Things that used to come easily now will not start at all. This is not laziness and not depression, although it resembles both and has usually been called one of them until now. Recovery begins by lowering what is asked of you, and the pace is set by the body, not the calendar.
This is for you if
Do not start with me if
You are in crisis right now
Deep burnout often arrives with the thought that you need a way out. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, do not start with me: call 999, or Samaritans on 116 123, free and around the clock in the United Kingdom. I say it because the order matters, and the place here stays open afterwards.
You need less first, not more
Therapy is a demand too: a fixed time, effort, talking. If you are at the end, sometimes the thing that helps most this week is not one more appointment but two demands removed. I will say so even if it means we do not start yet. We can have a single conversation about what could be cut, and then you come back when you have something to come back with.
Nothing in your environment has changed and nothing can change yet
Neurodivergent burnout is not a problem of attitude, it is a mismatch between what is asked of you and what you have. If none of the demands can come down at all, therapy can help you carry it more easily, but it will not lift you out. I would rather you knew that at the start than blamed yourself four months later.
You are looking for someone to put you back on your feet by Monday
That is not possible and I will not promise it. Recovery is usually measured in months rather than weeks, and hurry is the very mechanism that brought you here.
What this looks like day to day
You used to make phone calls without thinking. You cooked. You answered messages. Now you sit in front of the phone and cannot, and the hardest part is not that you cannot, it is that you used to be able to. This has a name in the literature, loss of function, and it is the clearest sign that we are not talking about laziness.
The same kitchen, the same light, the same colleague talking. Nothing around you changed, but everything comes in louder and deeper. When the reserves drop, the filter goes first.
If you manage to get to what you are passionate about, even for ten minutes, something recharges. In depression that usually stops happening; the things you loved lose their taste. That small sign is often the only one separating two states that on paper look almost identical.
What we do together
Burnout is not a fault in you, it is a sum that does not add up.
The first thing we do is name what you actually have correctly. Neurodivergent burnout is not depression, even though almost everyone in deep burnout also screens positive for depression. Nor is it occupational burnout, because your demands do not come from work alone: they come from the social, the sensory, the administrative, from unannounced changes and from an absence of support. The right name changes everything, because the treatments run in different directions.
Then we do the accounting of demands, which is the least romantic and the most useful part. What goes into a week, what each thing costs, what can come out, what can wait, what can be handed to somebody else. Withdrawal here is not a symptom to be fought, it is a recovery tool, and I treat it as one.
As some air appears, we go into what brought you here: the years of masking, the habit of pushing past signals, the limits you never set because you did not know you were allowed. Without that, recovery lasts until the next wave.
What I draw on: polyvagal work, for a nervous system that has spent too long in alarm. Internal Family Systems, for the part that drives you and the part that collapsed. Schema Therapy, for "I am not allowed to stop". And your pace, with sessions shortened or spaced out when needed. I do not work with distress-tolerance techniques and I do not treat your exhaustion as thinking to be corrected: for neurodivergent burnout, those approaches deepen it.
The psychometric questionnaires
The questionnaires: before the first session, or shortly after it.
Here they are deliberately short, because someone in burnout has nothing to spare for long lists. I set you up with an account in the client area and send a small pack: general wellbeing, mood, anxiety.
Then two burnout questionnaires, one for autistic burnout and one general, plus perceived stress and, if relevant, sleep. The autistic burnout one has eight items. This is not a formality: it is precisely the instrument that helps separate what you have from depression, because it looks at loss of skills and reduced tolerance rather than at mood.
You fill them in on your phone, at your own pace, stopping halfway and coming back when you can. The font can change, the automatic jump to the next question can be turned off. If even that is beyond you right now, we leave them and do them in a few weeks.
We redo them as we go, and here it genuinely matters: in burnout the progress is so slow that it cannot be felt week to week. The numbers from three months ago are sometimes the only thing that shows you that you have moved. You see the results too, in your own account.
The first few months
The opening conversation, 30 minutes, free
On Google Meet, camera however you want it. If talking a lot is hard, I will do more of the talking. I will tell you honestly whether therapy is what you need now or whether some demands need removing first.
The small pack of questionnaires
In your account, and short. If it is too much right now, it waits.
The first two or three sessions
We name what you have and do the accounting of demands. You leave with something concrete to cut, not only with an understanding. That usually brings the first relief, before we work on anything deep.
Months one and two
Recovery, not reconstruction. Rest that actually rests, protecting what little energy there is, and no large personal-growth projects. This is where many people hurry and relapse.
Month three onwards
When air appears, we look at what brought you here: the masking, the limits, the "I have to carry everything". This is the part that makes the difference between a recovery and a recovery that holds.
How we know it is working
Two short questions at the end of sessions and the questionnaires redone every few months. In burnout this is not a nicety, it is the only honest way to see movement this slow.
How long it takes
The literature usually talks about months rather than weeks, sometimes longer. I will not give you a deadline just to make today feel better.
Questions people ask me
The best practical sign is what happens with what you are passionate about. In neurodivergent burnout, when you do manage to get to your interest, it still gives you energy. In depression it usually loses its taste. There are others: burnout comes with more pronounced traits, more intense sensory experience, a greater need for predictability, and with skills that have been lost. They can overlap, and they usually do.
No, and it is not my job to tell you to stop them; that is between you and your doctor. A great many people in burnout also cross the threshold for depression, so it is not a diagnostic error. The problem only arises when it stops there, because medication does not reduce the number of demands in your week.
Because a holiday temporarily removes the demands from work and leaves every other one in place, and on your return the very environment that emptied you is waiting. It helps, but it is not recovery.
We shorten them, or space them out. Tell me and it gets arranged; it is not breaking a rule.
No. You can bring notes, you can write, I can do more of the talking. Silence is not wasted time.
They sit in your account in the client area, the two of us see them, and you can reread them whenever you like. They do not reach your GP or your employer unless you ask in writing. The details are on the privacy page.
A standard session is £80 for 50 minutes. Reduced rate of £50 for Romania and Eastern Europe. The opening conversation is free, 30 minutes.
One small step
You do not have to write to me today. You can start smaller, and in burnout smaller is actively recommended.
What clients say
“He also doesn't limit himself to just listening and offering compassion (as I experienced with other therapists) — he proposes concrete solutions and strategies for getting through periods of burnout, meltdown, stressful times, or other challenges. And, more importantly for me, he proposes solutions to avoid ending up in those situations again, which is even more valuable, especially since I didn't know why I kept reaching the same point.”
Neurodivergent Burnout Recovery
Things that used to come easily now will not start at all.
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