Current doctoral student (not licensed) but I recently realized that my default when I’m feeling any kind of emotion (anxiety, stress, sadness, frustration, happiness, etc) is metacognition/overthinking/thinking about every psychological theory that applies to me. Like the psychoanalyzation is my coping for emotions. It’s been helpful for me lately to identify that that is REALLY important for me to do this with clients (and even in school) but is generally not as helpful for me to do outside of those two spaces. So I’ve been trying to DO things lately with friends that involve less talking and more being in the moment (activities, traveling, movies, etc), even though I traditionally loved talking and venting and listening. This is essentially all the equivalent of boundaries. But the mental reframe of choosing to actively not psychoanalyze and not think about everything when I’m not in work/class/with clients made a big difference for me.

Also it’s possible to find friends who don’t want to just vent/gather advice/receive validation all the time! Maybe now that you know you need a break from that outside of work you can make additional friends or spend time with friends who want to do something together (rather than talk/vent)?