Subjective Aspects of Burnout Syndrome in the Medical Profession

José Manuel García-Arroyo^*, María Luisa Domínguez-López

Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Seville, Seville, Spain.

DOI: 10.4236/psych.2014.518209                

Abstract

Burnout is a syndrome related to work over load and associated, generally, with the helping professions. Here we will study it in relation to the medical profession, considering the doctor’s personal aspects. For this purpose, we start with a group of physicians treated psychotherapeutically for suffering from burnout. The method is qualitative and consists of recording as accurately as possible the verbal expressions of the patients. Since there was plenty of verbal material waste, we had to differentiate between “useful statements” (type I) and “useless” (type II), whose characteristics we defined exactly. As a result we find that these professionals show emotional mismanagement due to lack of subjective recognition of affective experiences. This causes an overflow that physically manifests itself in the absence of any mental processing, resulting eventually in the triad features of the syndrome. Subjectively, we find the origin of this in the “medical ideals” that hinder these professionals from recognizing the above mentioned experiences since they consider them as inadequate for the performance of their work and contravene their values. At the same time, these subjects were busy helping others, but were unable to help themselves or ask for help.

Keywords

Burnout Syndrome, Doctor Health, Emotions, Emotional Management, Subjectivity, Burnout

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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