Burnout and Pressure

Therapy for Burnout and Pressure in Men in Falmouth, Cornwall

Still delivering, and running on empty

The men who come to me with burnout rarely look like it. They are working, providing, training, showing up. People around them would say they are doing well. Inside, there is a flatness, an irritability, a sense that the effort required to keep going has quietly grown larger than the supply.

Many of them have tried the usual remedies. More sleep, a holiday, a better routine, a new system for the inbox. These help for a while. Then the same pressure reassembles, because it was never only about workload.

Pressure has a history

In my experience, the man who cannot stop is usually driven by something older than his job. Somewhere along the way he learned that being useful kept him safe, that being strong earned him a place, that needing anything was a risk. In Transactional Analysis we call these early conclusions drivers and injunctions. They sound like Be Strong, Please Others, Try Harder, Hurry Up. They are not character flaws. They were intelligent responses to the world a boy found himself in.

The difficulty is that they continue to run long after the situation has changed. The man at forty is still obeying the rules the boy of eight wrote down. Burnout, seen this way, is what happens when a survival strategy meets its limit.

What therapy offers

I do not offer a productivity plan. I offer a place where you can stop performing for an hour and notice what is actually going on. We look at what the pressure is protecting you from, where it came from, and what it would mean to put some of it down. For some men that is a first experience of being met without having to achieve anything.

This is slow, relational work, and it is not for everyone. It tends to suit men who sense that the problem is not only external, and who are ready to be curious about themselves.

If you want to read more, The Backpack in the Storm and Inner Warrior Therapy: A Relational TA Approach to Men and Performance are both in the Knowledge Library.

Practicalities

I see men individually, in person at The Wellness Hub in Falmouth, and online across the UK. Sessions are weekly and last 50 minutes. Fees and the consultation process are on the Work With Me page. If you are not sure whether this is for you, the first step is a 30 minute consultation, with no obligation to continue.

By Carl Stephens, Transactional Analysis Psychotherapist, Falmouth, Cornwall. NCPS Accredited. UKCP Trainee Member.