Burnout is common among psychotherapists – now a review has identified the personal characteristics that increase the risk further

By Alex Fradera Working an emotionally-demanding job can leave you frazzled by alienation, exhaustion, and confusion about whether you are doing any good. Clinical psychologists and psychotherapists live their day-to-day at the interface of their clients’ most difficult emotions and recollections, so it is no surprise that burnout is a leading cause of problems for those in the profession. To better understand the risk factors that contribute to therapist burnout, a new review article in the Journal of Clinical Psychology has examined findings from 30 years of research. Gabrielle Simionato and Susan Simpson of the University of South Australia gathered 40 articles in English on the topic, involving a total of almost 9,000 psychotherapists. On average, participants expressed a low to moderate degree of occupational stress, with just over half of those canvassed reporting moderate to high burnout. Burnout is often broken into three elements, and of these, the one most prevalent for therapists was emotional exhaustion – feeling physical and emotional fatigue while at work. Also prevalent to a lesser degree were the other two aspects: depersonalisation and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment.  A number of factors correlated with burnout, although as the studies were overwhelmingly cross-sectional we have to take care about assigning causality.  Burnout rates were higher in psychologists who were less experienced, and also in those with less subjective confidence in...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Mental health Occupational Source Type: blogs