Specialist Psychological Therapy · London & Online

Burnout Psychologist
London

Evidence-based psychological treatment for professionals who appear successful and capable on the outside, yet feel exhausted, depleted or quietly unable to continue as they are.

Arrange a Free Consultation What I offer
Dr Sanya Krljes DClinPsy PhD MSc Consultant Clinical Psychologist HCPC Registered 20+ Years Experience

You cannot think your way through this one.

Burnout rarely announces itself as a crisis. It builds quietly — through sustained pressure, high standards, and the gap between how you present and how you actually feel — until functioning starts to cost more than it used to.

Sustained psychological stress produces measurable changes in the brain's capacity for self-regulation, decision-making and emotional recovery. Understanding this changes how recovery actually needs to work — it is not simply a matter of rest or willpower.

Many people I see have tried to manage burnout through better time management, more discipline, or pushing through. These approaches address the symptom, not the underlying pattern that produced it — which is why they tend not to hold.

01
Persistent Exhaustion
A depletion that does not lift with rest — present even after a holiday or a quiet weekend, because it is not primarily about hours worked.
02
Emotional Numbness
A flattening of feeling, or irritability that surfaces disproportionately, as the nervous system's capacity for regulation becomes overtaxed.
03
Cognitive Fog
Difficulty concentrating, indecisiveness, or a loss of the sharp thinking you previously relied on — a direct consequence of chronic stress on cognitive function.
04
Cynicism & Detachment
A growing distance from work or people that once mattered to you, often accompanied by guilt about no longer caring the way you used to.
05
Loss of Efficacy
A creeping sense that nothing you do is quite enough, even when external markers suggest otherwise — performance and self-assessment pulling apart.
06
Physical Symptoms
Sleep disruption, tension, and stress-related physical complaints that often appear before the psychological picture is fully recognised.

Psychological work that addresses the pattern, not just the symptom.

My approach draws on CBT, schema therapy and compassion-focused work, informed by a neuroscience background that helps explain why chronic stress affects regulation, cognition and recovery the way it does.

This is not a return-to-baseline programme. It is structured work to understand what drove the burnout — often longstanding patterns around achievement, self-worth and boundaries — and to build a genuinely different relationship with work and pressure.

I work primarily with professionals and executives who are used to managing everything competently, and for whom burnout itself can feel like a particularly disorienting kind of failure.

1
Assessment & Formulation
Understanding the specific pressures, patterns and history that have produced your particular experience of burnout — not a generic stress-management template.
2
Stabilisation
Addressing the acute regulatory impact of chronic stress first, since a dysregulated nervous system cannot access the same therapeutic processes as a regulated one.
3
Pattern Work
Identifying and changing the underlying schemas — often around achievement, self-worth or control — that drove the burnout and would otherwise reproduce it.
4
Sustainable Change
Building a different, lasting relationship with work, boundaries and self-evaluation, rather than simply restoring capacity to repeat the same pattern.
"Burnout is rarely about working too hard in any simple sense. It is usually about a pattern — what you believe you have to be, and what happens internally when you cannot quite be it."

Dr Sanya Krljes · Consultant Clinical Psychologist

What psychology offers that rest alone does not.

A holiday, a sabbatical, better sleep — these help, but they address the symptom. They do not change the underlying beliefs and patterns that produced the burnout, which is why many people return from a break and burn out again within months.

Psychological therapy works at the level of those patterns — the schemas around achievement and self-worth, the difficulty with boundaries, the inability to register your own depletion until it becomes acute. That is where lasting change actually happens.

Consultant-level expertise in high-achiever burnout.

I am a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with doctorates in cognitive neuroscience (Imperial College London) and clinical psychology (UCL), and over 20 years of experience including specialist work with professionals and executives.

I understand the particular context of burnout in people who are accustomed to performing well — the gap between presentation and internal experience — and I work directly within that context rather than around it.

Qualifications

MSc Neuroscience — King's College London
PhD Cognitive Neuroscience — Imperial College London
DClinPsy — University College London
HCPC Registered · BPS Chartered Psychologist & AFBPsS

What people ask before getting in touch.

How do I know if this is burnout or something else?
Burnout, depression and anxiety can overlap and are not always easy to distinguish without a proper assessment. My role at the initial consultation is to understand your specific experience rather than apply a label prematurely.
I can't take time off work right now — can this still help?
Yes. Most people I work with continue working throughout. The aim is not to remove you from work but to change the pattern that produced the burnout, so functioning becomes sustainable rather than depleting.
How many sessions will I need?
This varies considerably depending on what is driving the burnout. Some people benefit from a focused piece of work over a few months; others engage in longer work addressing deeper patterns. We review this together as we go.
Do you offer online sessions?
Yes, in person in London and online across the UK, with no difference in depth or structure.
What does the first session involve?
A 90-minute initial consultation covering your history and current difficulties, leading to an initial formulation and a clear sense of how we would work together.

Take the first step.

A free 30-minute consultation — by phone or video — where you can tell me a little about what has brought you here. No pressure, no obligation.

Arrange a Free Consultation 020 7096 8005

hello@praxispsychology.uk  ·  London & Online

Other Specialist Areas

Further areas of expertise.