Therapy for Work & School Problems

Psychoanalytic therapy treats work and school difficulty by finding what the paralysis is protecting against, rather than adding another system for managing time. I am a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified psychoanalyst in Washington, DC, and I have taught and treated students and professionals for over fifty years. Sessions are held online by secure video.

The pattern is familiar in this city. Someone able, well trained and genuinely motivated cannot start the dissertation, cannot send the application, cannot finish the thing that is nearly finished — and has already tried every productivity method there is.

It is worth noticing what does not explain it. Not ability, not intelligence, not information, and usually not effort, since a great deal of effort is going into the avoidance itself. Something is being protected, and the work is to find out what.

I have taught at UCLA, the University of Michigan and the University of South Florida, and I am currently Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at USF, so this is territory I know from both sides of the desk.

“A great deal of effort goes into the avoidance. That is worth being curious about.”

What people describe

Procrastination on the work that matters most
Burnout that a holiday does not touch
Performing far below what you are capable of
A dissertation, thesis or project stalled for years
Dread before ordinary tasks; relief on failing to do them
Success that arrives and means nothing
Not knowing what you want, and being ashamed of not knowing

The problem

Why the productivity systems keep failing

Every system assumes the problem is method — that with the right calendar, the right app or the right amount of discipline, the work would get done. When the fifth system fails like the first four, that assumption deserves examination rather than a sixth attempt.

Very often the avoidance is doing a job. Not finishing means never being judged on the finished thing. Underperforming can keep a rivalry from being won, or protect a relationship from the consequences of surpassing someone. Burnout sometimes turns out to be the only permissible way to stop, in a person who cannot otherwise give themselves permission.

None of this is conscious, and none of it is laziness — it is a solution to a problem that has not been stated out loud. That is why willpower has such poor results here: it is aimed at the symptom, and the symptom is not the difficulty. It is the compromise.

The method

How psychoanalytic therapy treats work and school difficulties

We start with what actually happens at the moment of avoidance — not the week in general, but the specific minute the file is closed, and what was in the air just before. That minute reliably contains something: an anticipated judgement, a person whose voice the judgement is in, a cost to succeeding that has never been named.

From there the pattern usually turns out to have a history, and often a family one. Ambition is rarely a private matter; it arrives loaded with somebody else's expectations, disappointments or unfinished business. Getting that into the open changes what the work means, and work that means something different is easier to do.

Most people do this in weekly or twice-weekly psychotherapy. Where the difficulty is long-standing and has survived earlier treatment, psychoanalysis is the more thorough option.

Which treatment fits

Which treatment fits this work

Most work and school difficulties respond to weekly psychotherapy. We decide together in the free consultation.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Once or twice a week at a fixed time. Where most people begin, and enough for a great many difficulties.

Psychoanalysis

Three to five sessions a week. The more thorough instrument, for difficulties that have returned after previous treatment.

Couples therapy

Ninety minutes with both people present, when the trouble lives between you rather than inside one of you.

Expected results

What tends to change

No honest clinician promises a submitted dissertation by a given date. What follows is what usually shifts, and roughly in what order.

The avoidance makes sense

It stops looking like a character defect and starts looking like a solution to something.

Starting gets easier

Not through discipline — through the removal of whatever the starting was risking.

Ambition becomes yours

What you are working towards separates from what you were expected to want.

Rest without collapse

Stopping stops requiring burnout as a justification.

An honest caveat: if the difficulty is primarily a specific learning disability or an attention disorder, analytic therapy is the wrong first instrument — that calls for proper psychoeducational or neuropsychological testing, and I will refer you for it rather than spend a year on the meaning of something that has a simpler explanation. The two can coexist, and in that case the testing comes first.

Your therapist

About Dr. John J. Hartman

Dr. John J. Hartman, licensed psychologist offering online therapy for work and school problems in Washington, DC

I have practiced psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for over fifty years, and have spent much of that time teaching it — at UCLA, Michigan, and the University of South Florida, where I am currently Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry. As a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Florida Psychoanalytic Center, I am one of the analysts responsible for training other analysts.

A.B. Harvard College, magna cum laude with highest honors, Social Relations
Ph.D. University of Michigan, Clinical Psychology
Certificate Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute
FABP Board-certified psychoanalyst, American Board of Psychoanalysis
Training & Supervising Analyst Florida Psychoanalytic Center
Licensed Washington, DC (PSY200001229) · Florida · Michigan
PsyPact Telehealth authorized in participating PSYPACT jurisdictions, including Maryland and Virginia

Full credentials and appointments · scholarship and publications

Fees

What treatment costs

Individual sessions are $325 for 50 minutes; couples sessions are $475 for 90 minutes. The first 15-minute consultation is free and carries no obligation, and a sliding scale is available — ask whether you may be eligible.

Payment by cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, or wire. I do not bill insurance, but if your plan covers out-of-network mental health care you may be able to submit my bills to your insurer for reimbursement. Office hours are Monday to Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, by arrangement. Full fees and insurance details.

Common questions

Questions about therapy for work and school problems

Is chronic procrastination a psychological problem?

It frequently is, once the practical explanations are exhausted. Persistent avoidance of work you genuinely want to do usually means the work carries a risk that has not been made explicit — of judgement, of failure, or occasionally of success and what success would cost. Naming that risk tends to do more than any scheduling method.

Can therapy help with burnout?

Yes, though not by prescribing rest. Burnout is often the endpoint of an arrangement in which stopping was not otherwise allowed, and unless that arrangement is examined, recovery lasts exactly as long as the time away from work. The useful question is what made continuing at that pace feel compulsory.

Do you work with graduate students and academics?

Regularly. I have taught at UCLA, the University of Michigan and the University of South Florida and hold a current appointment as Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at USF, and stalled dissertations, examination anxiety and academic paralysis are long-standing parts of my practice. Sessions are online, which travels well across a move or a fellowship.

Can I see you if I do not live in Washington, DC?

Yes. All sessions are online by secure video. I am licensed in Washington, DC, Florida and Michigan, and through PsyPact I can treat residents of participating PSYPACT jurisdictions, including Maryland and Virginia.

Find out what the avoidance is for.

The first 15-minute consultation is free and carries no obligation. Online sessions only, for residents of Washington, DC, Florida and Michigan, and — through PsyPact — participating PSYPACT jurisdictions including Maryland and Virginia.

Call (813) 787-2048 Prefer to write first? Email Dr. Hartman

Online Therapy for Work and School Problems in Washington, DC