{"id":304342,"date":"2026-02-27T04:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T04:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/304342\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T04:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T04:58:10","slug":"is-everyone-scorned-by-hollywood-industry-becoming-a-therapist-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/304342\/","title":{"rendered":"Is everyone scorned by Hollywood industry becoming a therapist now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

All you have to do is grab a drink with a friend, eavesdrop at a coffee shop, or open your eyes to see that entertainment professionals in L.A. are hurting these days. Last year there was a 16% decline in filming in the region, according to Film LA,<\/a> and between 2022 and 2024, L.A. County is estimated to have lost <\/a>more than 42,000 motion picture-related jobs.<\/p>\n

I know this pain, personally. I was a TV writer for years, but my last writer\u2019s room job was in 2021. Luckily, I was able to pivot to copywriting as I continue to work on my own projects, but I do wonder what the rest of my colleagues are up to. Where have the thousands of highly skilled entertainment professionals gone?<\/p>\n

Turns out, school.<\/p>\n

Specifically, to become therapists.<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n

I first noticed this trend over a decade ago in 2013. I had just moved back to L.A. from New York and I started seeing a new therapist. Over the course of our sessions, she revealed to me that she used to be an actor \u2014 and quite a successful one. She was a co-star on a hit sitcom for nine seasons.<\/p>\n

But despite the consistent work, she wasn\u2019t fulfilled. She said acting was mostly sitting around in a trailer waiting and she craved more intellectual stimulation. So she went back to school and became a therapist, the irony being that she never fully escaped Hollywood. Today, as an L.A. based therapist, she spends most of her days listening to frustrated actors and writers complain about the biz. Ahh, the circle of life!<\/p>\n

Not only was my therapist a former actor, I started to notice more and more of my peers and friends making the switch. I met Alan, 40, who prefers to be anonymous because he doesn\u2019t want his patients knowing about his private life, at a co-working space. We both belonged to a charming apartment-turned-writer\u2019s haven in Silver Lake.<\/p>\n

At the time, Alan was a busy film producer, plugging away at his own feature script on the side. But despite having a shiny career working with hip actors and directors, he wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n

He remembers going to schmoozy parties where everyone would name drop and brag about what they were working on. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had all those fancy things to drop, too, but it meant nothing, it didn\u2019t make me feel any better about myself,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I can\u2019t even talk about what I\u2019m up to without feeling sad, that\u2019s kind of a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan started to realize maybe producing wasn\u2019t his destiny. He was going through the motions. Things started to fall into place when he started therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherapy made me feel more like myself. I just felt a little bit more enlivened\u2026 the rest of the week kind of deadened me,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He loved how real and deep the conversations were and became intrigued by the idea of becoming a therapist himself. He started taking a few psychology classes and was instantly hooked. Now, he has a thriving private practice and hasn\u2019t looked back.<\/p>\n

Primal emotions<\/p>\n

Julie Mond is a therapist and an actor. Unlike Alan, Mond still loves acting, it\u2019s not something she grew out of. She just needed a more stable career as she continued to pursue her passion. Becoming a therapist has actually liberated her to focus on the kind of acting she actually wants to do. Because she\u2019s financially stable she can now pick and choose the kinds of projects that feel worth her time.<\/p>\n

When I ask Mond why so many entertainment professionals become therapists she reflects on a couple of things. She said performers and directors crave \u201cconnecting authentically, being present moment-to-moment, being real and honest. We\u2019re digging for these primal emotions.\u201d All things you have to do as a therapist.<\/p>\n

She also has another theory: \u201cA lot of artists go to therapy. Many of us who become therapists have been in therapy and it’s changed our lives. I think people in L.A. have been on a healing journey and want to give back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Charley Lang, who teaches at Antioch University.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Jaymes Mihaliak<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

Courtesy Charley Lang<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Even though I’m personally meeting more people who are becoming therapists, I wondered if it was an actual trend or just a coincidence.<\/p>\n

So I talked with psychology professor Charley Lang at Antioch University to get his take. Lang, who’s been teaching psychology for 30 years, said that in his graduate classes, at least 50% of the students come from entertainment careers.<\/p>\n

When I asked why they make the switch, he\u2019s blunt: stability.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Lang himself became a therapist decades ago.<\/p>\n

Lang was an actor on Broadway, but eventually hit a wall. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had a nice career as an actor, I essentially got to do everything I wanted to do,” he said. “But then I was in my late 30s and I was like, \u2018Do I always want to be praying for another guest spot on a sitcom in order to feel secure and OK?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he have any regrets or miss acting? On the contrary, he tells a story:<\/p>\n

\u201cI had become a therapist and stopped acting and a friend of mine was directing a play at the Ahmanson and he was like, \u2018Please do this play.\u2019 And I was able to figure it out and I was just dipping my toe back in to see what it was like and it was a six-week run of the play. And at the end of the first week I remember standing in the wings waiting to make my entrance and thinking, \u2018Oh my god haven\u2019t we already told this freaking story?\u2019 It was like Groundhog Day. It was the same story over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a therapist, he said he loves that every day is different.<\/p>\n

The point isn\u2019t that working in entertainment is bad and therapy is perfect. To me, the takeaway is that it\u2019s never too late to make a change. That just because something used to work for you doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re committed to doing it forever.<\/p>\n

Or in Mond’s case, maybe there is a way to continue doing what you love, but more sustainably.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s fragile and volatile job market, it\u2019s nice to know that you can always begin again. Just because a job or career ends, doesn\u2019t mean your life is over.<\/p>\n

If, in the future, I\u2019m too fried, burnt out, or tired of the rollercoaster of being a writer, maybe I\u2019ll embark on a second career.<\/p>\n

But until then, I\u2019m still riding the dragon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All you have to do is grab a drink with a friend, eavesdrop at a coffee shop, or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[3376,134,166638,166640,554,555,111,139,69,166639,166637],"class_list":{"0":"post-304342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-actor","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-hollywood-careers","11":"tag-loss-of-jobs","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-retraining","18":"tag-therapy-training"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}