Our understanding of burnout has massively improved over the past decade. We know that burnout is very common and affects millions of people every day. The impact of burnout can be significant, and its causes can be wide-ranging.

Burnout can often look like depression but, importantly, it may not respond to treatments for depression. As such, it’s important to work with a therapist who has experience in treating burnout.

People can become burned out by various aspects of life, including:

• Neurodivergence

• Managing a long-term condition

• Work-related stress

• Carrying the mental load within families

• Caring responsibilities

Driving anxiety is very common. Particularly after road traffic accidents, as well as alongside more generalised anxiety. Our brains are set up in a way that means they very easily pick up threats, or the risk of threats.— it’s just how brains work. So, anxiety is often understandable given the context, and it’s not something you chose to have.

There are a range of evidence-based approaches that can help turn down the volume on our threat responses. I have extensive experience working with various anxiety difficulties, including:

• Generalised anxiety

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder

• Phobias

• Driving anxiety

• Health anxiety

• Performance anxiety

• Diabetes anxiety

Experiences of trauma, either recent or in the distant past, can make life in the here and now really challenging. Trauma can knock us off course and make it difficult to keep the past in the past. Trauma reactions can disrupt our ability to feel safe and fully engage in life.

Processing trauma often involves working with a professional using a range of approaches that work with the brain, body and mind. PTSD can develop following a whole range of experiences, including:

• Road traffic accidents

• Workplace accidents

• Traumatic losses

• Traumatic birth or feeding experiences

• Medical situations

• Natural disasters

• Combat

• Sexual or physical assault

• Adverse childhood experiences

For all of us, life involves many transitions — some are more challenging than others. We might get stuck before, during or after a planned change in our lives. Or it could be a sudden and unexpected change that completely throws us off course and takes us away from the life we had imagined.

We may find ourselves removed from familiarity and our support network, while also having to redefine our sense of purpose. I have supported lots of people through different life adjustments, including:

• Relocation or expatriate life

• Grief and bereavement

• Retirement

• Divorce, Separation

• Co-parenting

• Changes in physical health

• Serious Injury