length, and with a byline.
The White Coat Investor
Dr. Raja is a regular columnist at WCI, writing about the psychology of money, physician identity, burnout, and wellness for an audience of doctors who are sharp and allergic to fluff. See her author page.
KevinMD
Dr. Raja contributes to KevinMD, the largest physician voice online, on burnout, grief, identity, and the emotional reality of practicing medicine. See her author page.
- Reclaiming the human parts of a physicianOctober 2025
- The many faces of physician griefSeptember 2025
- Who are you outside of the white coat?August 2025
- Why physicians need a place to fall apartAugust 2025
- Why more physicians are quietly starting therapyAugust 2025
- Stop telling burned-out doctors to be more resilientAugust 2025
Guest writing
Dr. Raja is invited to write for other physician platforms and publications.
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Why Physicians Wait So Long to Ask for HelpSoMeDocs · August 2026 -
Moving Beyond Burnout: How Therapy Empowers Working-Mom PhysiciansSusan Landers, MD
Quoted In
Reporters and editors who have asked Dr. Annia Raja to explain something, and what the piece was about.
Forbes Health
U.S. News & World Report
Everyday Health
What to Expect
SimplePractice
Speaking
I'm Fine (Until I'm Not): When Physicians Should Seek Professional Help (and What Kind)
Dr. Annia Raja will be presenting in the Wellness Track at WCICON27, The White Coat Investor Physician Wellness & Financial Literacy Conference, in Orlando, Florida. The talk will be about the gap between knowing you need help and actually going to get it, and how to tell which kind of help you are looking for.
Let's Talk
If any of this sounded like your own life, a free consultation call is the next step.
Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you can ask us about anything you heard on this page.