Events
13 March 2026 - book signing and talk, all welcome
"Burnout and the Lie of Self-Care"
at Page & Blackmore Booksellers in Nelson
Date: Friday 13th March 2026 at 5:15 PM
Where: Page & Blackmore 254 Trafalgar Street, Nelson, New Zealand
More:
- Burnout is everywhere, but much of the advice we give helpers quietly blames the individual for problems created by systems. Clinical psychologist and author Kerry Makin-Byrd explores what we often get wrong about burnout and offers practical, hopeful science-based solutions instead of silliness.
- This 20-minute talk is for helpers, carers, and anyone who feels tired and overwhelmed. Talk followed by discussion and book signing.
Purchase START HERE from Page & Blackmore
and get a free copy of THE BALLAD OF BURNOUT (while stocks last).
14 March 2026 - Training open to all!
"Start Here and Keep Going: Developing regenerative work and life practices after burnout"
Note from Kerry: I'm so psyched for this training, which will be a science-based over-serve of what I've learned so far about moral distress and moral injury, multi-system influences on burnout, and the places we have power to do meaningful, regenerative work within imbalanced and underfunded systems. PLUS I'm telling it all through two case studies. woohoooo.
Date: Saturday 14th March 2026
Where: Nelson and Online (Zoom)
More: This one-day professional development workshop integrates current research in compassion science, moral psychology, and occupational health to explore recovery, regeneration, and sustained vitality following professional burnout.
- Framed through Dr. Kerry Makin-Byrd's Soothe–Transcend–Move model, participants will examine empirically grounded seasonal and daily practices that support cognitive, affective, and physiological feedback loops essential for sustainable and sustaining life in and out of the office.
- The training uses two case examples of treating burnout to illustrate key principles including (a) addressing perfectionism, over-control, and over-responsibility that perpetuates clinician distress, (b) the power of collective action and peer support, and (c) concrete individual behaviour changes.
- Drawing on recent scholarship on moral distress and moral elevation, the workshop will pay special attention to the systemic stressors embedded within Aotearoa New Zealand’s public health infrastructure and the patterns of mis-education within graduate training that predispose clinicians to burnout.
Through discussion, reflection, and experiential learning, participants will develop evidence-based regenerative practices that enable an ethical, resilient return to clinical work and life.
Register here.
19 March 2026 - Petone Book Talk
Ben Sedley & Kerry Makin-Byrd authors interviewing authors @ Schrodingers Books
15 September 2026 - online training for helpers
"ACT For Burnout"
Date: 15th March 2026
Where: Online (Zoom), register here
More: This one-day professional development workshop integrates current research in compassion science, moral psychology, and occupational health to explore recovery, regeneration, and sustained vitality following professional burnout.
- Work burnout is skyrocketing among helping professionals. This 90-minute workshop is for anyone supporting people who are struggling with burnout: clients, supervisees, colleagues, or yourself.
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-informed approaches offer unique, evidence-based additions to our understanding of burnout and to the standard interventions often used to treat it (Towey-Swift, Lauvrud, & Whittington, 2022).
- In this workshop, I’ll outline how an ACT framework can help clinicians use evidence-based individual and system-level practices to identify, alleviate, and prevent burnout.
What is different about Kerry’s approach to burnout?
- She actively engages the tension between the very real system-level drivers of burnout and the reality that meaningful relief often begins with individual change.
- She helps clinicians understand the connection between values and vulnerabilities—and why this matters for resilience and returning to work post-burnout.
- This fully revised 2026 training includes two important additions:
- integrated shame and moral injury interventions, essential for those working in high-risk and service-focused professions
- a review of cognitive distortions common among helpers that fuel burnout (and what to do about them)