HANDLING BURNOUT: ADLERIAN, RATIONAL-EMOTIVE, AND
McKnight and Glass (1995) define burnout as a stress response. Specifically, burnout is said to be an increasingly intense pattern of psychological, physiological, and behavioral dysfunction in response to a continuous flow of stressors or chronic stress.
In terms of work and career, Riggo and Porter (1999) report that burnout is commonly found among employees and professionals who have a high degree of personal investment in work and high performance expectations. The authors further report that burnout occurs in stages and in the initial stages, people often have a variety of physiological and behavioral symptoms and lose interest and confidence in their work. It is stated that in these stages the following physiological symptoms may occur: shortness of breath; loss of appetite or weight; headache; fatigue and exhaustion.
In addition, Riggio and Porter (1999) state that behavioral symptoms can include: Lack of interest in fellow employees; risk-taking behaviors; and mood swings. In the later stages, people with burnout may abuse alcohol and other drugs, smoke excessively, drink more and more caffeinated beverages; become more rigid in their thinking; lose faith in the abilities of co-workers, management, the organization, and themselves; and become generally less productive.
Also, burnout is said to have three dimensions as well as stages. These dimensions are a growing sense of depersonalization, a decrease in one's sense of personal accomplishment, and an increasing sense of emotional exhaustion.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss, in practical terms, how the problem of burnout would be addressed by human relations professionals from each of three schools of psychological thought: Existential, Rationale-Emotive, and Adlerian. The paper concludes with a brief summary.
In a discussion of the existential approach to burnout, Pines (2000) states that the exist...