Work stress counselling and burnout therapy in Marlow can help you make sense of what's happened — and find a way forward that's honest, not just better at managing the unmanageable. If you're exhausted, cynical or simply can't remember the last time you felt okay on a Sunday evening, this is the right place to start.
I'm Keeley Taverner, a Psychotherapist, BACP Accredited and author of Why Love Hurts. Across 14 years in private practice I've worked with NHS clinicians, school leaders, City professionals, founders, social workers and parents-with-jobs going through what looks from the outside like "high-functioning" — and from the inside like the lights are slowly going out. This page explains how work-stress and burnout therapy work at my practice in Marlow and online.
What is burnout, really?
Burnout is the clinical term for a particular syndrome that develops in response to chronic work-related stress. The WHO defines it across three dimensions, and they all need naming because most people only recognise one.
1. Energy depletion / exhaustion — the obvious one. Tired even after a holiday.
2. Increased mental distance from your job, cynicism or negativity — the dangerous one. The bit where you stop caring about work you used to love.
3. Reduced professional efficacy — the demoralising one. Working harder for less output, and knowing it.
Burnout is not depression — though it can tip into depression if it's left long enough. It is not weakness. It is a predictable physiological response to a sustained mismatch between demand and resource — and it gets better when something honest changes, not just when you "try harder to relax".
Signs you may be heading into — or already inside — burnout
- You feel exhausted even after time off, and dread going back
- You've stopped caring about work you used to find meaningful
- You're irritable, cynical or detached with colleagues or clients
- Small tasks feel disproportionately heavy
- You're working longer hours for less output and you know it
- Your body has started saying no — sleep, gut, immune system, headaches
- You can't remember the last time you genuinely enjoyed a Sunday evening
- You've started fantasising about leaving — the job, the profession, the country
If most of those land, this is the time to talk to someone — not in six months when the wheels have come off entirely.
Therapy for work stress and burnout — how it works
My approach is integrative, so we'll work with the whole picture — body, mind, work pattern, deeper drivers — rather than running you through a fixed programme. In practice, burnout recovery moves through:
- Permission to stop — naming honestly what's been demanded of you, and giving the system genuine permission to slow down without "earning" it first.
- Nervous system repair — practical work on sleep, body, the physiological "always-on" state. Recovery is a body event, not just a mental one.
- The honest renegotiation — looking at what stays, what changes, what stops, and how you say so to colleagues, managers and family.
- The deeper question — what made over-working feel safer than the alternative; what role over-functioning has played in your life; and what changes when you allow yourself to be a person, not a performance.
You don't recover from burnout by getting better at the thing that burned you out. You recover by changing the conditions — and that starts with permission.
Burnout, perfectionism and over-functioning
For many of the clients I see, burnout is not just about workload — it's about the inner story that says you have to keep going. Imposter syndrome, people-pleasing and a deeply trained inability to disappoint people are common companions. We address both layers — the immediate exhaustion and the pattern that keeps recruiting it.
Burnout therapist in Marlow & across the UK
I see clients in person at The Courtyard, 60 Station Road, Marlow SL7 1NX — a quiet, private space easily reached from Bourne End, Maidenhead, High Wycombe, Henley-on-Thames and the surrounding Buckinghamshire villages. Many people searching for a burnout therapist near me in Buckinghamshire find that Marlow is more accessible than expected. Online work stress therapy by secure video is available across the UK — often the most practical option when the journey itself feels like more than you've got. Sessions are £250 and completely confidential.
The simplest first step is a free, no-pressure 30-minute consultation — a brief call to ask questions and see how it feels.
