ISTDP for Burnout: What If It’s Not Just About Doing Too Much?

Burnout is often talked about as a problem of workload or balance. The usual advice is to slow down, take breaks, set boundaries, or adjust your environment.

Sometimes, those things help. But for many people, even after reducing their hours or taking time off, the exhaustion persists. They still feel flat, disconnected, or overwhelmed by things that used to feel manageable.

What if burnout isn’t just about what’s happening around you, but also what’s happening inside?

That’s where ISTDP (Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy) offers a different way of understanding and working with burnout.

What Is Burnout, Really?

Clinically, burnout is associated with emotional exhaustion, reduced capacity to function, and a sense of detachment or cynicism about work or responsibilities.

But in therapy, people often describe something more personal:

• A loss of motivation or purpose

• Feeling numb or constantly irritable

• Struggling to rest even when given the chance

• A sense of dread about getting through the day

• A harsh inner critic that says, “You should be able to handle this”

These experiences often aren’t just about the external situation, they’re about how a person has learned to relate to pressure, responsibility, and their own emotional needs.

Why Some People Burn Out More Easily Than Others

Not everyone who works hard burns out. So it’s worth asking,why do some people find themselves repeatedly running on empty?

From an ISTDP perspective, burnout can reflect a deeper emotional pattern. People who experience burnout often have a strong drive to please, perform, or stay in control, even at great personal cost.

This might come from early experiences where:

• Rest wasn’t safe or allowed

• Anger had to be suppressed to keep the peace

• Feeling sad or vulnerable led to criticism or rejection

• Self-worth became tied to productivity

Over time, the emotional system adapts. You push through. You avoid your feelings. You override your limits. But eventually, the system collapses under the pressure.

How ISTDP Helps with Burnout

ISTDP doesn’t treat burnout as something to manage, it helps you understand why you’re burning out in the first place.

That means identifying the internal blocks that stop you from feeling and expressing emotion in a healthy way. These might include:

• Guilt about having needs

• Fear of disappointing others

• Unconscious anger or sadness that has nowhere to go

• A belief that rest equals failure

In therapy, we begin to notice the patterns, not just in thought, but in feeling, sensation, and behaviour, that keep you locked in the burnout cycle. And then, gradually, we work through what those patterns are defending against.

Working Through the Emotional Core

At the heart of burnout is often a deep emotional conflict: the part of you that wants rest and care is in tension with the part that believes you’re only valuable if you’re giving or achieving.

In ISTDP, we make space for that conflict to come into awareness, so it can be worked through, not just intellectually, but experientially.

This isn’t about quick fixes or surface-level self-care. It’s about shifting the emotional structure that’s been driving you to overextend in the first place.

What Changes Over Time

As therapy progresses and internal pressures begin to ease, many people describe:

• Feeling more connected to themselves

• Less reactive and more emotionally steady

• Being able to say no without guilt

• A return of energy, clarity, and purpose

• A growing sense that rest is not weakness, but wisdom

Burnout Isn’t Just About Work. It’s About the Emotional System That’s Driving You.

You may have spent years doing too much, giving too much, or carrying more than your share, not because you chose to, but because it felt like you had no other option.

ISTDP helps you explore why that is. Not to blame yourself, but to understand what your nervous system has been trying to protect you from. And what might be possible when you’re no longer driven by fear, guilt, or the need to prove your worth.

If burnout has become more than just a rough patch, if it feels like a deeper struggle that keeps returning, therapy can help you get to the root of what’s really going on.

You can learn more about my approach on the homepage, or get in touch if you’d like to explore whether this kind of work might be right for you.