SWINDON LITERARY FESTIVAL REVIEW: EVER reached the point of complete fatigue and failure to see the point in life.

According to Dr Dina Glouberman, more and more people in western society are falling victim to burnout a state of chronic exhaustion, cynicism or anger.

From her own experience of burnout in 1989, Dr Glouberman has written The Joy of Burnout, a book designed to help people turn their lives around.

Dr Glouberman spoke at the University of Bath in Swindon about how her experience was later diagnosed as ME, which took her seven years to recover from. She said victims of burnout are often 'whole hearted people, who are giving their all'.

And the path to burnout could be brought on by a sudden change, which could even be positive such as a promotion. Her talk contained inspirational quotes from an ancient Chinese text and an Indian philosopher but failed to offer practical hints on how to climb back from the depths of apathy. She told a story of one woman who fell ill to a series of infections but was more concerned about cancelling appointments than the decline of her health.

According to Glouberman this was a case of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The analogy is an apt one but doesn't answer the question of how we should look after the goose.

Dr Glouberman was the co-founder of Skyros, a company that offers holistic holidays in Greece and Thailand.

By Bhavani Vadde