The Joy of Burnout

How the end of the world can be a new beginning

Press comments

'In this inspiring, lovely book, Dina Glouberman collects the stress of modern life and the collapse of hope into one word: Burnout. Describing many life quests, including her own, she brings a poet's voice and sensibility to the task of helping people discover radical healing, joy and their "soul community".'
Lynn Hoffman, author of Foundations of Family Therapy and Family Therapy: An Intimate History

'The Joy of Burnout is the book we have all been waiting for. Dr Glouberman takes this debilitating and puzzling phenomenon and offers powerful and practical insights to help us understand and transcend it. This extaordinary book is a must for sufferers of burnout and their families, friends, managers, counsellors and anyone who has been touched by this experience. It's also a great read.'
Jack Canfield, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul

'Dina Glouberman has written a book an entire generation can benefit from. This is such an important book. It unwraps the gifts of burnout for the first time. It is full of treasures; it will resusitate your mind, heal your heart, give you back your life. The challenge will be finding someone who cannot relate to it!'
Robert Holden, author of Shift Happens!

'The great advances in life often take place through suffering. Nowhere is this truer than in burnout, which is epidemic in the western world. The Joy of Burnout will help anyone find meaning in this experience and enable them to emerge happier and more fulfilled than before.
Larry Dossey, MD, author of Healing Words and Reinventing Medicine.

'Dina Glouberman is wise and witty and an inspirational teacher. Don't pay a therapist. Buy this book and rise from your own ashes.'
Sue Townsend, author

'Dina Glouberman is a home-maker of the spirit. She writes with an unusual and vivid openness and with a gift for striking images... This book is full of useful and illuminating suggestions.'
Margaret Drabble, novelist, editor and critic

'Come on! Admit it! You know what it is like to have a sense of being worn out, exhausted, spent, numb, dead, cut off, disconnected - burnout - either a little bit or big time. This rich volume is not another chant of "Think this way; you'll feel better." This rich volume is a way to use that sense of being burnt out as a launching pad, a doorway into a new sense of joy, vibrancy, aliveness, passion, excitement. Are you ready to begin?'
Alvin R. Mahrer, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of Ottowa, Canada

'I felt stronger and more confident after reading Dina Glouberman's warm, intelligent and exciting book, and the intimate glimpses into other people's struggles made me feel less alone'
Nell Dunn, author of Steaming, Up the Junction and Poor Cow

'Dina Glouberman's experience of burnout was a transforming life event. Here she offers a wise, inspirational guide to understanding and embracing burnout as a way of making place for the soul and moving on to a more personally constructive and spiritually rewarding life.'

Reader comments

I have just read The Joy of Burnout and it has finally inspired me to seek help following burnout five years ago. Quite an amazing book that truly reflects the state of burnout and gives hope to those still in the 'balck hole'. A.E.

Thank you for writing The Joy of Burnout. I have been working through it a chapter a day for the last week and it has been so helpful and encouraging. It has put me back in touch with my needs and some of my inner energy, and has enabled me to get some clearer ideas about how to move forward in my overstressed and totally draining life. A.S.

You have written a wonderful book Dina, the biggest Eureka in the book for me, was that we are capable of holding on to stressful jobs and lives, as long as we love what we do and do what we love. K.G.

The Joy of Burnout together with some self help relaxation tapes have helped me to come to an extremely difficult decision to quit my job after 14 years of long hours, passion and adrenalin, rushing highs and lows. The worry about money is actually less than the worry and stress the job was causing me. The case studies have been an absolute life line to me. Thank you. I feel like I am entering a new phase of my life where I do anything I want. A.C.

I have recently returned from three overwhelming years in Aid & Development and couldn't work out why I was discontented with the colour of air! Thank you for this wonderful resource and tool.. I look forward to sharing it with many (I have bought 10 copies for frineds and family!) and to "loving wisely" in the future. R.R.

Your book is wonderful, it is if I had written it myself. I experienced burnout 2 years ago and have been struggling to come to terms with it ever since. Even with the help of a good counsellor, I could never discover the real cause of it, your book has helped me so much. Thank you. V.L.

Press release from Hodder Mobius, August 2002

Do you feel exhausted, hollow, cynical, trapped, angry? Working harder but getting less done? Ill too often or for too long? Or do you know someone else who feels like this?

These are just some of the classic signs of burnout. Burnout is reaching epidemic proportions. Every day we are bombarded with stories of breakdowns - a curse of our fast-paced, frenetic, stress fuelled lifestyle. But burnout could be a life-saver. THE JOY OF BURNOUT argues that burnout is ultimately positive--the joy comes from realizing that a time has come to stop, rethink and find a new way forward.

THE JOY OF BURNOUT tells the story of burnout, of why and how it happens and what to do about it. Burnout happens when the love or meaning in what we are doing goes, but fear drives us to work even harder, or give even more. Practical advice, case-studies and key checklists aid the reader. In this warm positive book which draws on Dr. Glouberman's extensive research across age-groups and occupations, she tells her own story and includes the Adrian Mole author, Sue Townsend, as a key case-study.

This is a book of support, life-changing and optimistic, which seeks to dispel the myth that burnout is simply an illness that needs to be cured, fixed or prevented and to point the way from burnout to joy.

DR DINA GLOUBERMAN has been a psychotherapist, senior lecturer in psychology and social psychology, a group leader and a consultant. She now leads training courses internationally.

Dina is a Founder Director of Skyros Holidays, based in Greece and Thailand, attracting over 1,000 visitors a year, and includes Martin Amis, Sue Townsend and Fay Weldon among its teaching staff. Dina is the pioneer of the Imagework approach and author of Life Choices and Life Changes. It is this lifelong direction which has inspired this book. Dina has two children, was born in Brooklyn, New York but lives in London.

nyree.jagger@hodder.co.uk

home page
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