Who is vulnerable?

Professionals & clients
Becoming burnout absolutely has a relation with having a personal contact with others. This personal contact will often involve a relationship of dependency. The "other" wants something from the "professional", whether this professional is a lawyer, a residential worker, a nurse or a social worker. The professional hears the call and goes to work to satisfy the "client". So far, so good, the laws of question & demand should do their work.

Making effort
Now the inter-human relations are not as simple as you might innocently think. Each client is different and should be treated accordingly and nobody can be neglected. And, don't forget, just the amount of effort you put in for your clients will show to yourself, to your colleagues, your client's family, the clients themselves and maybe your employer, just what an excellent ...(lawyer etc.) you are. The harder though you try under these perspectives, the bigger your emotional involvement. The client communicates a certain need or shortage and the professional responds. Whether he succeeds in answering the question or not, at the next appointment the professional will try his very best to show that he did everything possible. A vicious circle of unanswerable questions (client) and wasted energy (professional) can evolve very easily. We don't have to mention the eventual consequences for the psychic condition of the professional.

Vulnerable professions
Now this spending of mental energy and the communicative pattern behind it, of couse surfaces more in certain professions. Just to mention: nurses, residential workers, social workers, priests, lawyers, teachers and (sigh!) psychologists. Remarkably absent here are the medical doctors, in my experience they hardly ever become burnout. Their professional code forces them to always carry on and their training is apparently much better focused in evading the pitfall of a massive emotional involvement.