Kirstan Puttick Lloyd Psychologist

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Kirstan Puttick Lloyd Psychologist

Clinical Psychologist offering therapy & assessments for adults, teens & children. Based in Cheshire, UK.

Special interest in trauma, neurodivergence, relationship dynamics & emotional wellbeing.

05/05/2026

When a high-achieving adult arrives saying they are burnt out, I am usually not the first psychologist they have seen.

The WHO defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. In essence, a mismatch between the workplace and the person. For many, this is accurate, and the standard interventions help.

For others, what presents as burnout is something else. An internal mismatch, between who someone hoped to be and where they find themselves. A self organised around exceptionality, meeting a world that doesn’t always confirm it.

This can develop when real talent was locally over-praised. The playing field evens out in adulthood and the calibration breaks.

In other cases, the specialness was compensatory, built on the absence of warmth, or on the bind of having to be great for a parent who needed greatness.

Either way, the adult arrives with a self organised around being exceptional, and an inner knowing of not being quite that good.

When that gap becomes impossible to ignore, something gives way. The cultural language calls it burnout. Clinically, it is something else, and the work that addresses it is also something else.

Link in bio.

27/04/2026

Perhaps the more interesting clinical question about RSD is not whether it is a diagnosis.

It is what happens when a label becomes an identity before it has ever been examined.

I believe this forecloses something. Not just in treatment, but in the person’s relationship with their own interior life.

Link in bio.

25/04/2026

RSD is not a diagnosis per se. For me, it is a description that got mistaken for an explanation.

Coined by a psychiatrist in the 1990s, the term has spread through online communities. This seems to have preceded the research, and there is no formal status in any recognised diagnostic system.

Labels not only shape how people understand themselves and relate to others, but also shape treatment expectations and modality. While the suffering and pain are real, an explanation based in immutable neurobiology can foreclose understanding and meaningful change.

Which raises the question: what are we actually treating when we treat RSD? And what does depth psychology offer that a checklist cannot?

Link in bio.

16/04/2026

Relocation is sometimes an individual experience. But it is just as often a family one, whether a family moves together, or builds a life with loved ones away from their home country.

Most people who relocate expect to miss home. What they don’t expect is to look in the mirror and not quite recognise the person looking back. Or to realise, somewhere along the way, that the grief they are carrying was not entirely theirs to begin with.

In this blog I explore what can get transmitted across generations without a single word being spoken after relocation:

— Why displacement does not end with the generation that moved
— How unprocessed parental grief is transmitted to children without words
— What Winnicott, Kohut, Fraiberg and Freud offer us in understanding inherited loss
— Why growing up between two cultural worlds creates a particular kind of rootlessness
— What genuine psychological integration requires, and why symptom management falls short
— Why the internal experience of belonging cannot be obtained by passing a citizenship test

Link in bio

11/04/2026

The hardest part of leaving isn’t the leaving.

17/07/2025

Too often, mental health assessments are reduced to a checklist exercise—quick screenings, surface-level diagnoses, and generic treatment recommendations. While this may be enough for straightforward presentations, I believe we have a professional responsibility to do better for clients whose experiences are complex.

When we accept superficial assessments, we risk reinforcing misdiagnosis, ineffective treatment cycles, and system-driven burnout. Clients deserve more than labels—they deserve to understand themselves in a way that informs meaningful, tailored care.

This is why I advocate for specialist psychological assessments that are depth-oriented, collaborative, and formulation-led. It’s about recognising the interplay of neurodivergence, trauma, personality structure, and life context—not just symptom management.

At the heart of it, thorough assessment isn’t a luxury—it’s a fairness issue. Accurate understanding should be the starting point of any therapeutic journey, especially when people are already navigating fragmented healthcare pathways.

For those of us working in mental health, offering depth-informed assessments is not just good clinical practice—it’s a commitment to equity, dignity, and better outcomes.

Let’s stop doing more of the same and start offering more of what actually makes a difference.

10/07/2025

What if neurodivergent burnout isn’t a reflection of individual fragility — but a warning about the world we’ve built?

Workplace accommodations are so often framed as concessions. As if rest, clarity, autonomy, or sensory safety are indulgences — reserved for those who can’t keep up. But that framing rests on a dangerous assumption: that the default environment is reasonable to begin with.

What if it isn’t?

What if modern work was never truly designed for anyone — let alone those with sensory sensitivities, cognitive differences, or a limited tolerance for performance and pretence?

When neurodivergent people burn out, it may not be because they are weak — but because they are unwilling or unable to sustain what others silently endure. Like the canary in the coal mine, their collapse may signal not personal failure, but environmental toxicity.

We pathologise their distress instead of asking what it reveals.

And yet, the very things we call accommodations — structure, rest, flexibility, transparency — may not be special allowances at all. They may simply be the conditions required for sustainable human functioning.

So perhaps the question is not: “What do neurodivergent people need that others don’t?”

But rather: “What if their needs reveal what all of us need — and what too few of us receive?”

23/06/2025

🧠 CBT is often considered the gold standard in therapy.
It’s evidence-based, structured, short-term, and works well for targeted issues like phobias or habits.

But what about clients whose struggles are less clear-cut?

As Nancy McWilliams reminds us—not all suffering is a problem to be “solved.” Many people (especially those with trauma, neurodivergence, or deep emotional struggles) don’t show up with neat, textbook symptoms.

Often, it’s not that therapy has failed…
It’s that the model wasn’t built for their complexity.

A biopsychosocial approach explores:

• Biology (temperament, sensory profile, neurodivergence)
• Psychology (attachment, trauma, internal defences)
• Social factors (family roles, gender scripts, culture)

This way, therapy moves beyond surface-level fixes.
It becomes a collaborative process of meaning-making, regulation, and identity growth.

📌 Especially for complex cases, we need more than a protocol.
We need frameworks that hold the whole person.

✨ Curious to hear your thoughts:
When has structured therapy helped—or fallen short—in your experience?

06/06/2025

Should therapy include goals for real-world connection?

We know relationships shape the brain, regulate emotion and help build identity.

But do we treat them as core to psychotherapy, or as secondary outcomes?

Clients often retreat from the world to feel safe. But if that safety comes at the cost of isolation, growth stalls.

In this piece, I ask a difficult but timely question: Should psychotherapists promote real-world relationships as a cornerstone of treatment?

It’s not about prescribing connection. It’s about helping clients move through fear, develop relational skills, and re-enter the world with more flexibility and resilience.

Therapy is not just a sanctuary. It’s also a rehearsal space for being with others, tolerating difference, and choosing connection over avoidance.

04/06/2025

How do we strengthen relationships?

It’s a question that matters in every part of life — in families, friendships, teams, and therapy rooms.

Emotional safety doesn’t just appear. It is built through consistent, everyday habits that create trust, repair tension, and allow us to stay connected even when things feel hard.

Here are a few of those habits I’ve seen make the biggest difference:

- Be curious, not critical

- Speak with clarity and kindness

- Listen to understand, not to fix or blame

- Repair after rupture

- Create safety in small moments

- Grow through challenge

These are not quick fixes. Instead, they are ways of relating that take time, reflection, and practice.

But they change things, helping relationships become places where we can show up fully and authentically.

https://www.helixcentre.co.uk/post/why-we-need-relationships-the-link-between-connection-emotion-and-the-social-brain

02/06/2025

Why do we form relationships?

It’s a question I often ask in therapy.

And while the answer seems obvious, it’s not always easy to put into words.

From infancy, human connection shapes the brain. It teaches us how to regulate emotion, build identity and find a sense of safety in the world.

But for some people, connection feels hard, even painful.

However, the pain of disconnection is not just emotional, it registers in the brain like physical pain, reminding us that we are wired to need each other.

Whether shaped by trauma, neurodivergence, or personality structure, the result is often the same: a longing for closeness mixed with fear of it.

This visual post is my attempt to distil a complex idea into a simple thread:
We need others to survive, not just physically, but emotionally.

What helps you feel safe and seen in your relationships?

27/05/2025

Mind the Gap: The Space Between the Experience and Expression of Self

We all mask. But for some, the cost is higher.

Masking is not inherently pathological. It can be seen as the social process of managing our expression to fit expectations or norms. We hold back, perform, and adapt in order to facilitate social cohesion.

In neurotypical adults, this can feel relatively effortless as it is often supported by stable executive functioning and a well-integrated sense of self.

But in neurodivergent individuals, especially those with ADHD, autism, BPD, or trauma histories, masking becomes survival-driven.

What’s Happening Beneath the Surface?
-Executive functions (EFs) regulate how we manage emotion, attention, and behaviour
- When underdeveloped, the gap between internal reality and outward behaviour widens
- Chronic masking leads to a “false self” — polished outside, disconnected inside

Why It Matters
- Relationships can become strained
- True intimacy can be blocked by self-protection
- The body holds the cost — fatigue, shutdowns, shame
- Identity suffers — masking becomes a lifestyle, not a choice

Rebuilding the Connection
- Understand EF as neurodevelopmental, not moral
- Strengthen interoception and body awareness
- Seek relational safety — therapy, community, co-regulation
- Use structure to reduce self-presentation effort
- Explore the role of the false self in your history

This post explores the neurobiology, development, and psychological cost of the gap between who we are and what we show.

Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/d6FmUD8a

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Wilmslow

Website

http://www.helixcentre.co.uk/

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