Chapter 11: Work, Psychological Climate & Burnout

• Leo Tolstoy: 'One can live magnificently in this world, if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one's work'
• Freud: 'Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness'
• Motivation


  A psychological fact (need, emotion, belief, value) which clarifies the purpose and intention behind our actions
• Effectance motivation


  An effort to develop abilities by interacting with and mastering the environment
• Effectance motivation is a constant part of our lives
• The insatiability of effectance motivation helps explain why we derive more pleasure in our work from the pursuit of goals than from achieving them
• Work


  A source of livelihood, where you work only for the money
• Career


  You have set larger goals of advancement, promotion and prestige
• Calling


  You gain inherent satisfaction from your job, you do not do it to achieve other goals
• Individuals with all three perspectives (work, career, calling) can be found in almost every type of job
• Most people can get more satisfaction from their job by changing their attitude toward it
• Psychological climate


  • Level and degree of support from managers to employees
  • Leadership approach
  • Management style
  • Satisfaction in terms of adequate compensation and promotion
  • Degree of freedom to make individual or group decisions
  • Authentic information about the organisation's goals and mission
  • Conflict resolution strategies
  • Sense of usefulness, belonging and activity of the individual employee
  • Delegation of tasks
• The psychosocial climate influences motivation, satisfaction and creativity
• A positive climate is a good prevention against professional burnout
• Dimensions of psychological climate


  • Norms of the organisation (Cohesion, Trust, Support, Fairness)
  • Mechanisms of the organisational structure (Autonomy, Pressure, Recognition, Innovation)
• Safety climate


  • Provides a reliable assessment of the organisational climate
  • Result of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competence levels, behavioural patterns, experience and safety management style
• Burnout


  A state of physiological, emotional, and mental exhaustion
• Stress


  Leads to but is not the only factor in the development of professional burnout
• Differences between stress and burnout


  • Stress is characterized by excessive engagement, while burnout is characterized by lack of interest in any engagement
  • Stress involves exacerbated emotional reactions, while burnout involves dulled emotions and a prevailing sense of indifference
  • Stress involves experience of success and hyperactivity, while burnout involves a prevailing sense of helplessness and lack of initiative
  • Stress involves investment of energetic potential, while burnout involves loss of motivation, hope and desire
  • Stress involves a sense of impatience and anxiety, while burnout involves withdrawal
• Stress


  Excessive tension that requires an investment of physical and emotional resources
• Burnout


  Lack of motivation, insufficient appreciation and stimulation at work, lack of initiative for change and self-improvement
• Stress is primarily associated with the idea of 'excessive' tension that requires an investment of physical and emotional resources
• Under stress, creative imagination remains relatively intact and may even develop positively
• Burnout correlates with the notion of 'insufficiency'
• Difference between stress and burnout


  • Stress: Characterized by excessive engagement
  • Burnout: Lack of interest in any engagement
  • Stress: Emotional reactions are exacerbated
  • Burnout: Emotions are dulled; an experience of indifference prevails
  • Stress: Experience of success and hyperactivity
  • Burnout: A prevailing sense of helplessness and lack of initiative
  • Stress: Investment of energetic potential
  • Burnout: Loss of motivation, hope and desire
  • Stress: Sense of impatience and anxiety
  • Burnout: Withdrawal and isolation from the world
  • Stress: Leading physical consequences
  • Burnout: Leading emotional consequences
• Burnout is a result of chronic stress rather than stress itself
• Employees in helping professions invest cognitive resources (attention, memory, thinking) and emotional energy in their work, which subsequently affects their experience and behaviour, leading to exhaustion
• Factors influencing professional burnout


  • Internal factors (intrapsychic): Cognitive functioning, comprehensive personality characteristics, personality traits
  • External factors (interpsychic): Psychological climate of the work environment, distribution of roles and tasks, management style, internal motivation of employees
• Investment of psychological energy with little to no stimulation, reward, and support from the social environment is not necessarily associated with risky or dangerous work
• The same effect can be achieved by weak but prolonged (continuous) exposure to stressors that are monotonous in nature
• Burnout syndrome


  Distinct from depression, work-related with the ability to affect personal life and lead to depression in its advanced stages
• Stages of professional burnout


  • Flame out: Fatigue, refusal to accept exhaustion, inefficiency, depressiveness
  • Burn out: Emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, reduced personal performance
  • Rust out: Irreversible stage of professional exhaustion, job dissatisfaction and anhedonia
• Burnout is an acknowledged medical diagnosis in certain countries, such as Sweden and the Netherlands
• Previous research has shown a correlation between burnout and certain personality traits and attitudes, including empathy, sensitivity, idealism, orientation towards others' opinions, anxiety, introversion, over-enthusiasm, increased tendency to identify with others, dependence on achieving unrealistic goals for self-esteem, sense of duty, workaholism, perfectionism, and learned helplessness
• Contemporary research is expanding the understanding of vulnerability to burnout with increasing evidence of its contextual nature, stemming from a combination of environment characteristics and personality
• Vulnerability to burnout based on personality and environment


  • Pressure situations: Cautious, anxious or hesitant people more vulnerable
  • Persistent (perfectionist) person in low Autonomy and Innovation environment risks reducing achievements
  • Non-persistent (inconstant, passive) person in high Autonomy and Innovation environment also at risk
• Prevention of burnout


  • Optimal selection of personnel
  • Improvement of psychological climate in the workplace
  • Appropriate work and rest regimes
  • Group and individual psychological counselling
• Salutogenic model


  Acknowledges the capability of an individual to use both internal and external resources to manage any type of stressful situation, including personal attributes that promote a mature and adaptive attitude
• Salutogenic and protective factors in overcoming burnout


  • Emotional Intelligence: Sharing emotions, empathy, recognizing emotions, authentic nonverbal reading, motivation, optimism
  • Constructive coping strategies: Seeking social support, Planful problem solving, Positive reappraisal
• Balint groups


  Practical approach to prevent burnout, focus on emotional processing in doctor-patient relationship, encourage discussion of experiences and emotions, develop self-awareness and relationship management skills