Burnout

Burnout: A Guide to Identifying Burnout and Pathways to Recovery, Gordon Parker, Gabriela Tavella and Kerrie Eyers (2021)

At times, burnout seems to be the buzzword. It’s used often, yet hard to define or quantify. Are you burnt out or burning out? Is it possibly depression? Or exhaustion? Or is there an underlying medical condition? This is a timely book for anyone impacted by burnout, whether personally, or for family and friends, employers or health professionals; with the aim to explain, advance awareness and enable ‘nuanced management recommendations’. It is peppered with personal stories that give meaning and expression to the research and concepts within.

Part 1: What is Burnout? 

They begin by considering the place of burnout in ancient literature (including possibly Moses and Elijah) and its more modern history. They interact with the generally accepted definition of burnout and it’s three factors: energy depletion or exhaustion, negative feeling or cynicism about one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy (this may be the definition you have heard, it’s the one I knew about).

Based on the authors’ research (referred to as the Sydney Studies), they expand the factors at play and propose that the main features include:

• exhaustion 
• loss of empathy or perhaps loss of joy 
• compromised work performance 
• impaired cognition 
• that it is different to depression, although there is overlap 
• that perfectionism heightens the risk (it’s identified as probably the key predisposing risk factor) 
• that it is a ‘diathesis stress’ condition meaning that some people are predisposed. 

This higher risk due to personality suggests that “escape from work or caregiving pressures may relieve some of the burnout symptoms, but failure to identify and modulate any personality contribution will not allow burnout to be so readily managed, while also increasing the risk of relapse”.

They consider other causes of burnout symptoms (what burnout is not: e.g. chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety) with much time comparing the symptoms of depression. There is an extensive table comparing melancholic depression (that which arises from inside a person with no seeming trigger), non-melancholic (more responsive to a situation) and burnout. This could be very helpful for health professionals, as well as individuals seeking some clarification.

Part 2: Causes of Burnout

It seems universally acknowledged that a clear cause of burnout is work. But what work causes burnout? Certain professions are linked with high rates of burnout including doctors, nurses, police, lawyers, teachers, managers, and clergy. However, the high rate of burnout in caregivers is now also being more widely recognised.

Interestingly, there is a paradox relating burnout with how one views one’s job: “burnout rates appear lowest in those who work in simply a job, higher in those who view their work as a career and highest in those who whose work is at the level of a ‘calling’”. Let ministry workers have ears to hear.

Then attention is given to the predisposing factors that can increase the risk of burnout, the most prevailing being perfectionism. Others include: neuroticism, having an external (rather than internal) locus of control, a Type A personality, a low sense of self-efficacy and low EQ. They conclude that “the sad thing about burnout is that is more likely to afflict good people”.

Part 3: Overcoming Burnout and Rekindling the Flame

To resolve burnout, three approaches are helpful, with most benefit if all three are addressed:

• resolve work factors 
• learn and implement de-stressing techniques 
• identify and address personality contribution 

Following chapters focus on managers and improving workplace conditions and culture, workers and caregivers (e.g. when to speak up at work, and when to choose to leave), de-stressing techniques (e.g. mindfulness, meditation), and managing perfectionism (with a recommendation for the use of CBT).

They draw all the threads together at the end, with numerous suggestions about how to manage burnout, pointing out that “burnout resolves better with a self-management model” and therefore people can take control and manage it themselves perhaps with some assistance along the way.

Appendices

The appendices include:

• The Sydney Burnout measure - their proposed diagnostic tool to assess burnout which can be self applied. 
• A checklist of workplace triggers 
• A perfectionism scale 
• An extensive list of various resources (mainly apps and websites) 

All in all, this is a very helpful & relevant book, taking a concept that is widely talked about, but less widely comprehended or qualified, and provides a scaffolding for our understanding, assessment, and treatment of burnout.