Rest By Force or By Choice: Burnout, Self-Care, and Sustainable Practice for Therapists - An Interview with Cecily Moore, PhD

Rest, By Force or By Choice: Burnout, Self-Care, and Sustainable Practice for Therapists - An Interview with Cecily Moore, PhD Dr. Cecily Moore on burnout, rest as a clinical intervention, and unlearning the Strong Black Woman Narrative. Curt and Katie talk with Dr. Cecily Moore, a licensed therapist, counselor educator, and clinical supervisor, about why the expectation of endless strength and infinite patience is an unsustainable ask for therapists and other helping professionals. As clinicians carry collective grief and moral exhaustion alongside their clients, Dr. Moore reframes what burnout is actually asking of us. At the center of the conversation is a simple, uncomfortable idea: your body is designed to protect you, so you will stop either by force or by choice. Dr. Moore makes the case for rest as a clinical intervention rather than a reward, unpacks how self-care has been co-opted into something you buy instead of something that restores you, and explains why advocacy that runs on depletion is a ticking time bomb. Real self-care, she argues, is honest about limits, boundaries, and capacity. From there the discussion turns practical. Dr. Moore shares how deeper values work (asking where a value came from and how it was modeled) opens the door to change, how her "BS Job" checklist gives clinicians a concrete mirror for what is draining them, and why systems will not shift until the people inside them do. She also connects this to her research on unlearning the Strong Black Woman Narrative and the survival-based beliefs about strength, productivity, and worth that keep so many helpers over-functioning. This is a grounded, hopeful conversation for any therapist trying to build a sustainable career without abandoning the work they care about. In this episode, we discuss: - Why endless strength and infinite patience are an unsustainable ask for helping professionals - How to tell rest as a clinical intervention apart from self-care that has been co-opted - Why your body will make you stop, by force or by choice - How to size your advocacy to your actual capacity so it does not deplete you - What deeper values work looks like, and why it drives real change - Why unlearning survival-based beliefs about strength and worth makes practice more sustainable Timestamps: - 01:20 - Who Dr. Moore is and what she puts into the world - 02:49 - What therapists get wrong about endless strength and infinite patience - 04:17 - Collective trauma and watching the world change in real time - 06:37 - Moral injury, privilege, and truth-telling across lived experience - 10:29 - How self-care got co-opted, and why advocacy runs on your well-being - 13:07 - Why rest feels so scary - 15:00 - Reframing self-care as self-maintenance - 18:58 - Over-functioning students and learning to be human - 22:49 - Insight versus implementation, and the systemic barriers - 24:15 - Why systems can't shift until the people do - 28:13 - Sustainable choices, by force or by choice - 29:16 - Values work and the "BS Job" checklist - 31:24 - The Strong Black Woman Narrative and questioning conditioning - 35:28 - Where to find Dr. Moore Guest Bio: Dr. Cecily Moore is a licensed therapist, counselor educator, researcher, and clinical supervisor with a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision. She is the founder of Dr. Cecily Moore & Associates and the creator of the Reappropriate, Redefine, Recover framework, which helps Black women unlearn the Strong Black Woman Narrative and the survival-based beliefs around strength, productivity, and worth that fuel burnout. Her work blends trauma-informed care, nervous system regulation, and culturally responsive practice, and reframes rest as a clinical intervention, not a reward. Learn more at drcecilymoore.com. Full show notes and transcript: mtsgpodcast.com Join the Modern Therapist Community Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/mtsgpodcast Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/therapyreimagined Modern Therapist's Survival Guide Creative Credits Voice Over by DW McCann: https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano: https://groomsymusic.com/