Christina Maslach

“Burnout is a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job. The three key dimensions of this response are an overwhelming exhaustion; feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job; and a sense of ineffectiveness and failure.”

Sang Min Lee and Colleagues

“Burnout can be defined as a counselor having significant difficulty performing the necessary functions of [their] job at an objectively competent level…because of personal discouragement, apathy toward system stress, and emotional/physical drain”

understanding burnout

Burnout is a syndrome which is very prevalent among counselors and is considered a common and often expected result of practicing in the profession. Burnout is not simply stress. It is a detrimental consequence of unmanaged stress that pushes counselors to a state of impairment and rarely subsides without intervention.

Christina Maslach, developer of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), defined burnout through three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization (cynicism), and personal accomplishment (powerlessness). This gradual process leaves counselors defenseless and susceptible to a number of repercussions.

Emotional Exhaustion

  • Decreased capacity for being emotionally available

  • Measures feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work

Depersonalization

  • Increased cynicism, resulting in detachment, withdrawal, and disregard with clients, coworkers, and others.

    Also referred to as cynicism or disengagement.

  • Measures an unfeeling and impersonal response toward patients.

Personal Accomplishment

  • Decreased confidence in ability to be successful, leading to a negative view of the self.

  • Measures feelings of competence and successful achievement in one's work.

The Counselor Burnout Inventory (CBI), created by Sang Min Lee and colleagues, was developed specifically to measure burnout in the counselor population. They defined counselor burnout as “failure to properly perform clinical tasks due to depletion from experiencing emotional and/or physical drain, apathy toward system stress, and diminished perception of ability pertaining to one’s job.”

To fully capture the experience of a counselor, the CBI adds an additional 2 dimensions (i.e., professional counselors’ negative work environment, deterioration in personal lives) to the established dimensions from the MBI. These new dimensions help capture the unique occupational and personal experiences within the counseling profession.

The CBI subscales include exhaustion, incompetence, negative work environment, devaluing client, and deterioration in personal life

Burnout Dimensions for counselors

Sources of burnout

Model of conservation of resources

Hobfall’s Conservation of Resources Model suggests that stress is influenced by a deficit in one of the four areas of resources above. Without one or more of these resources being satisfied, an individual experiences distress and is inclined to somehow replenish the area. A prime example of this phenomenon is within the counselor workplace. Many counselors experience limitations on services available for their clients which increases stress and therefore makes burnout inevitable if not addressed.

Job Demands Resources model

Demerouti and colleagues developed the Job Demands Resources Model to explain the role that work settings may play in the development of burnout. Having balance between the demands and resources of the job are critical, and an imbalance between the two can be detrimental. For instance, excess demands like time pressure often leads to exhaustion, and inadequate resources like poor supervisor support is correlated with disengagement. Simply put, burnout is a response to high job demands and low job resources.

    • Sleep Difficulties

    • Weakened Immune System

    • Upper Body Pain

    • Digestive Complications

    • Decreased Energy/Fatigue

    • Despair

    • Irritability

    • Low Self-efficacy

    • Depersonalization

    • Depression

    • Anxiety

    • Strain on Relationships

    • Decreased Capacity for Socializing

    • Reduced Effort

    • Distractedness

    • Tardiness

    • Disorganization

    • Reduced Capacity to Empathize

    • Weakened Therapeutic Relationship

    • Increased Ethical Dilemmas

    • Counselor Shortage

    • Early Retirement

    • High Turnover

Possible consequences of burnout

This is not an exhaustive list of typical symptoms. It is only a few of the commonly reported/documented outcomes of experiencing burnout.

Other phenomenon common in the counseling field

Compassion Fatigue

Experiencing exhaustion and poor functioning in te body and mind due to being empathic and caring

Secondary traumatic Stress

The development of PTSD-like as a response to caring for others and absorbing their traumatic experiences

Compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress are fairly similar. Some use the words interchangeably. Please see this video of Dr. Frank Ochberg, psychiatrist who specializes in trauma, giving his opinions on the differences.

WHY DOES BURNOUT PERSIST?

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References