Burnout (psychology) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Burnout is a psychological

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest. Research indicates general practitioner

General practitioner

A general practitioner is a medical practitioner who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education for all ages and both sexes. They have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues and comorbidities...

s have the highest proportion of burnout cases; according to a recent Dutch study in Psychological Reports, no less than 40% of these experienced high levels of burnout. Burnout is not a recognized disorder in the DSM

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders...

although it is recognized in the ICD-10

ICD-10

The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision is a medical classification list for the coding of diseases, signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or diseases, as maintained by the...

as "Problems related to life-management difficulty".

The most well-studied measurement of burnout in the literature is the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Maslach and her colleague Jackson first identified the construct "burnout" in the 1970s, and developed a measure that weighs the effects of emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion is a chronic state of physical and emotional depletion that results from excessive job demands and continuous stress. It describes a feeling of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work...

and reduced sense of personal accomplishment. This indicator has become the standard tool for measuring burnout in research on the syndrome. The Maslach Burnout Inventory uses a three dimensional description of exhaustion, cynicism

Cynicism (contemporary)

Cynicism is an attitude or state of mind characterized by a general distrust of other's apparent motives, or a general lack of faith or hope in the human race. It is a form of jaded negativity, and other times, realistic criticism or skepticism...

, and inefficacy. Some researchers and practitioners have argued for an "exhaustion only" model that sees that symptom as the hallmark of burnout.

Maslach and her colleague, Michael Leiter, defined the antithesis of burnout as engagement. Engagement is characterized by energy, involvement and efficacy, the opposites of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy.

Many theories of burnout include negative outcomes related to burnout, including job function (performance, output, etc.), health related outcomes (increases in stress

Stress (biology)

Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...

hormones, coronary heart disease

Heart disease

Heart disease, cardiac disease or cardiopathy is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases affecting the heart. , it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, accounting for 25.4% of the total deaths in the United States.-Types:-Coronary heart disease:Coronary...

, circulatory issues) and mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

problems (depression, etc.).

The term burnout in psychology was coined by Herbert Freudenberger in his 1974 Staff burnout, presumably based on the 1960 novel A Burnt-Out Case
A Burnt-Out Case
-Plot summary:The plot concerns Querry, who is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference, he no longer finds meaning in art or pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper colony overseen by Catholic missionaries, he is diagnosed - by Dr Colin, the resident doctor - as the mental...

by Graham Greene

Graham Greene

Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...

, which describes a protagonist suffering from burnout.

Organizational burnout

Tracy in her study aboard cruise ships describes this as "a general wearing out or alienation from the pressures of work" (Tracy, 2000 p. 6) "Understanding burnout to be personal and private is problematic when it functions to disregard the ways burnout is largely an organizational issue caused by long hours, little down time, and continual peer, customer, and superior surveillance".

How the stress is processed determines how much stress is felt and how close the person is to burnout. One individual can experience few stressors, but be unable to process the stress well and thus experience burnout. Another person, however, can experience a significant amount of stressors, but process each well, and avoid burnout. How close a person is to a state of burnout can be determined through various tests.

Phases

Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North have theorized that the burnout process can be divided into 12 phases, which are not necessarily followed sequentially, nor necessarily in any sense be relevant or exist other than as an abstract construct.

The Compulsion to Prove Oneself
Often found at the beginning is excessive ambition. This is one's desire to prove themselves while at the workplace. This desire turns into determination and compulsion.
Working Harder
Because they have to prove themselves to others or try to fit in an organization that does not suit them, people establish high personal expectations. In order to meet these expectations, they tend to focus only on work while they take on more work than they usually would. It may happen that they become obsessed with doing everything themselves. This will show that they are irreplaceable since they are able to do so much work without enlisting in the help of others.
Neglecting Their Needs
Since they have devoted everything to work, they now have no time and energy for anything else. Friends and family, eating, and sleeping start to become unnecessary or unimportant, as it reduces the time and energy that can be spent on work.
Displacement of Conflicts
Now, the person has become aware that what they are doing is not right, but they are unable to see the source of the problem. This could lead to a crisis in themselves and become threatening. This is when the first physical symptoms are expressed.
Revision of Values
In this stage, people isolate themselves from others, they avoid conflicts, and fall into a state of denial towards their basic physical needs while their perceptions change. They also look at their value systems. The work consumes all energy they have left, leaving no energy and time for friends and hobbies. Their new value system is their job and they start to be emotionally blunt.
Denial of Emerging Problems
The person begins to become intolerant. They don't like being social, and if they were to have social contact, it would be merely unbearable. Outsiders tend to see more aggression and sarcasm. It's not uncommon for them to blame their increasing problems on time pressure and all the work that they have to do, instead of on the ways that they have changed, themselves.
Withdrawal
Their social contact is now at a minimum, soon turning into isolation, a wall. Alcohol or drugs may be sought out for a release since they are obsessively working "by the book". They often have feelings of being without hope or direction.
Obvious Behavioral Changes
Coworkers, family, friends, and other people that are in their immediate social circles cannot overlook the behavioral changes of this person.
Depersonalization
Losing contact with themselves, it's possible that they no longer see themselves or others as valuable. as well as losing track of their personal needs. Their view of life narrows to only seeing in the present time, while their life turns to a series of mechanical functions.
Inner Emptiness
They feel empty inside and to overcome this, they might look for activity such as sex, alcohol, or drugs. These activities are often exaggerated and overreacted.
Depression
Burnout may include depression. In that case, the person is exhausted, hopeless, indifferent, and believe that there is nothing for them in the future. To them, there is no meaning of life. Typical depression symptoms arise.
Burnout Syndrome
They collapse physically and emotionally and should seek immediate medical attention. In extreme cases, usually only when depression is involved, suicidal thoughts have passed through the minds of these people to use as an escape from their situation and only few people will actually commit suicide.

Preventing burnout

While individuals can cope with the symptoms of burnout, the only way to truly prevent burnout is through a combination of organizational change and education for the individual. Organizations address these issues through their own management development, but often they engage external consultants to assist them in establishing new policies and practices supporting a healthier worklife. Maslach and Leiter postulated that burnout occurs when there is a disconnect between the organization and the individual with regard to what they called the six areas of work life: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Resolving these discrepancies requires integrated action on the part of both the individual and the organization. A better connection on workload means assuring adequate resources to meet demands as well as work/life balances that encourage employees to revitalize their energy. A better connection on values means clear organizational values to which employees can feel committed. A better connection on community means supportive leadership and relationships with colleagues rather than discord.

One approach for addressing these discrepancies focuses specifically on the fairness area. In one study employees met weekly to discuss and attempt to resolve perceived inequities in their job. This study revealed decreases in the exhaustion component over time but did not affect cynicism or inefficacy indicating that a broader approach is required.

Coping with burnout

There are a variety of ways that both individuals and organizations can deal with burnout. In general, resting proves to be very effective. This may include a temporary reduction of working hours, slowly rebuilding the endurance of the individual. In his book, Managing stress: Emotion and power at work (1995), Newton argues that many of the remedies related to burnout are motivated not from an employee's perspective, but from the organization's perspective. Despite that, if there are benefits to coping strategies, then it would follow that both organizations and individuals should attempt to adopt some burnout coping strategies. Below are some of the more common strategies for dealing with burnout.

Employee assistance programs (EAP)

Stemming from Mayo's Hawthorne Studies, Employee Assistance Programs were designed to assist employees in dealing with the primary causes of stress. Some programs included counseling and psychological services for employees. There are organizations that still utilize EAPs today, but the popularity has diminished substantially because of the advent of stress management training (SMT).

Stress management training

Stress Management Training (SMT) is employed by many organizations today as a way to get employees to either work through stress or to manage their stress levels; to maintain stress levels below that which might lead to higher instances of burnout.

Stress interventions

Research has been conducted that links certain interventions, such as narrative

Narrative

A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

writing or topic-specific training to reductions in physiological and psychological stress.

Problem-based coping

On an individual basis, employees can cope with the problems related to burnout and stress by focusing on the causes of their stress. Various therapies, such as Neurofeedback therapy

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback , also called neurotherapy, neurobiofeedback or EEG biofeedback is a type of biofeedback that uses realtime displays of electroencephalography or functional magnetic resonance imaging to illustrate brain activity, often with a goal of controlling central nervous system activity...

, claim to assist in cases of burnout. This type of coping has successfully been linked to reductions in individual stress.

Appraisal-based coping

Appraisal-based coping strategies deal with individual interpretations of what is and is not a stress inducing activity. There have been mixed findings related to the effectiveness of appraisal-based coping strategies.

Social support

Social support has been seen as one of the largest predictors toward a reduction in burnout and stress for workers. Creating an organizationally-supportive environment as well as ensuring that employees have supportive work environments do mediate the negative aspects of burnout and stress.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.