The tired hero and her (il)legitimation: Reworking Parsons to analyse experiences of burnout within the Dutch employment system and lifeworld.

Abstract

Burnout is an illness label, and in some healthcare systems a diagnostic category, which has received growing attention and usage. Despite its ubiquity and widespread media coverage, the medical sociological literature on the condition remains small and the wider sociological literature tends to treat the rise of burnout as a straightforward reflection of changing working environments. Very few studies have critically reflected on the nature of burnout, its diagnosis and lived experiences of the condition. This neglect is surprising given the relative legitimacy of burnout as an illness category in several national healthcare contexts, not least in the Netherlands. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with a range of burnout sufferers (n=18) and diagnosing professionals (n=12) in the Netherlands, we explore participants' narrated understandings of the condition in light of a reworked Parsonian framework. Narratives suggested sufferers of burnout generally received legitimation, often being understood as hardworking, diligent and altruistic. Experiences of (partial) acceptance through a medical label, and the relative lack of stigma were important to sense-making and coping. This recognition of burnout was particularly striking, given several features burnout shares with conditions commonly associated with ontological doubt, moral suspicion and stigma. Yet recognition of commitment and strength sat in tension with psychological assistance, which sought to correct tendencies for working too hard for too long. Drawing on insights from Habermas's extensive reformulation of Parsons's work, we understand the legitimation and tensions around burnout care in light of meanings, metaphors and manipulation which, in turn, we locate in relation to the functioning of wider socio-cultural lifeworlds and political-economic systems, including the sediments of earlier political-economic and cultural structures.