Burnout (psychology)
| Burn-out | |
|---|---|
| Classification and external resources | |
| ICD-10 | Z73.0 |
Burnout is a type of psychological stress. Occupational burnout or job burnout is characterized by exhaustion, lack of enthusiasm and motivation, feelings of ineffectiveness, and also may have the dimension of frustration or cynicism, and as a result reduced efficacy within the workplace.
The term burnout in psychology was coined by Herbert Freudenberger in his 1974 Staff burnout, based on his observation of drug addicts he helped who, with blank looks, stared at cigarettes until they burned out.
More recently the term brownout has been used in the business world to describe a less serious version of burnout. It refers to staff who are disengaged and demotivated in their job role.
Occupational burnout is typically and particularly found within human service professions. Professions with high levels of burnout include social workers, nurses, teachers, lawyers, engineers, medical practitioners, customer service representatives, and police officers. One reason why burnout is so prevalent within the human services field is due in part to the high-stress work environment and emotional demands of the job.
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. Bakker et al. (2014) in Burnout and Work Engagement: The JD–R Approach makes the same argument as Leiter.
Burnout is not recognized as a distinct disorder in the DSM-5. However, it is included in the ICD-10 but not as a disorder. It can be found in the ICD under problems related to life-management difficulty (Z73).
Social psychologists Christina Maslach and Susan Jackson developed the most widely used instrument for assessing burnout, namely, the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The Maslach Burnout Inventory operationalizes burnout as a three-dimensional syndrome made up of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. Some researchers and practitioners have argued for an "exhaustion only" model that views that symptom as the hallmark of burnout.
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