'I Felt Like a Factory Worker.' Why VA Psychologists Are Burning Out
Each year, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ internal watchdog sends a survey to all 139 of the agency’s medical centers coast to coast with a straightforward question: Which jobs have severe staffing shortages?
In fiscal year 2025, the responses raised alarm: VA health care facilities reported more than 4,400 severe staffing shortages—a 50% hike from the previous year.
And once again, the job that topped the list for clinical positions among VA facilities: psychologists. It’s the same occupation that took the lead spot in 2024 and has been in the top five since 2019.
Despite suicide prevention and veterans’ mental health being one of VA’s top priorities, there are signs that psychologists and other mental health professionals on staff are reaching a breaking point.
“I loved my veterans and had the privilege of seeing real change in their lives over time,” said Laura Grant, a psychologist who left VA in September last year after nearly a decade on the job. But “burnout increasingly felt normalized rather than addressed.”
Grant was among six psychologists who left the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2025 and told The War Horse in interviews over the past several months that mental health providers are burning out.
https://thewarhorse.org/va-psychologists-burn-out-staff-shortage/
