I recently worked with Greg*, a senior project manager in a busy consultancy firm. When he came to therapy, he described persistent exhaustion, difficulty winding down at night, heightened sensitivity to small mistakes, and a growing sense of disconnection from work he previously found engaging and enjoyable.
He wasn’t “slacking” or “switching off”, he was experiencing burnout.
Burnout can emerge when the effort someone is putting in consistently exceeds the resources they have to recover. In Greg’s case, the fast-paced, high-output nature of his role gradually contributed to a state of chronic physiological and psychological strain.
What Burnout Really Is
Burnout is not a lack of resilience; it is a neurobiological and psychological response to prolonged stress without adequate recovery. Greg presented with common signs: ongoing fatigue, tension headaches, reduced ability to mentally disengage from work, and diminished sense of accomplishment.
At its core, burnout reflects a mismatch between what the nervous system requires to maintain balance and the ongoing pressures within a person’s context. Greg frequently voiced thoughts such as, “There’s always something more to do,” or “If I slow down, I’ll fall behind.” These statements were indicators that he was operating beyond his sustainable limits.
A Compassion-Focused Way of Understanding This
Paul Gilbert’s Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) offers a helpful way of understanding why burnout happens by looking at three emotional systems that guide our behaviour: Drive, Threat, and Soothing.
The Drive system helps us stay motivated and reach goals. It’s the energy that gets a project over the line and gives us the satisfaction of a job well done. Greg’s Drive system was strong and constantly active; he prided himself on being reliable and thorough, and the culture of quick turnaround amplified this.
The Threat system signals when something feels risky or uncertain. At work, this might be the tension before a performance review, the anxiety of a last-minute request, or the discomfort of unclear expectations. For Greg, shifting priorities, tight deadlines, and the fear of disappointing clients placed his Threat system on high alert most days.
The Soothing system is the one that allows us to rest, feel safe, and emotionally settle. In the workplace, it’s strengthened through moments of connection: lunch away from the desk, feeling appreciated by a manager, a supportive chat with a colleague. These moments were rare for Greg; the pace of work and the culture of constant availability meant his Soothing system hardly ever got a chance to activate.
Burnout becomes more understandable when we see it through this lens. With Drive and Threat working overtime and Soothing rarely engaged, the nervous system becomes stuck in a cycle of pressure without recovery.
Understanding Your Own Burnout
A Compassion-Focused approach helps people like Greg make sense of why burnout is happening rather than seeing it as a personal failing. Part of our work together involved exploring where his patterns came from—how early messages about achievement shaped the way he approached work, how the fear of letting others down influenced his boundaries, and how strategies that once protected him were now keeping him stuck.
This wasn’t about blaming himself or his workplace; it was about understanding why his mind and body were responding the way they were. Once we understood the patterns, it became easier to introduce new ways of relating to work: learning to pace, to rest, to set limits, and to activate the Soothing system that had gone quiet. Recovery wasn’t dramatic or instant, but it was steady and grounded in self-awareness.
Looking at Organisations Through a Compassionate Lens
Just as Greg explored his patterns, organisations can benefit from understanding how their everyday ways of working shape people’s emotional systems. In Greg’s organisation, reliability and responsiveness were highly valued. These were genuine strengths, but over time they created a rhythm of constant urgency. People became used to working at speed, often skipping breaks or checking emails late into the evening, simply because that was the culture that had developed.
Workplaces don’t usually choose burnout, they drift into it through routines, norms, and rewards that unintentionally overstimulate Drive and Threat while leaving little room for recovery. When this happens, even the most committed employees can become fatigued, detached, or less creative.
Leaders who understand their own emotional systems, who recognise when they’re operating from Threat rather than balance, are better able to model sustainable behaviours. They create environments where people feel psychologically safe, where rest is respected, and where high performance doesn’t come at the cost of wellbeing.
Creating Sustainable, Compassionate Work
Seeing burnout through a Compassion-Focused lens helps shift the narrative away from blame and toward understanding. Burnout becomes a signal that something, either in the person or the workplace or perhaps both, needs rebalancing. When workplaces support the calming, restorative parts of our emotional systems, people think more clearly, collaborate more generously, and remain motivated for longer.
At Flourish With Fatigue, we’ve helped people like Greg understand their burnout, reconnect with their strengths, and rebuild a healthier relationship with work. If you recognise yourself in this story, you don’t have to navigate it alone, reach out, and we can explore what support might help.
Key References
• Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind. London: Constable.
• Gilbert, P. (2010). Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features. London: Routledge.
• Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Burnout: A Multidimensional Perspective. In Professional Burnout: Recent Developments in Theory and Research.
• West, M., Eckert, R., Collins, B., & Chowla, R. (2020). Caring to Change: How Compassionate Leadership Can Stimulate Innovation in Health Care. The King’s Fund.
• World Health Organization (2019). Burnout: An Occupational Phenomenon.
*name and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy and maintain confidentiality