The term burnout refers to a specific set of symptoms which derive from a chronic stress associated with one’s work life.
Burnout develops following one’s specific reaction to a work related situation which the individual perceives as exhausting. Specifically, an individual may not have the necessary resources to face the exhausting work related situation which he/she is currently experiencing at work. As a consequence, he/she strains up until he/she finds himself/herself completely unsatisfied by his/her daily life.
With time, burnout may lead to a mental detachment from one’s job, showing indifference, malevolence and cynicism towards the recipients of the job. Burnout must not be underestimated: in fact, what initially seems to be only demoralization and negativity can easily transform into depression and other more complex disorders.
CAUSES AND RISK FACTORS
Burnout is a multifactorial process which involves both the subjects (due to one’s personal characteristics such as gender, age and marital status) and the organization/society in which they perform their jobs. It derives from a chronic stress experienced by the individual in a specific work context, which can also derive from the work context itself. The individual experiences a disequilibrium between the resources available and the demands of the job.
Burnout syndrome is therefore characterized by an atmosphere of demoralization, disappointment and disinterest. The pressing rhythms and demands of the job, together with a personal tendency to identify with one’s job, lead to a great expenditure of one’s personal resources, which with time can cause burnout syndrome.
Risk factors for burnout syndrome:
- Socio-demographic factors:
- Age: some experts believe advanced age to be one of the risk factors for burnout; other believe instead that burnout is more common in young people, whose expectations are usually let down and destroyed by the organizations’ rigidity;
- Marital status: people without a stable relationship with a partner seem to be more vulnerable to develop burnout;
- Gender: women seem to be more vulnerable to burnout
- Personal characteristics:
- A tendency to set unrealistic goals;
- Authoritarian or introvert personality (which impairs team work);
- Believing to be essential;
- Total involvement in one’s job, which becomes a substitute for social life;
- High working expectations and motivation.
SYMPTOMS AND CONSEQUENCES
Burnout is characterized by a fast decrease of one’s psychological and physical resources, accompanied by a decreased work performance.
Burnout does not appear suddenly, but is the result of a process. Initially the worker manages to sustain all the demands of the job, putting in a lot of effort to live up to the expectations. However, the presence of huge amounts of demands and very few breaks can lead to psychological exhaustion.
Very often people who start to experience the first symptoms of burnout do not recognize them as what they are: insomnia, headache, stomach ache, intolerance for work and low motivation. These symptoms are firstly believed to be normal by the affected individual
A very clear sign of burnout is the inability of the individual to rest and recover during the evenings, the weekends, the holidays and all the time he/she does not spend at work.
Burnout can manifest itself in different ways, but three characteristics are always there:
- Exhaustion and impoverishment of one’s resources: emotional exhaustion is at the core of burnout syndrome, one is left feeling himself empty and annihilated by his/her own work. The affected individual feels exhausted on an emotional, physical and psychological level.
- Increased detachment from one’s job: as detachment from job increases so does the time spent by the individual isolating from his work context. This is brought by the increasing of negative feelings that the affected individual experiences towards collogues, bosses and clients.
- Reduced performance: the affected individual becomes less efficient in his/her job, in spite of the increasing effort he/she is putting into his/her job. This is brought by a decreased personal fulfillment, a decreased self-esteem, an increased feeling of inadequacy.
Burnout may lead the subject to abused alcohol consumption, food abuse, medications abuse and psychoactive substances abuse. Without intervention the subject can isolate himself/herself, be prone to self-harm behaviors, suffer from impoverished relationships, from anxiety disorders or panic attacks and depression.
TREATMENT
With a prompt intervention of an adequate medical and psychological assistance, the instauration of more complex and less manageable mechanisms can be avoided.
Strategies to overcome burnout syndrome are different and include psychotherapy, changes in work habits or the acquisition of healthy stress coping mechanism.
Psychotherapy improves burnout, when having always in mind the patient’s personal characteristics and the complexity of the disorder.
The treatment aims to give clear and specific information to the patient, in order for him to better deal with the symptomatology of the disorder:
- Favoring an adequate reality check;
- Recover the person’s primary functions;
- Decreasing social, cognitive and psychological difficulties;
- Favoring the development of coping mechanisms that help the individual to overcome symptomatic episodes in order to achieve a new equilibrium.
