Burnout to Balance: The Field Guide: Burnout to Balance: The Field Guide (The Psychology of Wellbeing Field Guides Series Book 6)

You know the feeling. The manager conversation you keep rehearsing and abandoning. The family gathering you cannot face. The moment you realise you cannot keep going the way you have been going. Understanding burnout is one thing. Knowing what to actually say and do in the middle of a specific, difficult moment is another.
Burnout to Balance: The Field Guide is the practical companion to Dr. Melanie du Preez’s Burnout to Balance — forty-eight real scenarios, drawn from over 26 years of clinical practice, each broken down the same honest way: what is actually happening, why it is genuinely hard, three realistic options with honest guidance on when each one works, a script for when it goes sideways, and a closing thought to carry with you.
This is not a workbook. There are no exercises, no journalling prompts, no homework. It is a reference you reach for in the moment — at your desk before a hard conversation, in the car before a family event, at 2am when you cannot get out of bed.
Inside, you will find scenarios covering:
• Work — the manager conversation, the task you cannot start, the review you are dreading
• Relationships — the partner who says push through, withdrawing without explanation, the family gathering you cannot face
• Rest — the guilt of not doing, the rest that does not restore, the holiday you dread returning from
• The body — exhaustion sleep will not fix, doctors who say your bloods are fine
• Identity — being asked what you do, the compliment about coping well that does not match how you feel
• Decisions — what to cancel, how to say no, the opportunity offered at the worst possible time
• Neurodivergent-specific situations — masking collapse, sensory overwhelm, workplace accommodation conversations
• When it escalates — direct, practical guidance for the moments that need more than this book, including how and when to get help
Written in the same honest, unsentimental voice as the main book, with real crisis resources included where they matter — this is the book to keep on your phone or your nightstand for the moments theory cannot reach.