The dream denied: Professional burnout and the constraints of human service organizations.

Abstract

This article presents a conceptual model of burnout as a function of the organizational environments of human service environments. The conflict of professional role expectations with administrative policies accelerates the development of the syndrome. This perspective places secondary importance on client demands as a determinant of burnout. It also challenges individual-oriented approaches to the management of organizational stress. This conceptual review includes a consideration of measurement issues pertinent to the definition of the burnout syndrome. In the first place, the generalizability of burnout to people working outside of human services is limited by the relevance of the depersonalization component to their work. Secondly, a process model of burnout requires use of data analyses which address the interrelationships among the burnout components. The prevalence of burnout provides an indication of the extent to which the context of work is compatible with the aspirations of individuals. Changes in the nature and meaning of work have made careers more central to our sense of identity while making satisfaction with performance more difficult to obtain. I shall trace this theme through writings on burnout, and present a model of burnout in which organizational and cultural context are central concepts. Background on Burnout Research Burnout began as a colloquial term describing an emotionally depleted state among people in helping professions. The term first found its way into the psychological literature in an article by Freudenberger (1974) in an issue of the Journal of Social Issues he edited on people working in free clinics. The free clinic movement in the U.S. displayed in an extreme way many of the themes which continue to be central in burnout research. The dubious position of free clinics in medical and mental health systems at that time required