Therapy for Stress and Burnout
Stress therapist Nottingham and Derbyshire — in person and online
Most people don't come to me when the pressure first arrives. They come after months of telling themselves it will ease off once this bit is over — once the project's finished, once the move is out of the way, once the hospital appointments stop, once things settle down.
They rarely do settle down. And somewhere along the way the pressure stops being something you're carrying and starts being how you feel all the time.
You might recognise some of this:
- Waking at three or four in the morning with your mind already going
- Feeling wired and exhausted at the same time
- A sense of dread about the week ahead, or about a particular day of it
- A short fuse with people who haven't done anything wrong
- Reading the same thing three times and taking none of it in
- A jaw that aches, shoulders up around your ears, a stomach that won't settle
- Getting through the day but feeling oddly flat about all of it, including the parts you used to enjoy
Stress doesn't only come from work. It comes from caring for someone, from a period of illness in the family, from money worries, from a relationship that's under strain, from a run of years where too much happened at once. Sometimes there's no single cause to point at — just a lot, for a long time.
None of that means you aren't coping. It usually means you've been coping for a long time.
Stress, anxiety, and burnout — what's the difference?
These words get used interchangeably, so it's worth being clear, because they respond to slightly different work.
- Stress is usually a response to something identifiable — a workload, a deadline, a caring role, a period of your life with too much in it. Take the pressure away and stress generally eases.
- Anxiety tends to run more independently of circumstances. It can persist when nothing is obviously wrong, and often attaches itself to whatever's available to worry about. If that's more your picture, my anxiety page will be closer to the mark.
- Burnout is what stress can turn into when it goes on long enough without recovery — a state of depletion where the exhaustion has stopped responding to rest, and a certain detachment sets in.
In practice these overlap constantly. Long-term stress often produces anxiety; burnout usually has both threaded through it. You don't need to work out which one you have before getting in touch — that's part of what the first conversation is for.
What you've probably already tried
Most people arrive having done the sensible things:
- Better sleep routines, exercise, cutting the caffeine
- Apps, breathing exercises, mindfulness
- A break, which helped for about four days afterwards
- Saying no more often, which lasted a fortnight
- Waiting for the quieter stretch that hasn't arrived
These aren't bad strategies, and some of them help. But they tend to work on the level of the symptom — bringing the tension down a bit, taking the edge off. If something underneath keeps regenerating the pressure, symptom management becomes another thing on the list.
What I do differently
The question I'm interested in isn't only "how do we lower the stress?" It's "what's keeping this going?"
For a lot of people, the answer isn't only the demands themselves. It's something in how they're relating to them. Some common patterns:
- Not being able to stop, because stopping feels like failing
- Standards set so high that nothing ever counts as finished
- Difficulty saying no, or a sense that other people's needs come first automatically
- Carrying responsibility for everyone else's wellbeing as a matter of course
- A background belief that your value depends on what you do for others, or on how much you get done
- A nervous system that learned to stay switched on and never quite learned to switch off
These patterns usually have a history. They're not character flaws, and they were often useful once. But they can keep running long after the situation that formed them has gone.
My approach combines hypnotherapy, psychotherapy and coaching. Hypnotherapy is genuinely useful here — not just for relaxation, though that's often a welcome side effect, but because it works with the automatic responses that don't shift through good intentions alone. The psychotherapeutic side looks at where the pattern came from. The coaching side deals with the practical: what actually changes on Monday morning.
I should be straightforward about one thing. If your situation is genuinely unsustainable — a job that can't be done in the hours available, a caring role with no support in it — therapy won't make an impossible situation possible. What it can do is help you see it clearly and make decisions from a steadier place, rather than from exhaustion.
What sessions involve
- Sessions last an hour, in person in Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire, or online across the UK.
- The first session is mostly conversation — what's happening, how long it's been going on, what you've already tried, and what you'd like to be different.
- From there we work in a structured way, with hypnotherapy used where it's likely to help rather than as a fixed routine.
- Progress is reviewed as we go, so you're clear about what's shifting.
- Some people come with a specific, contained piece of work and find a small number of sessions is enough. Others, particularly where the patterns are long-standing, choose to work over a longer period. There's no requirement to commit to a set number upfront.
Who I am
Jason Fletcher
I've been in private practice for 23 years, and spent 17 of those as Principal and Lead Tutor of a hypnotherapy training school. I'm registered for hypnotherapy with the CNHC, hold the Senior Qualification in Hypnotherapy Practice through the General Hypnotherapy Register, and am a Fellow of the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists.
Alongside client work I train and supervise other therapists, which keeps me honest about how this work is actually done.
You can read more on my About page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Next step
If any of this sounds familiar, you're welcome to book a free 30-minute consultation. It's a straightforward conversation — no pressure and no obligation to book sessions afterwards.
Sessions are available in person in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and online across the UK.
Book your free consultation or call 07739 466318.
