Burnout Articles

Spoon theory gave people with invisible illness a way to say "I look fine and I am not fine," and it still does that job well. Then it left the diner. Here is what the metaphor gets right, where the internet version does harm, and who should keep counting anyway.

Clinicians who call me about burnout can usually define it, stage it, and name the research. What they have not done is get treated for it. Here is what the evidence says about how common this is, which part of burnout reaches your clients, and why supervision and self-care were never going to cover it.

The people who ask me about this have good performance reviews and an apology ready. Work is the last part of a life to go, which makes it a poor place to look for evidence. Here is what high-functioning depression turns out to be on examination, and what changes treatment when someone is still holding everything up.

Burnout and ADHD produce almost the same complaint: you can't focus, you can't start things, you lose the thread in meetings. The difference is in the timeline, and a careful evaluation is built to find it. A licensed psychologist explains what separates the two, why online screeners can't, and what changes depending on the answer.

The people who come to me for burnout almost never lead with that word. They say they're fine, just tired, and then they explain a life that would exhaust anyone. Vacation doesn't touch it, because burnout was never about hours.