1. Burnout History

Question 1

First person to use “burnout” in a clinical sense

Answer 1

Freudenberger

Question 2

Developed the most widely used questionnaire for assessing burnout

Answer 2

Maslach

Question 3

MBI

Answer 3

Maslach Burnout Inventory

Question 4

Gradual emotional depletion, loss of motivation, and reduced commitment

Answer 4

Burnout (Freudenberger)

Question 5

An accesible and easy-to-use questionnaire for assessing burnout.

Answer 5

Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)

Question 6

The human service sector, and especially in health care, education, social work, psychotherapy, legal services, and law enforcement.

Answer 6

Caring professions

Question 7

Factors of burnout (Human Services Sector)

Answer 7

1) Frustrated idealism to eradicate poverty (1960s).
2) Helping professions became modern occupations (bureaucratization, job descriptions) instead of a calling
3) “Lack of reciprocity”, the Cultural revolution (1960s) made people demand care, service, empathy and compassion. No more recognition and gratitude.

Question 8

Factors of burnout (Socio-cultural)

Answer 8

1) Individualization. Erosion of social communities and networks (church, neighborhood, family)
2) Narcissism. Self-absorbed, manipulative individuals that demanded instant gratification

Question 9

Historical roots of burnout

Answer 9

1) Shakespeare “burn’d out”.

2) Bible: Elijah and Moses.

Question 10

Gloom-filled thoughts, disillusioned, and suffers from fatigue, apathy, and cynicism.

Answer 10

Burnout

Question 11

Burnout is a maladaptive strategy

Answer 11

An attempt to cope with the emotional demands of the job.

Question 12

Vicious circle.

Answer 12

Increasing emotional demands are the root causes of burnout that lead to exhaustion. Depersonalization (or mental distancing) aggravates this process and is considered an inappropriate attempt to cope with these emotional demands.

Question 13

Feeling exhausted, weak, used-up, worn-out, and overburdened

Answer 13

Loss of energy

Question 14

Disillusionment, poor morale, disengagement, withdrawal, cynicism, depersonalization, and the loss of drive and interest

Answer 14

Loss of motivation

Question 15

Accelerated modern life puts excessive demands on people’s brains, which in turn, weakens and depletes their nerve force, thus causing symptoms such as exhaustion, anxiety, despair, insomnia, indigestion, palpations, and migraines

Answer 15

Neurasthenia

Question 16

Shared symptoms between neurasthenia and burnout

Answer 16

1) Mental exhaustion is a defining symptom
2) Product of social changes (agricultural into industrial society; industrial society into a post-industrial service-oriented society)
3) Ordinary trouble and affection (Not pathological)
4) Attempts to exploit commercially these conditions

Question 17

Depression and Burnout symptoms overlap. They share at least one core symptom:

Answer 17

Exhaustion

Question 18

Difference between Depression and Burnout

Answer 18

Symptoms of burnout tend to be job related and situation specific.
Depression is general and pervasive.

Question 19

Factors of burnout (Western Phenomenon)

Answer 19

High job demands and coping styles driven by avoidance

1) Globalization, privatization, and liberalization create a necessity to acquire new skills, adopt to new types of work, achieve higher productivity, acceleration and increase temporal pressures.
2) Social fragmentation, individualization and the “me culture”
3) Feel uncomfortable with uncertainty
4) Accept power is distributed unequally
5) Career success over quality of life

Question 20

Burnout components

Answer 20

1) Depersonalization
2) Reduced personal accomplishment
3) Exhaustion

Question 21

The concept of burnout is restricted to modern, industrialized, and urbanized societies.

Answer 21

Yes, because depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment are ethnocentric concepts that cannot be applied in traditional societies.

Question 22

The concept of burnout originated in

Answer 22

US, 1970s

Question 23

In these countries, social security systems cover sickness and work incapacity pensions for burnout

Answer 23

Sweden and Netherlands

Question 24

Burnout (World Health Organization)

Answer 24

Problems related to life management and difficulty category.

Described as “a state of vital exhaustion”.

Much room of interpretation by medical professionals.

Question 25

If burnout is to be considered a mental condition that renders sufferers elegible for financial compensation

Answer 25

Specific diagnostic criteria should be developed

Question 26

The Royal Dutch Medical Association guidelines for stress-related disorders

Answer 26

1) Mild distress (minimal)
2) Serious distress (temporal loss of occupational role)
3) Burnout (long-term loss of occupational role)

Final stage of a chronic exhaustion process that prevents employees from fulfilling their occupational roles.

Question 27

Overspannenheid (overstrain, or surmenage)

Answer 27

Dutch term for what is known as Burnout in the US

Question 28

Burnout in the Netherlands

Answer 28

Severe psychological disorder. The final stage of a long-term process of exhaustion from which it is very difficult to recover.

Question 29

Burnout popularity

Answer 29

North America: non-medical, socially accepted label that carries very little stigma.

Europe: Official diagnosis that opens the gates of the welfare state, compensation claims and treatment programes

Question 30

Exhaustion

Answer 30

Context-free, universal, psychological experience, which neither seems restricted to a particular historial era nor to a particular culture.

Links burnout with depression.

Question 31

Burnout as discovered in US (1970s)

Answer 31

Specific to modern, advanced societies that are characterized by social fragmentation and individualization.

Work-related and context-bound condition.

Culture-specific notion. Occurs exclusively in cultures where “jobs”, “occupations” and “professions” exist.

Question 32

Specificity of burnout

Answer 32

Combination of:

1) Exhaustion
2) Mental distancing (depersonalization, cynicism)
3) Reduced personal accomplishment

Question 33

Burnout conclusion

Answer 33

Burnout is a psychological condition that is rooted in a specific historical and socio-cultural context.