A young syndrome
The burnout syndrome is quite young for a recognised psychic disease and as yet doesn’t even figure in the DSM-IV, the most official catalogue of mental illness worldwide. Before World War 2 it is not mentioned at all. Then all of a sudden Graham Greene publishes his novel “A Burnt Out Case”, featuring a main character who is completely disillusioned and cynical and ties up his western existence by going into a self-chosen exile.
Freudenberger
In 1969 Freudenberger, a New York psychologist, first tosses the term burnout. He goes on to describe how social workers in the drug-scene deteriorate in no-time from idealist to distant and cynical officials. More than average these officials were plagued by all kinds of minor complaints: headaches, infections, ulcers, sleep disturbances etc. Worth noting is that when he first used the phrase burnout, he got an immediate and strong response. The word was easily recognised for the mental state it described. Freudenberger himself went on to describe a great many cases, always emphasizing here were always strongly committed individuals who had given the best of themselves to their demanding job. Getting a burnout meant at least that you had done your very best and so could even be used as a kind of excuse.
Maslach
Another famous name in the research Christina Maslach, an american psychologist who has devoted much work to measuring and gaining deeper insight the burnout phenomenon. To attain this she developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory, a questionnaire that international now is considered the leading instrument.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Learned helplessness
Animal experiments
In the 70’s, when the idea of burnout first was described, there was an american psychologist, Seligman, who did some experiments with animals, that would be strongly condemned today from an ethical viewpoint. The results did contribute in time a lot to the theory building about the possible cognitive background of burnout. In summary, those experiments went like this:
Learned helplessness
Dogs were locked in a cage and were exposed, in an unpredictable rhytm, to mild electric shocks. Of course they tried escaping frantically but as soon as they learnt the inescapable nature of their situation, their behavior adapted to it. They got apathic, laid themselves on the ground and started moaning. They deteriorated to a condition that we could call acquiescing, apathic, hopeless or even depressive. In a later stage, they did get options to escape by simply jumping a fence, which they never did anymore. Apparently they had learned very thoroughly that, whatever they did, it wouldn’t be of any use. Seligman called this condition “learned helplessness.
Optimistic dogs
Another group of dogs had also been exposed to the shock treatment but had the escaping option right from the beginning. Now these dogs managed to find escapes, all the time they received shocks. Apparently they had learned that initiatives will be rewarded and kept up, so to say, an optimistic attitude.
A clear parallel with burnout
The parallel with becoming burnout won’t escape you. People can, especially in their professional lives, live through a number of situations in which they find, however hard they try, that they cannot improve their situation. Depending on their fixed income they think that they are completely running out of options to organise things differently
In the 70’s, when the idea of burnout first was described, there was an american psychologist, Seligman, who did some experiments with animals, that would be strongly condemned today from an ethical viewpoint. The results did contribute in time a lot to the theory building about the possible cognitive background of burnout. In summary, those experiments went like this:
Learned helplessness
Dogs were locked in a cage and were exposed, in an unpredictable rhytm, to mild electric shocks. Of course they tried escaping frantically but as soon as they learnt the inescapable nature of their situation, their behavior adapted to it. They got apathic, laid themselves on the ground and started moaning. They deteriorated to a condition that we could call acquiescing, apathic, hopeless or even depressive. In a later stage, they did get options to escape by simply jumping a fence, which they never did anymore. Apparently they had learned very thoroughly that, whatever they did, it wouldn’t be of any use. Seligman called this condition “learned helplessness.
Optimistic dogs
Another group of dogs had also been exposed to the shock treatment but had the escaping option right from the beginning. Now these dogs managed to find escapes, all the time they received shocks. Apparently they had learned that initiatives will be rewarded and kept up, so to say, an optimistic attitude.
A clear parallel with burnout
The parallel with becoming burnout won’t escape you. People can, especially in their professional lives, live through a number of situations in which they find, however hard they try, that they cannot improve their situation. Depending on their fixed income they think that they are completely running out of options to organise things differently
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Personality?
Insight and evidence is growing that certain personality-traits somehow come together with a heightened risk for burnout.
Perfectionism
is one of them. Just imagine that you think of yourself that you have to be perfect in all your acts and performances for some 110%. Then live up to it. Relalize what is happening to you. Your free time will decline and you will be often disappointed in yourself. Chances are that no-one around you will notice your intentions and efforts. Then imagine that you handle your business like that for twenty years on end. Realize the energy it took from you and think what is has brought back to you (probably hardly anything). Do you feel exhaustion coming up? When in my consulting-room I push this subject a bit further, it often appears there is a different motivation behind it all. Those perfectionists often are very sensitive to
Social perspectives.
Expensive word? Oh yes. I usually explain it by asking: "Would you often look at youtself through the eyes of another?" Or, are you continuously thinking: "What would such and such say of me now?" If indeed that gives a strong motive for your acts, if really your behavior is steered by such considerations, then of course chances are that you go against your own ideas. Chances are also that you are spending your energy not too well. Not to worry for the single occasion, we all do it sometimes. If this however comes down to a lifelong exhausting pattern of behavior, of course it can cost you dearly in the end.
Perfectionism
is one of them. Just imagine that you think of yourself that you have to be perfect in all your acts and performances for some 110%. Then live up to it. Relalize what is happening to you. Your free time will decline and you will be often disappointed in yourself. Chances are that no-one around you will notice your intentions and efforts. Then imagine that you handle your business like that for twenty years on end. Realize the energy it took from you and think what is has brought back to you (probably hardly anything). Do you feel exhaustion coming up? When in my consulting-room I push this subject a bit further, it often appears there is a different motivation behind it all. Those perfectionists often are very sensitive to
Social perspectives.
Expensive word? Oh yes. I usually explain it by asking: "Would you often look at youtself through the eyes of another?" Or, are you continuously thinking: "What would such and such say of me now?" If indeed that gives a strong motive for your acts, if really your behavior is steered by such considerations, then of course chances are that you go against your own ideas. Chances are also that you are spending your energy not too well. Not to worry for the single occasion, we all do it sometimes. If this however comes down to a lifelong exhausting pattern of behavior, of course it can cost you dearly in the end.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Recognize your burnout!
Of course it helps if you can spot for yourself that you're heading downwards in a way that can eventually lead to a complete burnout. In this process you can go through seven several stages, starting from slight excitement to total desperation. To get a better view, here they come:
1) Symptoms of warning. You couple a great feeling of engagement in your work with the idea that time and again you're not finishing your things proper. You start to notice that you are losing energy or constantly lack sleep.
2) Diminishing engagement, withdrawal. You are getting cynical and less positive, a certain reluctancy creeps in. Your coffeebreaks are getting longer, you start to treasure your weekends ever better. Your idealism is declining.
3) Emotional reactions, others are to blame. Depressive symptoms appear: you lose your sense of humor and pity yourself and you have moodswings. You can get agressive outbursts, others get the blame easily, conflicts prevail.
4) Weakening. Concentration and memory diminish, you lose initiative and creativity and your perceptions get ever more one-sided.
5) Waning. You get ever more indifferent and you avoid social contacts. You give up your hobbies.
6) Psychosomatic reactions. Sleepdisturbances, tense muscles, head- and backaches, nausea, problems with heart or intestines, impotency, more coffee, alcohol, tobacco or drugs etc. etc.
7) Desperation. A completely negative view on life, strong feelings of hopelessness and senselessness, thoughts of suicide.
The message will be clear: don't let it come this far. From experience I found that people either react rather early in the process (stage 1/3) or far too late (stage 6 has commenced). Do you recognize with your self that you may be are living through such a process, don't hesitate and consult your doctor or a social worker.
1) Symptoms of warning. You couple a great feeling of engagement in your work with the idea that time and again you're not finishing your things proper. You start to notice that you are losing energy or constantly lack sleep.
2) Diminishing engagement, withdrawal. You are getting cynical and less positive, a certain reluctancy creeps in. Your coffeebreaks are getting longer, you start to treasure your weekends ever better. Your idealism is declining.
3) Emotional reactions, others are to blame. Depressive symptoms appear: you lose your sense of humor and pity yourself and you have moodswings. You can get agressive outbursts, others get the blame easily, conflicts prevail.
4) Weakening. Concentration and memory diminish, you lose initiative and creativity and your perceptions get ever more one-sided.
5) Waning. You get ever more indifferent and you avoid social contacts. You give up your hobbies.
6) Psychosomatic reactions. Sleepdisturbances, tense muscles, head- and backaches, nausea, problems with heart or intestines, impotency, more coffee, alcohol, tobacco or drugs etc. etc.
7) Desperation. A completely negative view on life, strong feelings of hopelessness and senselessness, thoughts of suicide.
The message will be clear: don't let it come this far. From experience I found that people either react rather early in the process (stage 1/3) or far too late (stage 6 has commenced). Do you recognize with your self that you may be are living through such a process, don't hesitate and consult your doctor or a social worker.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Keep in touch with the boss!
There you are, sitting at home, feeling bad as you never felt bad before. You feel downright shitty and thinking of your job is just repulsive. Then, next thing you know, you are talking to your medical doctor and he will simply advise you to just pop-in with the company for a small chat and a cup of coffee. You don't even think about it and turn the advice down. A couple of days later, your chief gives you a call and basically repeats the same invitation. Having heard this advice twice you reconsider. Later on in the week you get in the car, drive down your familiar road and find it amazingly empty, outside the rush-hour. You go in and ... well, it doesn't get so bad, though you are happy to leave the building after half an hour, some small talk and two coffees.
Has this recently happened to you? If so, then this is all part of a modern strategy to keep burnout-patients more involved with the job. Evidence is showing that staying somewhat loosely connected with the job during your recoveryproces makes it easier to comeback. The aversive emotional over-reaction that can form itself so easily if you withhold yourself from your working-spot for a longer period time is so easily to avoid.
Has this recently happened to you? If so, then this is all part of a modern strategy to keep burnout-patients more involved with the job. Evidence is showing that staying somewhat loosely connected with the job during your recoveryproces makes it easier to comeback. The aversive emotional over-reaction that can form itself so easily if you withhold yourself from your working-spot for a longer period time is so easily to avoid.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Stress?
Stress and burnout are two concepts that hold a strong relationship. Anybody who has become seriously burnout will surely have experienced serious and long-term stress in the working environment. The enormous weariness that people sometimes demonstrate during a consult is easily explained as a result of a long-lasting over-effort. But how is it really? Professional cyclists can make fantastic efforts day in, day out and seem to recover amazingly fast all the time. So, men has the ability to recuperate all the time. Then, how come, all of a sudden there is a day that you just can't pull yourself together anymore. Though we know not everything yet, many things have been discovered in recent years.
To really understand what is going on here, we have to travel back in time, to the good old days when our forebears started walking around on two legs on the East-African plains. Not having any instruments yet for either transportation or defence, he had to rely on the own body. At the threat of danger or the necessity for action (a hunt) he must be able to use that body to the full. In professional jargon we call this the so-called fight-or-flight reaction. More precisely stated: the body prepares itself for intense and explosive action. We breathe faster, the heart starts pumping, we start to sweat to cool our body more rapidly. We show all the signs of what we still recognize today as serious excitement. All these fysical reactions are provoked because we start producing in a rapid pace certain hormones, adrenalin and noradrenalin. In East-Africa matters were probably settled promptly and man could switch back to first gear. In our modern society though we have taken to organize matters such that we think our business is stressfull very often, very fast and always longlasting. Whereas we have named the professional situation as vital in our existence, we come upon the "fight-or-flight" reaction there quite easily and quite continuously. Recent research has also shown that an affluent ration of stress-hormones in the body can harm our immunity system. Longlasting stress so leads to a whole array of different minor complaints.
And this now is what I see in my consulting room: People come in with a wide range of different complaints, from headaches and insomnia to ulcers and impotency. By the way, as clients gain insight in the process they're going through and find ways to relax, many of these symptoms disappear gradually in the first one or two months of treatment.
To really understand what is going on here, we have to travel back in time, to the good old days when our forebears started walking around on two legs on the East-African plains. Not having any instruments yet for either transportation or defence, he had to rely on the own body. At the threat of danger or the necessity for action (a hunt) he must be able to use that body to the full. In professional jargon we call this the so-called fight-or-flight reaction. More precisely stated: the body prepares itself for intense and explosive action. We breathe faster, the heart starts pumping, we start to sweat to cool our body more rapidly. We show all the signs of what we still recognize today as serious excitement. All these fysical reactions are provoked because we start producing in a rapid pace certain hormones, adrenalin and noradrenalin. In East-Africa matters were probably settled promptly and man could switch back to first gear. In our modern society though we have taken to organize matters such that we think our business is stressfull very often, very fast and always longlasting. Whereas we have named the professional situation as vital in our existence, we come upon the "fight-or-flight" reaction there quite easily and quite continuously. Recent research has also shown that an affluent ration of stress-hormones in the body can harm our immunity system. Longlasting stress so leads to a whole array of different minor complaints.
And this now is what I see in my consulting room: People come in with a wide range of different complaints, from headaches and insomnia to ulcers and impotency. By the way, as clients gain insight in the process they're going through and find ways to relax, many of these symptoms disappear gradually in the first one or two months of treatment.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Self-observation
It all matters how you can look at yourself. To overcome a situation of complete burnout it is very necessary to start looking at your own person and all your very own peculiarities. To achieve this, I often encourage my clients to start writing about their condition. My experience has taught me that everybody can perceive and narrate a lot just about him/herself. Whatever you know about yourself is never meaningless, it will always point out something. Now of course you can just start a diary in the blind but it just helps to give it some aim and direction. I often request my clients at the outset of the treatment to write about their energysystem, where is energy spoiled and where is it gained. So, think for yourself where you spoil your power and efforts (probably without getting back any incentive) and where you gain your energy (these will usually be the things that work well with you and that you enjoy.)
For clients who are still working but feel a burnout approaching it is often useful to start keeping a so-called stress-diary. When, where and how did I feel stress coming up, how was I able to react and what did that respons bring me? What did I feel throughout the whole situation? Next step then is, if you have a number of notes like that, to link them together and see if you can make out any meaningful pattern. If so, well, then you know where to start.
And talking about helping yourself: take this to heart, we all know how to write, don't we?
For clients who are still working but feel a burnout approaching it is often useful to start keeping a so-called stress-diary. When, where and how did I feel stress coming up, how was I able to react and what did that respons bring me? What did I feel throughout the whole situation? Next step then is, if you have a number of notes like that, to link them together and see if you can make out any meaningful pattern. If so, well, then you know where to start.
And talking about helping yourself: take this to heart, we all know how to write, don't we?
Friday, January 4, 2008
Do you want to overcome your burnout?
Allright, allright, everybody is busy, very busy these days. The days go ever faster, the schedules grow ever fuller and every day you drive home with the idea that your work is even less finished than the day before. To solve this problem you decide to throw in a little overtime. It solves nothing and you start working later and later. The heaps of paper on your desk don't diminish and you find it a good idea to rise early, avoid the morning-traffic and put in extra time in the early hours. Your sleeping gets ever worse, you develop a quick temper and you forget even the simplest things. And then one morning you stop functioning. You can't get out of bed, you feel tired, tired and then again tired and you call the boss, notifying him that you need a break, just to rest. Burnout, overworked, just name it.
A terrible gap!
No end to be seen!
You never felt so bad before!
Your neighbours don't understand what you are doing around the house all of a sudden.
Your chief just wants you back.
Your doctor pulls his most concerned face and advises you to keep in touch with your company.
Have you come to this situation?
Don't you know how to continue?
Do you desperately want a solution?
Well, that solution is there. Just take the time and the rest you need to recover but... use that time and that rest also to fully realize for yourself what you have been doing to yourself and where you have to change as to never reach such a condition again.
Would that be possible?
Why, sure that is possible. Whoever learns the right lessons will pass through a recoveryprocess that in the end will prove to be much more than that. You will find yourself in a process of serious improvement. Overcoming your burnout will eventually bring you to leading a life much more rewarding than before. So it is not only recovery, but there will be a total improvement and readjustment. People who managed to fully overcome their burnout appear to be able to enjoy life better, make better decisions and can generally lead a more relaxed lifestyle
A terrible gap!
No end to be seen!
You never felt so bad before!
Your neighbours don't understand what you are doing around the house all of a sudden.
Your chief just wants you back.
Your doctor pulls his most concerned face and advises you to keep in touch with your company.
Have you come to this situation?
Don't you know how to continue?
Do you desperately want a solution?
Well, that solution is there. Just take the time and the rest you need to recover but... use that time and that rest also to fully realize for yourself what you have been doing to yourself and where you have to change as to never reach such a condition again.
Would that be possible?
Why, sure that is possible. Whoever learns the right lessons will pass through a recoveryprocess that in the end will prove to be much more than that. You will find yourself in a process of serious improvement. Overcoming your burnout will eventually bring you to leading a life much more rewarding than before. So it is not only recovery, but there will be a total improvement and readjustment. People who managed to fully overcome their burnout appear to be able to enjoy life better, make better decisions and can generally lead a more relaxed lifestyle
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