Purpose: Burnout has been shown to develop due to chronic stress or distress, which has negative implications for both physical and mental health and well-being. Burnout research originated in the “caring-professions.” However, there is a paucity of research which has focused specifically on how job demands, resources and personal characteristics affect burnout among practitioner psychologists.Methods: This PRISMA review (Moher et al., 2009) involved searches of key databases (i.e., Web of Knowledge, SCOPUS and Google Scholar) for articles published prior to 1st January, 2017. Articles concerning the prevalence and cause(s) of burnout in applied psychologists, that were published in the English language were included. Both quantitative and qualitative investigative studies were included in the review. The Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool (CCAT; Crowe, 2013) was used to appraise the quality of each paper included in this review. An inductive content analysis approach (Thomas, 2006) was subsequently conducted in order to identify the developing themes from the data.Results: The systematic review comprised 29 papers. The most commonly cited dimension of burnout by applied psychologists was emotional exhaustion (34.48% of papers). Atheoretical approaches were common among the published articles on burnout among applied psychologists. Workload and work setting are the most common job demands and factors that contribute to burnout among applied psychologists, with the resources and personal characteristics of research are age and experience, and sex the most commonly focused upon within the literature.Conclusions: The results of the current review offers evidence that burnout is a concern for those working in the delivery of psychological interventions. Emotional exhaustion is the most commonly reported dimension of burnout, with job and personal characteristics and resources also playing important roles in the development of burnout in the mental health care profession. Finally, tentative recommendations for those within the field of applied psychology.

Well-being and mental health of psychologists and their clients can be strongly linked to the psychologists’ experience of work. We know from general theories of occupational health psychology that certain work factors will have a greater impact on well-being than others. Work engagement is positively related with occupational health, while burnout and workaholic tendencies relate negatively. An individual’s resources can buffer against these negative effects. Specifically, the environmental resource of social support can impede the impact and instance of workaholism and has a positive influence on burnout. Social support is often encouraged by sport psychologists in protecting an athlete’s well-being. Drawing on theory and research from work and organizational, health and social psychology we explore the lived experiences of burnout and work engagement among applied sport psychologists, investigating their perceptions of how these experiences impact their well-being. Thirty participants from five countries were asked, using semi-structured interviews, to recall specific incidents when feelings of work engagement and burnout occurred. We examined the influence of social support and its impact on these incidents. Thematic analysis revealed that burnout is frequently experienced despite high levels of work engagement. Sources of social support differ between groups of high burnout versus low burnout, as does reference to the dimensions of work engagement. Avenues for future research including investigating the role of mindfulness and therapeutic lifestyle changes for practitioners are outlined.

No abstract