Psychologist, teachers, nurses, social workers etc, are all burnt out above the national average of other professions / sectors. They all have a few things in common. One they are front line workers who bore the brunt of Covid’s negative mental and physical impact on society. Two they care deeply about their jobs and are inherently intrinsically motivated. Caring uses a lot of psychological resources. They are all also working in under resourced sectors (for different reasons, I.e psychologist are dealing with an unprecedented surge in demand for mental health services where as teachers are dealing with issues of retention and shortages from ppl retiring and an inability to recruit and retain the next gen of teachers). They are all involved managing people’s welfare, where a negative outcomes in this line of work are serious and therefore these sectors involve lots of policy and bureaucracy to manage risk which is useful but means they work in rigid, inflexible workplaces and often without a lot of room for autonomy which is essential for fostering autonomous motivation which is linked to wellbeing and protecting against burnout. If you find a solution to psychologist burnout there will be lots of share with these other sectors too!
The takeaway from my research was that the underlying causes (as you describe) are largely systemic. So any external "solution" claiming to prevent burnout that doesn't address these causes is unlikely to work.
I did find some people making career choices to help themselves e.g., shifting to part-time community based work, adding in some telehealth consultations, that helped. But I recognise this is not available to everyone (certainly not all professions) and also does not solve the entire problem.
Psychologist, teachers, nurses, social workers etc, are all burnt out above the national average of other professions / sectors. They all have a few things in common. One they are front line workers who bore the brunt of Covid’s negative mental and physical impact on society. Two they care deeply about their jobs and are inherently intrinsically motivated. Caring uses a lot of psychological resources. They are all also working in under resourced sectors (for different reasons, I.e psychologist are dealing with an unprecedented surge in demand for mental health services where as teachers are dealing with issues of retention and shortages from ppl retiring and an inability to recruit and retain the next gen of teachers). They are all involved managing people’s welfare, where a negative outcomes in this line of work are serious and therefore these sectors involve lots of policy and bureaucracy to manage risk which is useful but means they work in rigid, inflexible workplaces and often without a lot of room for autonomy which is essential for fostering autonomous motivation which is linked to wellbeing and protecting against burnout. If you find a solution to psychologist burnout there will be lots of share with these other sectors too!
Johanna, I could not agree with you more.
The takeaway from my research was that the underlying causes (as you describe) are largely systemic. So any external "solution" claiming to prevent burnout that doesn't address these causes is unlikely to work.
I did find some people making career choices to help themselves e.g., shifting to part-time community based work, adding in some telehealth consultations, that helped. But I recognise this is not available to everyone (certainly not all professions) and also does not solve the entire problem.