About Justine Carino, LMHC
Helping ambitious women succeed without running themselves into the ground.
I’m a licensed psychotherapist, anxiety and burnout coach, and creator of The Balanced Boss™—a 1:1 coaching program for high-achieving women entrepreneurs.
For more than 12 years, I’ve helped women understand and change the patterns behind perfectionism, over-functioning, anxiety, and chronic stress—so they can keep building meaningful success without sacrificing themselves to achieve it.
I built my life around being the one who could handle everything.
For years, the qualities that helped me succeed—high standards, deep responsibility, and the ability to keep going—also made it incredibly difficult to stop.
I could accomplish a lot and still feel like I was falling behind.
As a therapist, practice owner, entrepreneur, and mother, I learned what happens when anxiety becomes the fuel behind your ambition. It can make you highly productive, but it never allows you to feel finished.
Eventually, the strategy that helped you become successful becomes the very thing preventing you from enjoying that success.
That experience changed the way I work. I don’t help women become less ambitious. I help them build a steadier way of operating so their success no longer depends on constant pressure or self-abandonment.
The patterns I help women change
Most of my clients aren’t struggling because they lack discipline or self-awareness. They’re struggling because the habits that helped them become successful are now keeping their nervous systems in a constant state of pressure.
High-functioning anxiety
You appear capable and confident, but internally you’re overthinking decisions, anticipating problems, and rarely feeling fully at ease.
Perfectionism
Your high standards have become tied to your self-worth, making it difficult to finish, delegate, rest, or feel satisfied with what you accomplish.
Over-functioning
You automatically take responsibility when something needs to be handled—even when it isn’t yours to carry.
Burnout
You’re still performing, but the energy, clarity, and enjoyment you once had are disappearing beneath the weight of maintaining everything.
Our work isn’t about removing the qualities that made you successful. It’s about helping you use those qualities without allowing them to run your life.
A clinical foundation, applied through coaching
My work as a coach is informed by more than 12 years of experience as a licensed psychotherapist treating anxiety disorders.
I understand how thoughts, behaviors, and emotional patterns reinforce one another—and how difficult it can be to change them through insight alone. That’s why my coaching combines a deeper psychological understanding with practical tools you can apply inside your business, relationships, and everyday decisions.
The work draws from evidence-based principles such as cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, behavior change, and values-based action. But this isn’t generic mindset advice or another list of self-care habits you won’t have time to maintain.
We identify the specific pattern keeping you stuck, practice a different response in real situations, and build a way of operating that feels sustainable in your actual life.
The Balanced Boss™ is coaching, not psychotherapy. It is designed for high-functioning women who are managing their daily responsibilities but want structured support changing the patterns affecting their well-being, relationships, and work. It is not a substitute for mental-health treatment or crisis care.
Professional experience and recognition
My coaching is grounded in more than a decade of clinical work, ongoing education, and firsthand experience helping ambitious women change the patterns that keep them under constant pressure.
Licensed Mental Health Counselor with more than 12 years of clinical experience
Founder of Carino Counseling, a group psychotherapy practice serving New York and Connecticut
Creator of The Balanced Boss™ coaching program
Host of the Thoughts from the Couch podcast
Named one of the 100 Women to Know Across America in 2025
Recognized as one of MSN’s Top 10 Health Voices to Follow in 2025
Featured in The New York Times, CNN, Forbes, Cosmopolitan, HuffPost, and Verywell Mind
Speaker for organizations including Lockheed Martin, EILEEN FISHER, and The KNOW Women
I don’t believe ambition is the problem.
High-achieving women are often told that the answer to burnout is to care less, lower their standards, or walk away from the success they worked so hard to build.
I don’t believe that.
The goal isn’t to become less driven. It’s to stop depending on anxiety to stay driven.
That means learning to recognize pressure before it takes over and creating boundaries that protect what matters. It means separating your worth from how much you accomplish and trusting that rest will not erase everything you’ve built.
You can remain deeply ambitious without living as though everything is always one mistake away from falling apart.
That belief is at the center of everything I teach—and it’s why I created The Balanced Boss™.
Your success doesn’t need to cost this much.
You don’t have to wait until burnout forces you to stop. The Balanced Boss™ is 1:1 coaching for high-achieving women entrepreneurs who want to change the patterns driving their anxiety, protect their energy, and build a version of success they can actually sustain.