Professional Burnout of a Psychologist
Starting in the 1970s, researchers noticed that some workers experienced changes in their communication style after several years on the job. A special form of “stress diseases” was identified — “communication disease.” Later, this phenomenon came to be called “staff burnout,” “personality burnout,” or sometimes simply “burnout.” According to V.V. Boyko, emotional burnout is “a psychological defense mechanism developed by the personality in the form of complete or partial exclusion of emotions in response to selected psychotraumatic influences.” Emotional burnout represents “a prolonged state of exhaustion arising in the course of one’s work.”
Research into this state was conducted through the construction of static (one-, two-, three-, and four-factor) or dynamic models. The most well-known model of professional burnout is the three-factor model by C. Maslach and S. Jackson. The authors view burnout as a response to prolonged professional stresses of interpersonal communications. Three components of this state have been identified: