Definition of the concept

The Anglo-Saxon term burn out literally means i'm burning and is occupied by the mechanics denotes the final exhaustion of the fuel mixture of the internal combustion engine, which leads to overheating and explosion. The concept of burnout appeared in the psychological literature in 1974. Before that, it was described as stress, depression, exhaustion, alienation. In the early 1980s, interest in occupational burnout increased. Herbert Freudenberger first wrote about the burnout phenomenon or syndrome in 1974 in his book "Burnout. The high price of excellence”. Even then, he defined it as a state of physical, emotional and behavioral disorder, a consequence of work overload. In 1982, Christina Moslach and Susan Jackson developed a test methodology to diagnose the condition.

Symptoms

The appearance of the symptom does not depend only on the person, nor only on the profession. It is a set of unfavorable confluence of external and internal factors. The causes of professional burnout are general and specific for individual professions. To common factors for all social professions there are stressors caused by too long working hours and workload, the lack of sufficient order and clarity in expectations and requirements, disagreements and conflicts in the work environment. Personality factors, which have an impact on the development of burnout are generally: instability, tendency to high expectations for oneself and others, inability and unwillingness to delegate tasks (or lack of trust in others), imbalance in the relationships of giving and receiving, increased anxiety, idealism, over-enthusiasm and over-ambition, high expectations, unrealistic judgment, acceptance and problem-solving style, locus of control, emotional lability.

Burnout syndrome is characterized by certain symptoms:

• PHYSIOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS – chronic fatigue, reduced resistance to viral and cold infections, reduced immunity of the body, changes in appetite and, accordingly, in weight;
• COGNITIVE SYMPTOMS - apathy, lack of new ideas, routine in the performance of duties, frigidity in thinking and actions, withdrawal, distancing, negative attitude towards dependent people and sometimes towards colleagues and superiors, negative attitude towards work;
• EMOTIONAL SYMPTOMS - feeling of failure, hopelessness, guilt, helplessness, increased irritability and low tolerance for remarks and different opinions, mistrust, suspiciousness, reduced sensitivity to understanding, lack of empathy.
• BEHAVIORAL SYMPTOMS - reduced work capacity and efficiency, eternal complaints, grumbling and dissatisfaction, tendency to extreme forms of behavior /abrupt withdrawal, aggressiveness/ and risky behavior - increased use of alcohol and cigarettes, taking opiates, etc./

The person's general condition has worsened, he feels physically and mentally exhausted, he has no motivation to work. It is accompanied by cynicism, social isolation and greatly reduced work capacity. It mainly affects people who start their professional career with great enthusiasm and high motivation, who face the reality that does not meet their expectations. Such people are usually well-prepared personnel, good specialists in their field, who quickly "burn out", their efficiency decreases and they gradually fall into frustration. Initially, it was considered that social professions such as teachers, nurses, doctors were predisposed to such a condition. Subsequently, the group of people expanded, and today it is accepted that everyone whose work is related to communication with people is at risk of professional "overheating". The difference between burnout and negative stress is that if a person who is in a state of stress does not feel particularly happy at the end of the working day, but goes out with friends or engages in an enjoyable activity, his mood improves. This is not the case with Burnout. This phenomenon should not be seen as a one-time event, but rather as a process of stress accumulation.

Structure

The burnout phenomenon or the Burnout Syndrome has a three-component structure, including psycho-emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduction of professional achievements.

Under psychoemotional exhaustion the feeling of emotional exhaustion and fatigue caused by one's work is understood. The main source of psycho-emotional exhaustion is the work environment and personal conflicts at the workplace. People feel exhausted and tortured, without any hope of recovery. Starting the working day or when meeting other people, they feel powerless, apathetic, even depressed. The component psychoemotional exhaustion is the main component in the structure of occupational burnout.

Depersonalization implies a cynical attitude towards work and the subject of work. It manifests itself as a kind of protection, as an emotional buffer in response to the developing psycho-emotional exhaustion. Dehumanization can then develop. Depersonalization implies a callous attitude toward colleagues or customers. They are perceived not as living people, but as problems and difficulties with which they come to the working professional.

Reduction (reduction) of professional achievements correlates with a weakening of the sense of self-competence and productivity of one's work. This feeling lowers performance, leads to depression and inability to cope with work demands, and can be exacerbated by a lack of social support and opportunities for professional growth. Employees who experience a growing sense of inability to help the customer may form a delusional view of themselves as failures. The reduction in professional achievement component is a self-reported measure of professional burnout.

Methodology

The research uses the "Methodology for assessing the syndrome of "burnout" in professions from the "person-person" system of N.E. Vodopyanova (Vodopyanova, 2011). The methodology examines the three components of combustion.

• emotional exhaustion - manifested in a lowered emotional background, indifference or emotional oversaturation;
• depersonalization - manifests itself in deformation of relations with other people;
• reduction of personal achievements - manifests in a tendency to negatively assess oneself, one's professional achievements and successes, negativity towards professional successes and opportunities or in reducing one's own dignity, limiting one's opportunities and obligations to others.

The subject is offered 22 statements about work-related feelings and experiences. The list of these statements is as follows:

1. I feel emotionally drained from my job
2. By the end of the work day, I feel like a squeezed lemon
3. I feel tired when I get up in the morning and have to go to work
4. I understand what the people I work with feel and I use this in the interest of the work
5. I communicate with people in my work purely formally, without unnecessary emotions and I try to keep communication to a minimum
6. I feel energetic and emotionally uplifted
7. In conflict situations, I know how to find the right solution
8. I feel depressed and apathetic
9. I can positively influence the work productivity of colleagues/people I work with
10. Lately I feel that I have become more insensitive to the people I work with
11. As a rule, the people I work with put a lot of strain on me. They wear me out rather than make me happy.
12. I have plans for the future and I believe in their implementation
13. I started experiencing more and more disappointments in life
14. I started to become apathetic and lose interest in many things that used to make me happy
15. I happen to be really indifferent to what happens to some of my colleagues
16. I want to be alone and take a break from everything and everyone
17. I can easily create a good working atmosphere with the people I work with
18. I easily communicate with people, regardless of their status and regardless of their character
19. I manage to get a lot of work done
20. I feel at my limit
21. I will achieve many more things in my life
22. It happens that colleagues transfer their problems and duties to me

After reading each statement, the subject must decide how they feel. Suggested answer positions:

0 – never; 1-very rare; 2-rare; 3-sometimes; 4-often; 5 - very often; 6-always

Initials, profession, age, experience are noted on the answer sheet.

The results are processed according to the key. The question key is suggested in below:

Scales - Claim number - Amount of max. ball

Emotional burnout – 1,2,3,6*,8,13,14,16,20 – 54

Depersonalization – 5,10,11,15,22 – 30

Personal Achievement Reduction – 4,7,9,12,17,18,19,21 – 48

Subscale  Emotional burnout is composed of 9 questions, taking into account the degree of emotional oversaturation.

Note: Question #6 is reversed and marks are calculated in reverse order. 

Subscale Depersonalization is composed of 5 questions that take into account the degree of alienation and the tendency towards dehumanization.

The subscale Reduction of personal achievements includes 9 questions, taking into account the tendency to belittle personal achievements and limit one's own possibilities.

The interpretation of the results is built on the basis of the comparisons of the obtained estimates on all subscales of the average values in the studied groups and with demographic data presented below:

Overheating levels – low – medium – high

Emotional exhaustion – 0; 16-17; 26 – 27 and more

Depersonalization – 0; 6-7; 12 – 13 and more

Reduction of personal achievements - 39 and more - 38; 32 – 31 ;0

Prevention

Prevention is forward-thinking work and reflects a person's ability to be prepared with information and an attitude about the price they would pay for the choices they make. We can distinguish several types of prevention: primary, secondary, tertiary, coping.

In primary prevention, the factors affecting and increasing stress must first be removed. They can be very different in nature. Here, an important point is for a person to be able to analyze himself and the environment well.

Secondary prevention is early diagnosis of already existing stress and application of appropriate therapeutic procedures to prevent its development and to eliminate it.

In tertiary prevention, we only limit the consequences caused by stress-induced mental disorders.

Coping is a process by which an individual manages chronic stress or adapts to the situation. It is a process of overcoming a sense of loss or threat. In this type of prevention, two main strategies can be applied: one must either make an effort to solve the problem or regulate one's emotions. Usually the two strategies are implemented in parallel. The goal of coping is to achieve balance in the personal psyche and in the personal experiences of critical situations. Such a balance can be achieved either by changing the situation or by changing the personality.

Burnout in the teaching profession

Everything stated up to here can also be applied to the teaching profession. The fact is that teachers today are burned out to a greater or lesser degree. Internal factors as the cause of this are specific to each individual. As external reasons for the emergence of the syndrome in the teaching profession, we can note several main factors: modern teachers, and especially those who are class teachers, are overloaded with administrative work and at one point, they practically have no time left to teach because they are forced to deal with banal things such as mastering discipline in class, re-educating already grown students, extraordinary meetings with the parents of problem children, explanations to the management about mass indiscipline and mass illiteracy... All this is tiring and mentally exhausting. The modern teacher, pressured by insane regulations written by people who clearly have no idea what the reality of today's school is, pressured by illiterately written textbooks, pressured by insolent parents who, in their pursuit of materially satisfying their children, have not given them a basic upbringing and last but not least, pressed by the fact that in relation to his students he, the teacher, has only duties and almost no rights...at some point this teacher begins to feel first of all powerless and frustrated, which in time leads to the appearance of other symptoms itself; finally, according to the individual's personal mental state, he begins to "burn out" to a greater or lesser extent.

Another important reason for burnout in this profession is routine and monotony. When a teacher teaches for a long time in the same school or in classes of the same graduation (for example, foreign language teachers in language schools who take over the preparatory classes every year), this monotony starts to get boring and the person does not feel the same pleasure in the work you are as before.

Today, most of us are well aware of the negatives of the teaching profession. Depending on our personality and psychological characteristics, some of us know ourselves well and are good at introspection. Frequent self-analysis and real assessment of the situation can be a good prevention against "overheating".

It is important for a teacher to periodically change and diversify, if not the institution in which he works, at least his activity. Not to be limited only to teaching, to participate, according to his time and interests, in various school projects and, if possible, to change classes and schools. There are people for whom routine and monotony work rather positively. But man is a being who was created to constantly move and develop in one form or another. Therefore, routine in the profession is harmful and should be avoided.

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In many cases, a few simple things can protect an individual from unwanted stress and prevent the onset of burnout syndrome. This can be achieved with a greater sense of humor, a high level of personal autonomy, a sense of belonging to the whole of humanity or even to some society. Or to put it another way: let's be serious without taking ourselves too seriously.