It is a question that has stopped more than a few of my physician clients in their tracks: Who are you outside of the white coat?

I do not mean your hobbies, though yes, of course those matter. I mean your identity. Your core sense of self when you strip away the pager, the patient lists, the provider ID, and even the deeply ingrained instincts to care, to fix, to achieve. For many doctors, especially those who have spent decades moving from pre-med to med school to residency to practice, this question can be disorienting, if not downright uncomfortable.

And yet, it is also where some of the most meaningful work in therapy begins.

Identity foreclosure in medicine

There is a term in developmental psychology called “identity foreclosure.” It is a stage where someone commits to a particular identity without fully exploring other options. It is common among young adults who, often under family or societal pressure, lock themselves into a certain career or life path before they have really had a proper chance to discover who they are independent of other people’s expectations of them.

Does this sound familiar? Medicine, for all its noble purpose, can be a prime incubator for identity foreclosure. By the time you have made it through the gauntlet of medical training, your profession has become more than just a job. It is become your calling, your status, your shorthand introduction at parties. It is how your family and friends see you. It is how the world sees you. And over time, it becomes how you see you.

How do you know this might be happening? A few signs I hear often from doctors in my practice:

• You feel uneasy, restless, or strangely empty on days off.
• You struggle to answer, “What do I enjoy?” without naming things you are “good at.”
• Relationships start to revolve around scheduling logistics, not shared meaning.
• Feedback and metrics, patient satisfaction scores, RVUs, test results, become the primary mirror you look into to know who you are.
• When you imagine scaling back or changing directions, you feel guilt or fear (or both).

If this lands for you, I want to normalize it. Identity foreclosure is not a character flaw. It is an understandable adaptation to an intense professional culture. But it is costly. When we are only allowed to be “doctor,” we can become brittle, burned out, and lonely inside the role that once lit us up. The problem is, when everything rides on your identity as a doctor, there is little room for change, vulnerability, or nuance. And if your work starts to feel hollow (or worse, if you begin to feel burned out), there is often nowhere else to go in your mind. The only self you know is the one in scrubs.

The emotional cost of being “just the doctor.”

I have sat with many high-achieving physicians in my therapy practice who feel emotionally starved, relationally disconnected, and quietly numbed out to the world and their own place in it. Not because they are failing at doctoring, far from it, but because doctoring has crowded out everything else.

They tell me:

• “I do not even know what I like to do anymore.”
• “I feel robotic. Like I am performing some expected version of myself day in and day out.”
• “If I am not productive, I feel worthless.”

This is not just burnout. This is a loss of self. Therapy can offer a rare space to recover, discover, and emerge into a self that goes beyond your doctor identity. To not just ask “How can I be better at medicine?” but “Who can I be beyond medicine?”

Reclaiming the parts of you that got lost

In therapy, we begin to look at the identities that got left behind:

• The creative one
• The rebellious one
• The spiritual one
• The emotionally attuned one
• The one who had dreams that do not fit neatly onto your CV

We explore the messages you internalized early on about competence, value, sacrifice, and more. And how those messages shaped your path in medicine. We look at the armor you have had to wear to survive. And together, we can begin to loosen it, piece by piece. Not to turn you away from medicine, but to make room for you in your own life again.

It is not self-indulgent. It is self-preservation.

Many of the doctors I work with feel guilty for even contemplating this kind of self-reflection. After all, there are still patients to see, charts to complete, CME hours to log. But here is the truth: The cost of not asking these questions is often higher. Emotional disconnection. Marital strain. Depression. Feeling like a stranger in your own life.

You do not have to wait for a full-blown crisis to start re-examining who you are and what you need.

How therapy helps you widen your life again

Good therapy is not about convincing you to care less about medicine. It is about making more room in your life so the parts of you that practice medicine with purpose can breathe alongside the parts that want love, beauty, laughter, rest, creativity, and meaning.

Here is some of what that can look like in the therapy room:

• Name what is actually happening. We map how performance became the main story about you, and how that story gets reinforced at work and at home. Naming this is not navel-gazing; it is the start of agency.
• Slow the nervous system. Physicians often live in a constant “go” state. We build capacity for slowing down and stillness. That way, when you do ask big questions, you can hear the answers.
• Grieve and give permission. Many doctors carry grief for everything medicine required, missed milestones, delayed family planning, friendships that faded. Permission to have a full life often follows honest grief and sometimes even regrets.
• Re-introduce neglected parts. The researcher who misses writing, the outdoorsy resident who stopped hiking, the pianist who has not touched a keyboard in a decade. Those parts are not gone; they are still there, waiting in dormancy to be reawakened.
• Experiment small. Instead of grand life overhauls, you can try low-stakes experiments: maybe it is one hour a week for something utterly non-productive with no purpose or end goal. Maybe it is an evening where you do not optimize anything. Perhaps it is a conversation with your partner guided by curiosity, rather than problem-solving.
• Rework boundaries. As your identity expands beyond “the dependable one,” your boundaries at work and at home can shift from rigid or porous to right-sized over time.

A quick practice you can try: for one week, notice each time you describe yourself using role or achievement language (“attending,” “I am efficient,” “I am behind”). Gently add one sentence that speaks to a value, a need, or a delight (“I value wonder,” “I need quiet to reset,” “I love being near water”). It sounds small, but this is how new identities start to build.

Therapy as a path back to yourself

If you are a physician reading this and feeling some resonance, I want to remember two things:

• You are not alone. More and more doctors are quietly starting therapy, not because they are falling apart, but because they are ready to start living more fully.
• You deserve a space where you are not just the expert, the provider, the one in control. You deserve a space to be a whole human being.

Annia Raja is a clinical psychologist who specializes in working with physicians like you who carry the immense weight of medical life. The unrelenting pace, the constant pressure to perform, and the emotional toll of caring for patients can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself and wondering who you are beyond the white coat. As the spouse of a physician, Annia has seen firsthand how medicine can affect not only your energy but also your identity, your relationships, and your ability to find meaning in life. She understands the isolation of holding it all in and the importance of having a safe space where you can let your guard down.

Through her practice, Annia Raja PhD Therapy, Annia and her team provide in-depth, thoughtful therapy for physicians that is tailored to the unique realities of your medical work. Their approach goes beyond symptom relief, helping you untangle burnout, process unique struggles, reconnect with what matters most, and rediscover parts of yourself that may have been lost along the way.

Outside of therapy, Annia finds joy in exploration, whether it is a multi-day trek with a hiking pack, a scuba dive beneath the ocean, or a day hike in the mountains. She enjoys birdwatching, savoring coffee while planning her next read, and hiking trails both around Los Angeles and across the globe. She practices what she encourages you to do: make intentional space for what restores you. If you meet her virtually, her orange tabby cat might just make an appearance.

If you are ready to take the next step, visit the Therapy for Physicians page or book a free 15-minute consultation.