Workshop № 3

Speaker-master of psychology, consultant of the Charity Foundation "Lifeline of Ukraine" Guro Victoria

Seminar topic: professional burnout

1. PV / burnout-disease or condition?
2. Causes of PV. Who is most often among the "burned out"?
3. Stages of PV.
4. Diseases that can be caused by PV.
5. Methods self-help methods for preventing PV.

1. Professional burnout (PF)/emotional burnout (EV)- disease or condition?

The term "burnout syndrome" was coined in 1974 by Freudenberg to describe healthy people who are in intense communication with other people.

Emotional burnout or professional burnout, because it is in the working days (person – to-person profession) that a person can experience emotional exhaustion, which can lead to a deterioration in overall health.

Occupational burnout in the WHO International Classification of diseases is included in the category of factors that affect human health. It's not a disease. But a state of exhaustion can lead to it.

According to the WHO definition, EV can directly relate to work, performance of professional duties, and Ms. Suprun wrote that EV should not be applied to other areas of our life.

Employee burnout is the result of chronic stress at work:

• Heavy load of responsibilities and requirements,
• Irregular working hours,
• Violation of working conditions, forms of inadequate interaction of management with employees,
• Conflicts between colleagues,
• Constant competition,
• Dissatisfaction with wages,
• Instability in the organization, constant changes in policies and plans

A complex contingent that needs to be worked with, as they say, "on duty" (seriously ill, difficult teenagers, conflict clients, emotionally unstable, suicidal clients)

Emotional burnout can also be triggered by chronic internal stress, in which we drive ourselves: resentment, dissatisfaction with ourselves and others, feelings of guilt, shame, fear, anger, anger, aggression towards the outside world, autoaggression towards ourselves, jealousy, envy, pity for others and self-pity.

2. Causes of PV. Who is most often among the "burned out"

The causes of PV are:

• Lack of developed skills of self-regulation, calming, and relaxation.
• Past injuries, microtraumas, mental disorders, post-stress States, repressed experiences, suppressed emotions.
• Low level of emotional literacy
• Lack of skills in dealing with your own emotions:
• Anger management, the ability to talk about this feeling and not be in a state of resentment (the role of the victim), understand what to do with envy, jealousy, guilt, shame.
• Lack of knowledge about yourself, both about the person and about the specialist. ( Here we are talking about self-esteem, self-esteem)
• People with low self-esteem are often among the "burned out"people
• Inability to balance, lack of habits for restoring your own resource.

The number of" burned out " most often includes people who are dependent on work – workaholics, perfectionists, empaths, people who have experienced frequent or long-term emotional stress, experienced traumatic events, anxious personalities, dependent personalities, codependent people, people with chronic incurable diseases of the endocrine system, gastrointestinal problems, people with heart problems, vascular problems.

3. Stages of PV.

J. R. R. Tolkien Greenberg (psychotherapist, author of the book "Stress Management") identified 5 stages of burnout:

Honeymoon stage

At this stage, the employee is satisfied with everything. Both work and payment. It is filled with enthusiasm. But over time, the professional activity begins to bring less pleasure and the employee's energy becomes less.

Stage "fuel shortage"

Signals that require the employee's attention: fatigue, apathy, sleep problems, appetite. A person may feel disappointed. If the employer or the employee himself does not find additional motivation, then the employee loses interest in the case and the "love" for working in this organization disappears and the productivity of this employee's activities decreases. At this stage, withdrawal from professional obligations may occur.

But the employee can be motivated by S / P, vacations, etc. "sweets". And a person can continue to burn drunk on internal resources, but in the negative of their health.

Stage"chronic symptoms"

Work without rest, sacrifice, workaholism, public needs at first glance, and chronic altruism can lead to physiological symptoms: weakness, decreased body resistance, and the appearance of diseases .

There are also psychological experiences:

• Chronic irritability, heightened sense of anger, Justice,
• feeling of despair ("cornered by hopelessness")
• constant experience of lack of time (manager's syndrome)
• the appearance of panic attacks

The"Crisis" Stage

All chronic diseases begin to worsen, as if the body is telling you that it's time to stop and stop working to spite yourself. At this stage, a person loses his ability to work, because he goes on sick leave. Feelings of dissatisfaction with yourself, your efficiency and quality of life increase. Often at this stage, accusations of everyone and everything begin, aggressiveness to the world or autoaggression appears, that is, anger directed at yourself, feelings of guilt , shame, fear

Stage "breaking through the wall"

The employee may find himself in a serious condition, diseases are gaining severity, serious incurable diseases may appear that can threaten a person's life.

4. Diseases that can be caused by PV:

• The appearance of mental disorders, neurotic States, depressive syndromes
• Disruption of all body systems.
• Malfunctions of the cardiovascular system, hormonal, endocrine system, gastrointestinal tract, the appearance of peptic ulcers, allergies, respiratory diseases,
• The appearance of autoimmune diseases.

5. Ways /methods of self-help to prevent PV

• develop your own emotional intelligence, that is, acquire the skills to understand your own emotional states and the emotions of others.
• increase your level of emotional literacy (communicating with yourself and the world without using manipulative techniques, blaming someone , but focusing on yourself, your unconditional acceptance of yourself, and the unconditional acceptance of others)
• balance your life, take care of your own comfort in all areas of your life.

Self-development trainings, personal psychotherapy, working out difficult emotional situations, stresses, injuries, which often people hang on to, or suppress emotions that they can experience in such situations and show them not in their pure form,but through toxic feelings of envy, resentment, guilt. Personal introspection and self-control, introspection of their reactions to stressful/conflict moments, reading the necessary literature that would form a common set of values for the entire team is also important.

WAYS TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:

• Study yourself, your emotions, physical and emotional reactions to events.
• Maintaining a positive attitude. The ability to see negative experiences is a productive resource for yourself.
• Building social connections for high-quality communication.
• Learn to empathize.
• Stay calm in conflict situations. Because excessive uncontrolled emotionality of a person is a sign of immaturity.
• Help if you have a resource or desire. But without expectations and requirements for the person who is being helped.
• Self-development, self-improvement.