From Grey Nothingness to Holistic Healing: A Non-Dual Approach to the Treatment of Burnout

Abstract

The phenomenon of burnout has been studied extensively, as it often plagues those in helping professions involving “people work” (e.g., counselling). Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and depersonalization that translates into a sense of lostness, lack of motivation, and the experience of “running on empty.” Unfortunately, conventional treatments (e.g., positive psychology, existential psychology, and psycho-analytic existentialism) focus on the avoidance of darker emotional experiences and emphasize the individual traits of the burnout sufferer, the search for hope, ways to increase work engagement, and the glorification of the hero’s journey. This emphasis can perpetuate the cycle of striving for meaning through work and career that initially triggered the burnt out state. The experiences and definitions of burnout parallel descriptions of the “grey realm” that is commonly experienced along the non-dual journey to awakening in the paradox of darkness. There appears to be something missing in conventional burnout treatment and prevention methods that ignore the greyness of burnout located within the individual. In contrast, Eastern traditions, transpersonal psychology, and non-duality dive into the dark emotions and understand the root of work-driven striving as the tendency to avoid mortality (i.e., to run from the inevitability of death). The authors propose a novel, non-dual approach to burnout treatment that views burnout as an invitation to embrace and accept the death experience of one’s sense of self that, in turn, offers an expansive, transformative opportunity to move into wholeness, healing, and an abundance of energy. To illustrate this, the authors outline the conventional understandings of burnout and contrast them with non-dual understandings. The non-dual approach to therapy is examined, and burnout is framed as a spiritual emergency and fuel for awakening. Furthermore, two case studies are presented to illustrate the non-dual psychotherapy approach to holistic burnout treatment. Implications of this approach and avenues for future research into the utilization and efficacy of non-dual psychotherapy to treat and prevent burnout are discussed.