Existential Psychology

Take Burnout Seriously

By  | 

There is a classic series of sci-fi books called ‘The Wheel of Time’ where the One Power, a type of magic, is wielded by women called Aes Sedai. Different women have different thresholds for how much of Saidar, the female half of the True Source, they can hold, so that some are inherently more powerful than others, although all depend on the same True Source, which is the river from which they draw the One Power. And all are equally at risk of burning out, which happens when they take in more than they are capable of holding, either by accident or because the sensation is just so sweet. If and when burnout happens they are severed from Saidar forever, still able to sense it but never able to touch it or channel it again.

This is actually potent imagery for how burnout happens in real life. It’s kind of like pulling a rubber band, where up to a point it will bounce back to its previous form quickly but if you pull it back too far it will snap for good.

All of us in psychologically and emotionally demanding fields need to take burnout seriously. In the mental health industry you see it all the time. Counselors seem to be going along just fine but they take on more emotional and psychological  stress than they are capable of taking on and finally reach a breaking point, they burn out and never recover, just like Aes Sedai who pull in too much of the One Power.

Part of protecting yourself from burnout is being able to accurately assess how much you’re capable of taking on and working within those parameters. Always be thinking long-term. Whether it’s hubris, mindlessness, or anywhere in between, many of us bite off more than we can chew in our endeavors and at some point we pay the price, for some of us it’s the ultimate price of burnout. Increasing mindfulness to keep those stressors at reasonable levels while finding self-care strategies that work is the antidote.

Related posts:

  1. Know When To Push Forward Know When To Pull Back Mental health professionals have a much different attitude towards productivity than the general population because they’re on the front lines, they see what stress does to people and just how common burnout is. In our culture it’s almost blasphemous to say you should take it easy, to focus on self-care rather than pushing through it. […]...
  2. Self-Imposed Breaks And Motivation Motivators will often talk about ways to power through when you aren’t feeling it but we want to flip the script and discuss the value of holding back when you are feeling it. This might sound like nonsense. If you’re feeling motivated you should just go for it right? The problem is that powering through […]...
  3. Relaxed Is Not Lazy It’s no secret that we celebrate workaholism in the West, that value is placed on multitasking, that obvious busyness is positively reinforced by bosses and colleagues. And so we have a case of behavioral psychology gone awry in the world of work where being all wound up, almost frenetically active, is positively reinforcing in the […]...
  4. Ebb And Flow Of Your Motivation Levels If you’re in it for the long haul, you’re going to notice an ebb and flow of your motivation levels. You’ll probably go through periods of high energy where productivity comes effortlessly, as well as periods of lethargy where your work doesn’t come so easily, and the thought of quitting might even sneak its way […]...
  5. If You Are Interested In Helping Others You Have To Help Yourself First Many people enter the helping professions because they struggled mightily through difficult circumstances and feel like no one was there to help them when they needed it most. For them helping others is a form of redemption, a way to right past wrongs in their own lives. And there’s no question that the plan is […]...
  6. Know When To Call It Quits For The Day If you’re doing it for yourself, by yourself, you’re not going to get any stickers or gold stars for working longer hours than everybody else. Nobody really cares if you burn the midnight oil and neither should you. The only thing that matters is productivity and the quality of your work. And ironically overworking, putting […]...
  7. Burnout Burnout is a product of a lack of mindfulness. It’s really that simple, and if you can increase your mindfulness in daily life and work you will dramatically decrease your chances of burning out in whatever endeavor you are pursuing. We are going to be speaking in the context of mental health counseling because burnout […]...
  8. Mental Health Defining mental health is complicated. Many of us make the mistake of thinking that it is the absence of symptoms of mental illness. It’s easy to see why because the mental health industry is powered by people who can no longer cope with their symptoms on their own and decide to try therapy to alleviate […]...
  9. Searching For Answers Being human means living and struggling with the dichotomies of our existence, dichotomies that don’t have easy answers and cause a lot of mental and emotional torment. As Erich Fromm used to say, we are the freaks of nature. We are at once a part of it yet transcend it. We have to come to […]...
  10. Real Productivity Versus Frenetic Activity Real productivity has a doppelganger that fools a lot of people, the activity of the frenetic variety where consciously the intention is to ‘get things done’ but unconsciously the real motivation is to ‘keep moving’. One of the reasons that Thich Nhat Hanh is a great role model is that his life serves as proof […]...
  11. Intermittent Breaks Using Meditation If your job is like the vast majority of jobs you get two fifteen minute breaks and a thirty minute lunch every day, precious little time for relaxation in the midst of work pressures and responsibilities. But you can take intermittent breaks using meditation, and the great part is that it’s an internal process that […]...
  12. Productive Work It was Erich Fromm who believed that love and productive work were the two most essential elements for mental health and happiness. If you’re like a lot of people you’ll readily agree with love being important but might scoff at the idea of giving work equal billing, even going so far as to say that […]...
  13. Physical Health And Gratitude Physical health is the unsung hero of human life. When we have it we tend to take it for granted, the state of affairs is simply how things are and how they’re supposed to be, end of story. Yet when the slightest thing goes wrong with our bodies we can hardly think of anything else. […]...
  14. Why Stigma Around Mental Illness Is Still Going Strong One of the most important reasons why stigma around mental illness is still going strong despite all efforts to eradicate it is that everyone is struggling with something despite their shiny veneers. Most people work hard to repress awareness of the touchy spots in their own lives, wanting nothing to do with these vulnerabilities. They […]...
  15. The Will To Love Nietzsche mocked and derided Christianity, seeing it as the inversion of all values, where the weak and the botched were glorified and the noble and strong called sinful. He was concerned with power and saw power dynamics everywhere. One of his most famous and certainly most epic aphorisms reads “Wherever I saw the living there […]...
  16. Daily Yoga Practice If you’ve taken that exciting step to make yoga a daily or almost daily practice, feel proud of yourself for your dedication. But also remember that circumstances can change when you do something every day. Christmas wouldn’t be the same if it came around every morning. When people only practice once in a while, they […]...
  17. Schizophrenia We are going to give a brief overview of schizophrenia. The word actually comes from a Greek root and translates as ‘split mind’, which causes many laypeople to picture the disease as dissociative identity disorder where the affected person has two or more personalities. But this is an incorrect understanding and instead schizophrenia is characterized […]...
  18. Hatred Is Like Fast Food Hatred is like fast food. Fast food tastes really good while you’re ingesting it but there’s no real nutrition there, and if you eat too much of it for too long you end up facing serious health consequences. So it’s a short-term gratifier with long-term disastrous effects. Hatred is the same way. We hate because we […]...
  19. Watering Plants And Self-Actualization The leaves on the plant are all that are visible to you. If you weren’t familiar with how to take care of plants and were asked to water one you’d be forgiven for only paying attention to the leaves while completely neglecting the roots. In fact this is exactly what many people do the first […]...
  20. Getting Results Means Hard Work As a general rule the easier a program promises to be, the more fraudulent that program is. Life changes are tough and require hard work at the emotional, mental, and physical level. Claims that you you will achieve your goal with little or no effort should be met with extreme skepticism. None of these schemes […]...
Related Items