Helping high achievers reach their full potential

Counseling, Coaching, & Consulting

You may look successful on the outside, but feel anxious, burned out, or disconnected from the life you have built.

Do These Challenges Sound Familiar?

  • You may be functioning well on the outside while internally feeling tense, overwhelmed, self-critical, or worn down. Therapy can help you understand what is driving the pressure and begin changing the pattern.

    Relevant pages: Anxiety, Burnout, High Achievers

  • You may replay conversations, analyze every option, worry about making the wrong move, or feel like you need certainty before you can relax. This can show up in anxiety, OCD, career stress, and perfectionism.

    Relevant pages: Anxiety, OCD, Career Stress, Perfectionism

  • You may hold yourself to high standards, struggle with self-criticism, or feel like your worth depends on achievement. Even success may not feel satisfying for long.

    Relevant pages: Perfectionism, High Achievers, Anxiety

  • You may be worn down but still unable to slow down. Even rest can feel hard to justify when there is always more to do.

    Relevant pages: Burnout, Work-Life Balance, Career Stress

  • You may dread work, feel stuck in your career, struggle with boundaries, or wonder why success does not feel more fulfilling. Therapy can help you sort through what is actually wrong and what needs to change.

    Relevant pages: Career Stress, Work-Life Balance, High Achievers

  • You may feel responsible for other people’s emotions, avoid conflict, overexplain, people-please, or quietly build resentment because your needs keep getting pushed aside.

    Relevant pages: Relationships & Boundaries, Perfectionism, Anxiety

  • You may struggle with communication, emotional distance, resentment, defensiveness, conflict avoidance, or feeling like you are carrying too much. This can happen individually or as a couple.

    Relevant pages: Relationships & Boundaries, Couples Counseling

  • You may still care about each other, but feel stuck in cycles of conflict, shutdown, resentment, or emotional distance. Couples counseling can help you understand the pattern and begin changing how you relate to each other.

    Relevant pages: Couples Counseling

  • Depression does not always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like still functioning while feeling disconnected, heavy, irritable, or unable to enjoy things the way you used to.

    Relevant pages: Depression, Burnout

Dr. Joe Rustum smiling in a navy blue suit and glasses against a light gray background.

Welcome, I'm Dr. Joe Rustum

I help high achievers, professionals, and organizations address anxiety, burnout, self-doubt, career stress, and leadership challenges.

My style is practical and direct. I help clients think more clearly, set better boundaries, communicate more effectively, and make meaningful changes in their day-to-day lives.

As a clinical psychologist, executive coach, and consultant, I work with people who are capable and driven but often feel stuck, overextended, or unsure how to move forward.

How I Can Help You

  • I help clients reduce overthinking, rumination, and second-guessing so they can make decisions with more confidence. This is especially helpful for anxiety, OCD, career stress, perfectionism, and major life decisions.

    Outcome: more clarity, less mental spiraling, and more confidence in your decisions.

  • Therapy can help you understand what keeps anxiety going, calm your nervous system, reduce avoidance, and respond to stress with more intention.

    Outcome: less tension, less dread, fewer spirals, and more ability to feel present.

  • I help clients understand the patterns that keep them overextended, exhausted, resentful, or unable to slow down. This often includes boundaries, perfectionism, career stress, and difficulty resting without guilt.

    Outcome: more energy, better rest, less resentment, and more room for life outside of work.

  • Perfectionism can keep you successful but also anxious, guarded, and unable to feel satisfied. Therapy can help you stop using pressure and self-attack as your main sources of motivation.

    Outcome: less self-criticism, more flexibility, and a healthier relationship with achievement.

  • I help clients understand patterns like people-pleasing, conflict avoidance, resentment, emotional distance, overfunctioning, defensiveness, or shutting down.

    Outcome: clearer communication, stronger boundaries, less resentment, and more honest connection.

  • Couples counseling can help when you and your partner keep having the same arguments, feel more like co-managers than partners, or struggle with resentment, distance, communication, or repair.

    Outcome: better communication, less reactivity, more emotional safety, and more connection.

  • OCD and anxiety can keep you stuck reviewing, checking, researching, confessing, seeking reassurance, or trying to get certainty about something that never feels settled.

    Outcome: less rumination, less reassurance-seeking, and more freedom from the need for perfect certainty.

  • When you are depressed or disconnected, you may keep functioning but feel like you are not really present for your own life. Therapy can help you understand what has gone flat and begin rebuilding energy, connection, and meaning.

    Outcome: more emotional connection, more motivation, and a life that feels less like you are just getting through the day.

  • Many high achievers are successful but not especially fulfilled. I help clients build a healthier relationship with ambition, responsibility, rest, identity, and meaning.

    Outcome: more satisfaction, less pressure, and a life that feels better from the inside, not just successful from the outside.

  • Through coaching and consulting, I help professionals, leaders, and business owners improve decision-making, communication, accountability, strategy, and follow-through.

    Outcome: clearer leadership, better execution, stronger teams, and less frustration.

My Services

Career and Executive Coaching

Reach out for pricing

I provide coaching for professionals, leaders, business owners, and organizations who want clearer direction, stronger leadership, better decision-making, and more effective follow-through.

Coaching may be helpful if you are navigating a career transition, stepping into greater leadership responsibility, building confidence, improving communication, or trying to make better decisions about work, money, success, and growth.

Executive coaching helps leaders and business owners improve confidence, communication, accountability, decision-making, and team effectiveness. The goal is to help you lead with more clarity, discipline, and impact.

Career coaching helps professionals and entrepreneurs clarify direction, identify strengths, evaluate opportunities, and take practical next steps toward more meaningful and sustainable work.

I meet with coaching clients in person in Nashville. I also offer on-site coaching at your business office for an additional fee. Remote coaching is available across the U.S. and internationally.

Click here to learn more about the differences between therapy and coaching

Therapy

$250 per individual therapy appointment
$275 per couples or family therapy appointment

I provide therapy for adults, professionals, high achievers, couples, and families dealing with:

Anxiety
Burnout
Career stress
Couples counseling
Depression
High achievers and professionals
OCD
Perfectionism
Relationships and boundaries
Work-life balance

Therapy is available in person in Nashville. I also offer online therapy in over 40 states through PSYPACT.
Check whether I provide online therapy in your state

Consulting

Reach out for pricing

I provide business consulting and leadership coaching for owners, leaders, and organizations that want stronger teams, clearer strategy, better execution, and a more profitable business.

My consulting work focuses on leadership development, hiring and firing processes, employee evaluation, accountability, client boundaries, revenue strategy, marketing refinement, operations, morale, and owner time.

I work with owner-led businesses, construction companies, healthcare and therapy practices, and professional service organizations where people, leadership, communication, and strategy directly affect growth.

Learn more about business consulting

Schedule a free consultation

Phone: (615) 266-6772

Email: Joe@joerustum.com

Address: 762 East Argyle Avenue, Nashville, TN 37203

Online therapy: Available in over 40 states through PSYPACT