You know the feeling.

The one that says:

• If you were better at this, it wouldn't be this hard. 
• If you had advocated more effectively, the caseload would be manageable. 
• If you were really cut out for this work, you wouldn't be sitting in your car wondering if you can walk through the doors.

That feeling has a name. And it isn't burnout.

In this episode, Steph Johnson makes the case- through peer-reviewed research and a story she's never told publicly before- that the school counseling profession systematically produces that feeling. 

This is what institutional gaslighting looks like. 

And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

This Isn't Burnout. It's Gaslighting.

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Join our new Skool for School Counselors community 

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Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! 

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All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.

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Ready to spend a few days this summer with me, geeking out over school counseling and preparing for your best year ever? Grab your ticket here before this limited-seat event sells out!

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This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, CSC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.