In this episode of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, I’m joined by Dr Emma Hepburn, Clinical Psychologist and creator of The Psychology Mum, to explore burnout, shame in mental health professionals, creativity in clinical psychology, and what happens when your body forces you to stop. We discuss how Emma’s illustrations began in NHS brain injury groups, how her “capacity cup” drawing went viral during the pandemic, and how social media traction unexpectedly led to publishing opportunities.
We unpack the psychology of burnout, emotional exhaustion, stress overload, shame narratives, and why even clinical psychologists are not immune to mental health difficulties.
Emma also introduces her fourth book, The Anti-Burnout Book, and explains how visual metaphors like the match, the teeny tiny thing, Brian the Brain, and the tortoise help bring psychological theory to life.
This episode is relevant for clinical psychologists, aspiring psychologists, NHS staff, teachers, parents, creators, and anyone interested in burnout recovery, stress management, shame resilience, emotional regulation, and sustainable wellbeing.
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Most people don't realise they're burned out until their body forces them to stop. But long before that, there's often a quieter phase, one that people keep explaining away. Nothing's really wrong, but I don't feel like myself anymore. In this episode, myself and Dr. Emma Hepburn, a. K.a. The psychology mom, known for making psychology visual and accessible through her brilliant drawings. Unpack what's really happening beneath the surface long before burnout breaks you. I hope you find it so useful if you do like and subscribe for more. Hi, I just want to welcome along Dr. Emma Hepburn, clinical psychologist, also known as the Psychology Mum to the podcast. Hi, Emma.
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Good afternoon or hello.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Thank you for being here. Could you tell us a little bit about who the psychology mom is and how she came to be? Yeah,
Dr Emma Hepburn (:So I was working in the NHS in a brain injury group, and I was doing lots of illustrations for that because one of the things of working with brain injury is you need to be able to communicate things in a way that people can remember and use in their day-to-day life. So as part of this brain injury group, I was doing these big posters, hand-drawn, so the group could remember certain concepts and take them and use them. And they were really engaging with these. I also have always drawn as part of my clinical work, so sitting with children or people with neuropsychology, I've always drawn things, maybe their formulation or an idea we're talking about, giving away with them just to do it. So I've always drawn and I decided to try and make these posters a little bit better than NHS paper from the printer and start drawing them out on my iPad.
(:So I started drawing them out and I thought, wouldn't it be great if actually more people could use these rather than just the 12 people I was currently working with or the one person you're working with in a clinic? So I thought I'll start an Instagram account. And at the time, so it was 2018, I think, there was very few psychologists on social media and our social media guidelines were very vague and unclear. So I was like, "I don't know how this is going to be. I don't know how the profession will take this. " So I didn't want my name on it. I didn't want to put it as Dr. Emma Hepburn. So I sat, I thought, "What will I call it? " And I said to my husband, he said, "Well, you're a psychologist and you're a mom, so why don't you do that?
(:" I was like, "Okay, the psychology mom." So there wasn't really much thought to it, to be totally honest. So I started posting as a psychology mom, and that's really become my kind of moniker or handle for the illustrations. So I still use that for the illustrations. So in the bottom left-hand corner, somewhere in the illustration, there will always be the psychology mom. So it's like a kind of comic handle for it. So for a couple of years, I kept on putting things out and people were really enjoying them. People were picking up on them. They were getting shared lots. I hadn't really thought much about what the aims were for social media. If I'm totally honest, I really didn't like social media much. I had my own personal account. I had about five friends in it. Most of it were my family, so they kind of had to be friends with me.
(:So I didn't have much idea of what I was doing. I just thought it'd be quite cool to do something a bit different. So I didn't have my name on it. I didn't show my face. I didn't do anything. And then I guess the pandemic hit and I started, like most psychologists, I got redeployed to work and staff wellbeing. So I was in a hospital wellbeing centre hearing people's experiences of working on the frontline and hearing their experiences of COVID. So I would come home and I kind of needed to process this. So I started drawing them out. This is what I've been hearing. Obviously nothing personal, nothing specific I've been hearing. And this is when it just started to grow and grow and grow. And it was getting shared by ... I'm not very good at knowing famous people, but somebody would say, "Well, so- and-so shared your posts." And I'd be like, "Who's that?
(:" But some people I did know. So Alanis Morrisette started following me. I was like, "Okay, I know her." So it just started growing and growing and growing exponentially. And around the same time, I was approached by a publisher to write a book and they really said, "You can't continue under a pseudonym. You need to put your name on it to give yourself credibility. They need to know you actually do have a qualification. There is credibility behind these drawings. There is science, theory, training behind these drawings. So if we're going to do a book, you do need to put your name in it. " So reluctantly, I then added my name to it as well, and D anonymized my account from being the psychology mom. So that's how it all came around.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Amazing. I mean, yeah, Alanis Morrisett. And isn't it ironic? Yeah,
Dr Emma Hepburn (:I love it. You can imagine the text messaging between me and my husband. Alanis Morasettis followed me. Text Mac. Isn't that ironic?
Dr Marianne Trent (:My equivalent of that is that I adore Jeremy Vine and he follows me on Instagram now and I'm like, "Love it. Love it. Love Jeremy." But yeah, was there one particular drawing that was pivotal, which was the one that really started the snowballing or did they all take off at the same time because of the perfect storm of the pandemic and everyone having their phones in their hands?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Yeah. I mean, I think beforehand they were being shared lots. So the original drawing that started it all was the capacity cup, which is basically a kind of really simplified everyday version of the stress bucket, but making it so simple. And that started from the brain injury group where I was trying to explain how we have limited capacity and why sometimes it overflows. And I actually just picked up from a table and said, "It's like a cup, real coffee cups. It's like a cup. And just imagine it's getting full, but you're at full capacity." Then drew it out, it became part of the group and then drew it out slightly nicer and slightly more colourful, not using NHS biopens. So that even before the pandemic was something that people obviously engaged with and got the concept and just understood and clicked with them. And so even before the pandemic, things were being shared lots.
(:So that was probably one which started, I don't know if it was the first one I drew, but it certainly started a lot of it. And then in the pandemic, I'd say everything I did, really people were just ... I think it was making sense of it for people. It was helping people understand what they were experiencing because none of us had experienced it before. We were all trying to make sense of it. It was a bizarre new world. And what I was doing, I guess it was twofold. I was taking experiences I'd heard, but also I was doing them with people on Instagram. So I'd say, "I'm doing this drawing." I put up a cup without anything in it, but the kind of titles, I said, "What would you put in here?" So it was almost like a thematic analysis. People would send their responses to me and I'd theme them, nothing that could be identified, but I'd theme them and then put them into the drawing.
(:So it was kind of a collective experience, not just my experience, not just people I'd seen's experience, but collective experience and then put those up. So I'd say just about every post was just, it was just going a little bit out of control.
Dr Marianne Trent (:But then that makes it so validating for people, which is why it was really resonating, doesn't it? And it's that co-ownership that yes, I see myself in the work of the psychology mom, and I feel like she's actually speaking to me and in some cases for me as well with that co-ownership. Sounds like some really powerful stuff to have done. How often were you posting during the pandemic?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Oh gosh. I mean, I have no social media plan. I've never had a social media plan. So it was erratic when I had the chance when my children were usually in bed, I would sit and do it. But was also finding it personally very relaxing. I've always been quite creative. So drawing was really at that point my way to switch off and also make sense of my own experiences and working in a staff wellbeing during the pandemic. So it was erratic. I could post maybe three, four times one week and the next time nothing because I'd far more on. There was no clear plan. And I remember people again touched me saying, "What's your social media strategy?" I was like, "Find the time when I can. That's my social media strategy," which was nice that I just chose to do it when I wanted to, but also probably made it unmanageable longer term as it started to grow.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Yeah. I think even for myself speaking as a creator and a psychologist at the same time, I need a job plan. I need to know, for example, when I'm going to record podcasts, when I'm going to have time to watch the edits, when I'm going to have time to think about thumbnails and all of that jazz, because this stuff isn't just going to happen by magic. I think when we don't have that structure, then we can often pick up the slack, which I guess ultimately contributes to our own inner resources running thing, which then heads us towards the concept and the reality of burnout, which is of course what we're going to be talking about today as well, because you've got a new book looking at burnout. But before we get to that, what was it like then when you were creating your first book, baby?
(:How did that all go?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:So that was just before the pandemic hit. So I actually wrote it from January to March 2020, and I handed in I think the final draught. I mean, there's multiple iterations essential, but one of the final draughts, just as the kind of March 2020, we were talking about locking down. And one of the things I'd said in it was in the recent pandemic, because the book was coming out in September, and I remember at the time thinking, "Oh, should I be saying this? We don't know where this is going. " And the editor who was fantastic saying, "Well, I think we shouldn't maybe emphasise this too much because it'd probably be over by the time the book comes out in September." And I think that's how we were all thinking. So I mean, I remember it, I had a really contained period to do it and really enjoyed doing it.
(:It was really something that was really exciting, taking it from an online format into a written format and doing something creative around psychology, and that's inherently exciting. So it was an enjoyable process putting it together. And of course, just the handed in, the lockdowns hit, the whole thing, the whole pandemic started, which went on for much longer than any of us could have anticipated. So by the time the book came out to September 2020, I think we were just about to go into the next lockdown. You know how we all get confused about the timelines around about then because time became blurred and strange. And also I'm in Scotland, so our timelines for lockdowns were slightly different to England, which were different to other countries. But I remember that we were either still in lockdown or about to go into another lockdown. So it became a lot of online work, recordings, things online.
(:Actually, it's funny setting this up because I haven't done this for a while because this was actually giving me flashbacks to that time of doing things online. So all the things I thought would happen as an author, going to events, seeing my book in a bookshop just didn't happen. I had no experience of that. So it was all online and all digital. And yes, so it was an interesting experience, but a very enjoyable experience writing the first book, which is something I think in clinical psychology training, it's not necessarily something you think you will do. So it was very exciting for me to be doing that.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Well, congratulations on that. And I hope that you've since seen your first book baby on a shelf in a bookshop.
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Yeah, I have on
Dr Marianne Trent (:Occasions.
Dr Emma Hepburn (:And I still, and I actually posted a couple of days ago because I was down in Edinburgh and I saw two of my books in my bookshop and I still get a thrill, an absolute thrill of seeing it. And I don't know if that's because I didn't see it for so long or maybe it's just because it still is something like, "Oh, I'm an author." That's quite exciting. Yes, I still take a photo every time and have lots of photos of my phone of my book in a bookshop, which is very, very uncool. And my kids think it's very uncool when I do it. I
Dr Marianne Trent (:Don't think it's uncool and I totally get it. I love it. Do it more. Continue to do it every time you see it, I would say. And of course, your first book, Baby, is not your only book, baby. Others followed quite quickly, didn't they?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:So then, yes, then I wrote three books in three years. So the first one, a toolkit for Modern Life came out in September 2020, and then September 2021, a toolkit for happiness. And then the completion of the trilogy was due to come out in September 2022, but I delayed it a bit just because I had a lot going on and it came out in January 2023. So a toolkit for your emotions, the completion of the trilogy. There we go.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Amazing. So in your mind, it was always going to be a trilogy?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:No. No, it was going to be a trilogy. I didn't know if I was going to write any other books after the first one. I think it is unpredictables and author. Particularly when you don't know much about the publishing industry, I didn't know what was going to happen, but then after that, it was decided with the publisher we were going to write three in the same series.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Lovely. Well, they are lovely books. And now we are here talking about you of course, but also your fourth book, baby, which now we've kind of learned a bit about the Whistle Stop Tour kind of makes a lot of sense because actually the book is about burnout and it's really inspired by your own tale of burnout and how that came about and how you kind of have learned to thrive again. Could you guide us through that a little bit, Emma?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Unfortunately, I can't show you the book because it has been printed or it has been printed and I'm awaiting copies, but I can show you a little figure from the front cover. So this is a flame from the front cover, which goes from being fully lit, excited, energetic. If we turn it around, it turns to burnt out. So there's a lot of face in there too. However, I am now through that stage and back to my flame, being lit again. So this really is the story. This is what inspired the book. So unlike my previous books where there was a little bit of personal information in them, but very, very small amounts. This is a slightly different book because not only is it about the psychological theory of burnout, the science behind it, and the therapeutic skills and tools to support you getting out of burnout, but also stopping you getting into burnout in the first place.
(:It also, as you know, has my story woven through it. So what led me to burning out, what helped you when I was burnt out, what didn't help me when I was burned out, and what helped me to recover?
Dr Marianne Trent (:Thank you. And yeah, sometimes I think we can tell a story with more conviction and with more resonance when we do weave in our own personal story really. And it really shows that we are even more credible because we've got the professional and the personal insight. So of course, whilst they say you don't have to be hit by a bus to know it hurts, it sure does help with the empathy. Thank you. And I'm kind of remembering something I read in the book which felt like really quite powerful about something that should have been kind of really fun. And actually Emma on a more resourced time in her life might have found it really fun, but it was a weekend away with your friends where it really came to fruition. Would you mind guiding us through that story, Emma? I
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Guess I'd probably have been burned out for a while, but I'm a very busy person. I was working in the NHS, I was writing books, I was parenting and doing lots of other things. And I have a coping style, which has worked for me throughout my life of keeping on going and persevering. Just get to the end of this, get it done, and then you can relax. So I kept on going, persevering, kept on getting through the next thing and the next thing, but the things were increasing hugely. So I'd probably be ... Well, I had been burnt out for a while and it was very obvious in hindsight, looking back, but my friends and me usually arrange a trip around about January, February of the year. And this time I think there were still restrictions. So we decided to go to Edinburgh, beautiful city.
(:Highly recommend for anybody to go to Edinburgh. It's absolutely stunning city. And these are some of my oldest friends also from psychology degrees, caring, kind, compassionate people. And I debated whether I should go because I knew I was exhausted and I thought, will I benefit from this or not? Or I will enjoy it. But also there was an element of, can I contribute to this or not? Because I don't feel like myself right now. I feel like I've lost my sense of humour. I feel like I'm not quite me and not Emma that I normally am. So they're not going to be getting Emma as she normally is. So my husband said, "Look, it's a great thing. You love going to see them. You love going away with them, so just go. " I was like, "You're right, let's go. " So I did go and it was a lovely weekend in many ways, but it was also doing things that I hadn't been doing much for a while.
(:So going out socialising, none of us had been doing for a long time because of the pandemic, but going out socialising at night, drinking, going out for meals, walking lots around the beautiful city of Edinburgh to have a look. In general, it should have been a really, really beautiful, pleasant weekend. And then for the first night we went out, we had a nice meal. The second day we wandered around the city, or the second night, sorry, we decided to stay at ... We had a beautiful flat in Edinburgh and we decided to stay at home and just have a few drinks and a chat. And we were having a chat. And then out of seemingly nowhere, I got up and left the room and we've been ... I can't even remember what we've been talking about. It was something really innocuous, quite interesting conversation, but something just hit me and I got up and left the room and my friends were kind of like, "What's she doing?" And I was also thinking, "What am I doing?" And I just started shaking.
(:It was effectively, the way I described in the book, it was ostensibly a shock reaction with nothing to be shocked about. But obviously, I think what had been happening is I had so little resources left, and this has just pushed me over the edge. It's like my capacity cup was full and I had so little level left, I was about to overflow. And having been in people's company for two days now, walking lots, drinking, tired, also probably for me not having my own space, because I like having my own space, all this tiny little things, which otherwise would've been really enjoyable just pushed me over the edge. And I guess it was my body saying, "Emma, stop. You need to stop. Stop ignoring me. You've been ignoring me for too long. You can't ignore me anymore." So what should have been a wonderful weekend in Edinburgh became the point where I was like, "Okay, we need some action here.
(:Something needs to happen."
Dr Marianne Trent (:Yeah, absolutely. It's making me think about when I was an early career psychologist myself and I was working with older adults, many of them would talk about having had a breakdown. And really that led me to think, well, what is that? And it was only as my career progressed that I thought, I can't seem to find a diagnosis of a breakdown. It doesn't seem to be a thing, but I'm aware that actually burnout is now in the ICD-11, I think I'm right in saying, is an occupational kind of syndrome. But of course, burnout can go among all of our roles. I'm a mother, I run a business, I'm a wife, I'm a creator. And so you can burn out in many areas of your life, not just in your occupational. And yeah, I don't think there is an answer to, this isn't even really a question.
(:It's just an observation that actually we are now moving towards understanding this more. And when we understand it more, we can validate people more and we can help them understand how to, I guess, ultimately a gold standard prevented. But if it has happened, how to get the wheels back on and to do so in a way that de- shames people, empowers them, and does what you've shown us with your lovely matchman, which is to regain power, achievement, sense of satisfaction, and enjoyment of life so that your flame is back a glow.
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Yeah. I think that's very interesting because I also consider what is the term breakdown. I've considered that throughout my career. And I think often we apply it to circumstances where we're not sure what's going on and to try and make sense of it. But I also think it feeds into something else which is really critical for burnout, which is around shame. I think often we internalise these things as being something about us and I think the same could be applied to the term breakdown. Something's happening. I have broken down and there can be a degree of shame around that. And as a clinical psychologist, I'm not immune to that. In fact, I think there's almost an extra layer of shame that you come with a mental health professional because not only do you have the normal societal shame, which is from, and I know where this comes from, thousands of years of beliefs about emotions and how they operate in mental health, which we really need to shift.
(:And that's been our work for many years as clinical psychologists trying to really update these beliefs with the science behind it. But I then think there's an extra layer of shame. And it's like, but I'm a clinical psychologist. I write books about this. I tell people about this and yet it still happened. Now, on an intellectual level, I absolutely know that there's nothing to be ashamed about.
(:I fundamentally believe that anybody can experience mental health difficulties, and in fact, most people do. So most people, and in fact, the research suggests that it's much rare to stay mentally well throughout your life than experience poor mental health. So poor mental health at some point in your life is the norm. That should be no surprise to anybody because poor physical health is a norm. And whether we separate these two is still something we need to scientifically look at in future years. So that should be no surprise to anybody, but you can know something theoretically and you can feel something very differently because all those thousands of years about beliefs about mental health, emotions, they still impact you despite knowing it theoretically. So I think, and I speak about this in the book, there's a fact, a shame narrator throughout the book who I call shame, and the idea is to externalise it from yourself.
(:And Shane says to me, "What right do you have to tell people about this? You didn't exactly do it yourself." And that's an extra layer of shame. It's like you're a clinical psychologist who supports mental health, who writes books about mental health. This is at the heart of what you do, but yeah, you didn't do it. But I think what would I say to somebody else? That's life.
(:These things happen because a complex mix of person, context, and everything that's going on for them. So you have to draw back and think, what did lead to this? Be curious rather than shameful, stop and think, what contributed to this? Which elements do I need to recognise as things which I couldn't control? Which elements can I do something about? Which elements recognise that I can actually shift that? And that's really what led me down that journey and stepping back and seeing, yes, Shane's telling me this. Shame or shame speaks to everybody. And particularly when our resources are low, when our resources are depleted, they go into negativity overload. So I describe it as a negative ninja takeover. The negative ninjas take over your brain, they're kicking at your brain, they're pushing hard. So it's much harder to override that when you are feeling depleted, but it is really about stepping back and saying, "This is just a normal human experience." And being a clinical psychologist probably does give you some extra protection about that against that in some way because you do have the theory and knowledge that supports you in your life.
(:And I do put those in place, but yet there still will be mixes of person context that lead to it impacting you. We would be robots if it didn't.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Yeah, absolutely. And that was kind of my thinking as you were speaking really, that I think we always need to empower ourselves to allow ourselves to be humans first.
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Yep, absolutely.
Dr Marianne Trent (:So of course you started off your journey as the psychology mom with a pen in your hand. Am I right in thinking that there are diagrams, there are drawings, illustrations in your new book?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Yes, absolutely. So that's how my brain works. It works visually. I like to bring concepts to life through visuals. So initially there weren't going to be illustrations in this book, but then I found it impossible to keep them out. I was visualising what this looked like. So we agreed that there would be some images in this book. The slight difference to the previous books is it is black and white. That was a whole new learning process for me, trying to draw things in black and white. So there are visuals in this book because that's how I've always operated clinically and how I always operate in my books. I just think it really helps bring the concepts to life. It poses a bit of a challenge when you're trying to record the audio book as I have in the last two days. But what I do in each book, so I have characters that go through the book, which almost brings psychological concepts to life.
(:So you've seen the match. That's the representation of burnout, but you can relight your fire again. The classic one who appears in every book is my little brain character, so Brian the Brain. So this represents your brain because I really believe that understanding your brain and how it works, understanding the kind of biases, the things that go on and why these things happen to us in terms of brain functioning can really help de- shame or de- stigmatise and help you understand your human experience. So Brian the Brain appears in every single book. And in this book, he appears to introduce a set of reflections. So reflections of, okay, you've read this content, but how does it apply to you? What's your thoughts around this? So he guides us through the book. And then there are some other characters I can introduce. So my story about Edinburgh, nothing ostensibly happened that threw me over the edge, but what it was, if we look here, was a teeny tiny thing.
(:So this is a teeny, tiny thing. So the teeny tiny thing is that thing which makes you overwhelmed or your capacity overflow. I describe it that you might not understand this if you're not a child of the 80s and the 90s. So apologies for those that aren't, you might have to Google it. I describe it. The teeny tiny thing is a thing that makes your capacity cup overflow into creamola foam land. Do you know what creamolofoam is? No. Okay. I'm sure my age here. So creamola foam was a drink from the 80s where you put some powder into a cup and you added water to it and you never got that quantity right It all was overflowed. So the teeny tiny thing is a thing that your capacity is so full already and you might not notice it or your stress levels are so high, it's a tiny thing which pushes you into overwhelmed land or creamola foam capacity cup.
(:So it's about recognising that thing in itself maybe is an issue because people can go, "Why did that happen?" I mean, it was a nothing, but it's everything else that's going on underneath it that's creating the stress that's adding to your capacity that's already filling your cup to that level.
Dr Marianne Trent (:I guess the modern kind of visualised image of that That would be putting a mento in a coke bottle right there. A tiny thing leads to a big reaction.
Dr Emma Hepburn (:If only I've thought of that before I wrote the book, that would've been much more modern and talking to this generation buddy, I didn't. And some of the final creatures in the book are my little snail here. So this snail appears throughout the book and it's remembering that you can still achieve by slowing down. Actually, you will achieve more longer term if you pause regularly and you don't need to rush constantly to get there. You don't need to always keep on and get the thing done. You don't need to go onto the end and finish it off. And finally, a little tortoise. So it was very, very cute. So the tortoise appears in the book too, again, plodding along, not going very fast and enjoying life, looking around and seeing what's happening there rather than just looking to the future and constantly leading onto the next thing on a treadmill.
(:So these little characters appear throughout the book in the illustrations and exercises which are designed to really help you apply the theory, the science to your own situation.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Amazing. And I think when you've got something that you can visualise or that you can hold in mind visually, I think it can be so powerful in helping those concepts to develop. And I love your story that actually this emerged originally in clinical practise and you saw that it really did seem to make a difference for actual clients. And you were like, "I think we can do more here." It's the true consultation model of psychology. Why do it for one, if you can do it for many? Emma, it sounds amazing. Who would you recommend this book is for? What sort of age? Are we talking adults here?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Well, initially my books were published with the intention of using them with adults. But what I do know, and so yes, the book is for adults, but what I do know is my books are used throughout schools, throughout primary schools, secondary schools, because children and teenagers engage with the visuals as well. And burnout is also a relevant issue for adolescents. There's so much going on for them in the world. So I think the book could be used at any age, but might need adult facilitation to support with that because I do know that teachers will build lessons around the book, lessons around the visuals. And I think this applies really nicely to this book as well.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Okay. Just before we have a think about where your books are available and when they're coming out and all of that stuff, I know that there was a chapter that there just wasn't room for in your brand new book. And it was something that we chatted about just before we hit record. And the impact, I guess, of maybe being the psychology mom and showing up and the pressures of social media and technology, you were like, "Oh, that's something I'm actually still really passionate about. " Could you talk to us a little bit about that, Emma?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Sure. So I wrote a whole chapter on technology and burnout, and it's really interesting because that's actually what I research as well. So it's a topic that I'm really passionate about and I wrote too much for the entire book. I wrote about 30,000 words far too much. I made myself a bigger job than I had to. So something had to go, and this was the obvious chapter that had to go, but it sat there and it felt uncomfortable with me because I think it's such an important topic. So what we decided to do is release it as a free ebook. So that is out there as a free ebook, which you will find via links on my page, or you can come over to my Substack as well to find it and use that freely and download it. This was based on a further big question I should have mentioned previously.
(:We released a free ebook during the pandemic to help people cope, and that really was circulated all around the world. Ended up randomly with me meeting the Prime Minister, which was very, very strange. Don't expect that to happen from this book, but hopefully it's of benefit to people because really my whole aim is to get stuff out there and get people to use it and improve their lives and for it to have an impact beneficially in their lives. So please come and find the free ebook around technology, social media, and burnout.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Amazing. What a brilliant and beautiful resource and what a great way of making sure that your work doesn't just kind of end up sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere. So well done to you and to your publishing team. So when people obviously are very keen to get hold of your brand new book, what is it called and where can they get it?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:So it is called the Anti-Burnout Book and is available in any big shop. And if it's not available, you can ask for it to be ordered or obviously any online bookshop as well.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Great. I'll make sure I put a link for that and for your other books in the show notes. And most importantly, just before we leave, we've spoken about your Instagram page, we've spoken about your social media. Where can people follow you and connect with you, Emma?
Dr Emma Hepburn (:So I am still on social media as @thepsychologymom. I don't post too regularly, but of a clue if you read the free ebook, why that is. And Facebook as the same. The free ebook is actually available via my Substack, which is the Wellbeing Society, and that's where it's available to download. So you can also find me there where obviously I write longer form content as well.
Dr Marianne Trent (:Perfect. Thank you so much for your time and wishing you the very best with your new book, Baby, and everything that comes thereafter. Do stay in touch. Lovely to see you.
Dr Emma Hepburn (:Thank you, Marianne. Great to meet with you.
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