Professional burnout is a special case of emotional burnout, a syndrome that develops as a result of the depletion of a person’s personal resources against the background of constant stress and fatigue associated with work. Professional burnout is a normal mental reaction to a constant level of emotional “noise.” Some researchers are of the opinion that professional burnout is a psychological reaction of adaptation to working conditions. First of all, representatives of those professions whose activities are related to communication with people, empathy and high responsibility are susceptible to this phenomenon. Moreover, the higher the emotional load and the more vulnerable the category of people with whom a person works, the faster burnout occurs. Burnout also often occurs in people with certain personality traits that are less resilient to stress. The American Christina Maslach and Susan Jackson first spoke about this syndrome in the 1970s. They identified three main components of professional burnout:
- emotional exhaustion (due to high workload and conflicts at work);
- a detached, cynical attitude towards people (arises as a defensive reaction of the psyche to emotional exhaustion), sometimes turns into dehumanization;
- underestimation of one's professional achievements, impostor syndrome.
According to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, this syndrome has code Z73.0 (Overfatigue). An internal conflict between actual working conditions and desired ones (range of responsibilities, salary, inconvenient schedule) can intensify symptoms.
Emotional burnout of teachers
Professional burnout among teachers occurs as a result of prolonged stress exposure in the process of interpersonal communication. According to various longitudinal studies, after several years of work, a teacher can become disillusioned with his profession and become either indifferent to his students and emotionally cold, or decide to change his occupation to one that is less stressful and does not require such a level of emotional involvement. Factors that contribute to teacher burnout:
- Idealization of your profession.
- High responsibility for your students.
- High emotional and intellectual stress.
- Selfless help, which leads to an imbalance between intellectual and energy costs and moral and material rewards.
- Regular role conflicts.
- Working with “difficult” children.
- Alcohol abuse (especially among teachers in orphanages and juvenile colonies).
The psychological experiences of teachers affect their performance, psychophysiological state and the nature of interpersonal relationships with colleagues and children. The peculiarities of teaching teams are such that feedback and support are poorly established in them, but criticism and disunity are often encountered. The longer the irritation lasts, the faster psychosomatic diseases appear, and any motivation to work disappears.
Prevention of the syndrome:
- planning work and rest after it is completed;
- prioritizing professional goals;
- extensive contacts with colleagues from other organizations;
- general health promotion and prevention;
- changing activities during the day (mental and physical);
- avoiding conflicts;
- constant personal and professional growth.
Treating professional burnout syndrome is long and expensive. This is why prevention is so important. And both managers and specialists themselves should deal with it.
Emotional burnout of medical workers
According to statistics, 64% of doctors have neurotic disorders, 68% have emotional burnout syndrome, and 38% have a depressive state. The need to work with unhealthy and complaining people makes the world of a health worker darker. Constant care and efforts aimed at restoring others greatly exhaust a person’s internal resource. Symptoms of emotional burnout among medical staff are exhaustion and exhaustion, lack of empathy for patients, cynicism, and dislike for work. A large number of factors, which even individually can lead to professional burnout, combine in the medical field. Psychotraumatic factors for doctors that contribute to burnout are:
- constant being under pressure from patients and their relatives, superiors;
- high degree of responsibility;
- intense and often monotonous work;
- shortage of paramedical and junior medical staff;
- working conditions close to extreme (sleep deprivation, daily shifts, poor nutrition, etc.).
All this contributes to the emergence of a high level of psycho-emotional stress, which is constantly present and complemented by the need to interact with a large number of people. Depending on the line of work, burnout may occur earlier or later. For example, nurses burn out faster than doctors, and intensive care unit staff burn out faster than therapy workers.
CMEA stages
Burnout syndrome does not occur abruptly. It develops in stages as a person’s mental stress increases. Psychologist Jerrold Greenberg identified 5 stages of CMEA:
- At the first stage, a person is completely satisfied with his work activity. He is passionate about his work and is enthusiastic. Stressful situations that arise do not cause strong emotional stress. They only slightly reduce the employee’s activity and energy.
- As fatigue accumulates, the second stage of the syndrome develops. The person loses interest in his business. He has sleep disturbances. It could be insomnia. Or vice versa, excessive sleep, which does not bring relief. The feeling of overwork and apathy becomes constant.
- At the third stage, the feeling of depression and dissatisfaction with work intensifies. The person becomes irritable. He begins to think that he has no prospects in the future. Chronic fatigue provokes physical ailments.
- The fourth stage can be characterized as a crisis. A person's chronic diseases become aggravated. Because of this, performance decreases. Depression is getting worse. A person is not satisfied with the quality of his life, his own productivity.
- At the fifth stage, mental and physical disorders worsen to such an extent that life is threatened. Against the backdrop of severe depression, a person begins to abuse alcohol and take drugs. He is completely maladjusted both professionally and in personal and family relationships.
The sooner a person turns to a psychologist for help, the faster and easier he will cope with the syndrome.
Emotional burnout of psychologists
The work of a psychologist involves constant communication with people in crisis and problem situations. A helping profession involves a subtle feeling of the state of another, so often the negative emotions of clients are reflected in the internal state of the psychologist. Professional burnout occurs especially quickly among those who work in extreme conditions, with the consequences of psychological trauma, and in neuropsychiatric hospital departments. The specialist is required not only to withstand any conditions of the clients, but also to do it under intense pressure. The main symptom of emotional burnout among psychologists providing long-term and emergency psychological assistance is an indifferent attitude to clients’ problems. Reasons for emotional burnout among psychologists:
- chronic intense psycho-emotional activity (intense communication, perception of clients, impact on them);
- increased sense of responsibility (the need to delve into the clients’ problem, to empathize);
- psychologically difficult contingent (people with serious psychological problems: troublemakers, dying patients, clients with depression, etc.);
- tendency to emotional rigidity;
- lack of regular psychotherapy by the psychologist himself;
- lack of supervision.
Stages of psychological burnout syndrome:
Stage 1.
An active and responsible employee fully fulfills everything that is required and listens sensitively to the wishes of his superiors and clients. He easily agrees to work overtime.
At first his efforts are noticed. Then it becomes the norm. Overwork and emotional fatigue gradually accumulate.
Stage 2.
Work stops being fun. The employee perceives it as a necessary duty. He becomes unable to empathize and show creativity. He perceives other people's problems very detachedly. Professional cynicism and a penchant for black humor develop.
Stage 3.
Work becomes a burden for a person to earn money. Professional growth stops. Initiative is perceived as something superfluous. The tasks assigned to him are carried out formally.
Self-diagnosis of professional burnout
To diagnose professional burnout, psychotherapists use the questionnaire by K. Maslach, adapted for Russia by N. E. Vodopyanova. It is also possible to use V.V.’s questionnaire. Boyko. For self-diagnosis, you can use the questionnaire on professional burnout by E.P. Ilyin. The initial diagnosis of professional burnout can be carried out independently by assessing the number of matches from the following list of symptoms:
- a feeling of constant fatigue, emotional and physical exhaustion that does not go away even after rest;
- job dissatisfaction;
- doubts about your professional suitability and competencies;
- reluctance to communicate with superiors, colleagues, students, clients or patients;
- detachment;
- the feeling that “there are only fools around you”;
- insomnia, headaches, weight changes, drowsiness;
- decreased sensitivity - visual acuity, hearing, and tactile sensations disappear;
- indifference and passivity appear in the social spectrum, which are often replaced by irritability;
- emotional imbalance, increased feelings of anxiety, fear, frequent nervous breakdowns;
- feeling that work is getting harder;
- deliberate violation of the work schedule (leaving or regularly wanting to leave early, attempts to retire);
- reluctance to make decisions, take responsibility and take any initiative;
- consumption of alcohol, psychostimulants, increased consumption of coffee and cigarettes.
Symptoms
Mental burnout syndrome develops slowly and gradually. At first, the patient feels slightly tired, but later he loses the desire to work and do his favorite things. This condition occurs due to decreased concentration. Along with this, apathy, causeless temper and irritability appear.
Scientists divide the signs of the disease into three groups:
1.Physical manifestations, which are characterized by the following symptoms:
- General weakness;
- Fatigue;
- Joint pain;
- Decreased immune defense of the body;
- Regular headaches;
- Hyperhidrosis;
- Lack of appetite;
- Change in weight;
- Frequent dizziness;
- Insomnia.
2. Socio-behavioral signs:
- Irritability and anger towards everything that happens;
- Complaints about one’s own work and the team;
- The desire to find someone to blame for all your failures among other people;
- Pessimistic mood, only gloomy forecasts for the future;
- Avoidance of responsibility;
- The desire to be alone as often as possible.
Sometimes a patient may begin to abuse alcohol or drugs in order to drown out absolutely all the problems at once. As a rule, this does not lead to anything good.
3. Psycho-emotional signs:
- Indifference to events occurring in one’s own life;
- Diffidence;
- Loss of interest in work;
- Conflicts with loved ones, family;
- Bad mood for a long time.
Burnout syndrome, in its clinical manifestations, is very similar to deep depression. The patient always feels that absolutely no one, including his family, needs him anymore. He feels doomed and depressed, and it is also difficult for him to concentrate on any important matters.
Prevention of professional burnout
Prevention of the development of burnout can be: quality rest, unscheduled vacation or restructuring of activities. If you are experiencing emotional tension, visiting a psychologist or psychotherapist will be very helpful. During the initial stage of professional burnout, you should pay more attention to your emotional state and take a break when there is a feeling that your manager, colleagues or clients are demanding the impossible, are lashing out at the negative, and are trying to shift responsibility. What to do: 1. First of all, you need to realize and give names to all your negative emotions: fatigue, anger, sadness, resentment, irritation, etc. 2. Clearly formulate the reasons for the appearance of these feelings: “I am angry because the student shows indifference to my subject,” “This patient annoys me because he makes impossible demands.” It is important to avoid using evaluative language towards the person to whom negative emotions are directed (“arrogant”, “snickering”, “smug”, etc.). It is imperative to allocate time after work for personal relationships, recreation, hobbies, and travel. All activities associated with a change in activity replenish the wasted resource. In addition, if a person only has a job, he begins to worry more about being fired, which also stimulates burnout. In the chosen activity, it is necessary to completely remove all idealization, separate objective circumstances and subjective perceptions of working conditions: do not live waiting for a budget organization to turn into a creative creative space. The less internal inconsistency, the less expectations and disappointments. The main thing is to set priorities correctly. No project should become more important than sleep, food and proper rest if it does not bring the deepest satisfaction. Otherwise, you should think about changing your profession.
How to deal with professional burnout?
There are effective methods to combat professional burnout:
- relaxation techniques to relieve tension and restore resources;
- analysis and correction of expectations and actual working conditions;
- change of activity or place of work (both within the same organization and a complete change of area of work);
- a quality break - it’s better to take a break from your life and plunge into creativity or a trip somewhere than to completely burn out.
If independent methods of dealing with burnout do not help, then you need to seek advice from a psychologist. A specialist will analyze your specific situation, teach you how to cope with negative emotions, restore your own resources, which will ultimately improve your quality of life and emotional background. To diagnose and correct professional burnout, sign up for a consultation with a specialist by phone or fill out the application form on the website.
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