A clinical perspective on burnout: diagnosis, classification, and treatment of clinical burnout

Abstract

In clinical psychology, burnout is regarded as a mental disorder assessed in patients who apply for psychological treatment and no longer work because of their symptoms or experience of serious problems in functioning at work. This definition of burnout is mostly referred to as 'clinical burnout'. The purpose of this article is to provide insight into how clinicians in The Netherlands establish a diagnosis of clinical burnout and how they fit it in their classification systems. An outline is given on how psychological interventions for burnout are applied in therapies. The different phases in the treatment of clinical burnout -crisis, recovery, prevention, and post burnout growth, as well as their accompanying interventions are described. It may be relevant for work and organizational psychologists to realize that biological processes may play a role in the development of clinical burnout. For the physiology of stress, it does not matter whether the stress is work-related or the result of stress in private life or both. Central to understanding clinical burnout is the lack of recovery of the (physiological) stress system. It is also argued that the relevance of questionnaires, for detecting who is at serious health risk, is limited.

Developing an Intervention and Evaluation Model of Outdoor Therapy for Employee Burnout: Unraveling the Interplay Between Context, Processes, and Outcomes

“…We also showed that physical activity and experiential learning are essential elements of outdoor therapy for employee burnout, which makes sense as it is known that being physical active outdoors alleviates stress (Hartig et al, 2014) and that rehabilitation entails a process of "learning by experiencing" (Pijpker et al, 2021;Van Dam, 2021). Concerning our observation that physical activity in the outdoors enhances one's capacity to think creatively aligns with earlier experimental studies showing that walking outdoors in nature opens up a free flow of ideas stronger than indoor walking (Oppezzo and Schwartz, 2014;Plambech and Van Den Bosch, 2015).…”

“…The key points of the reflective dialogues were summarized from the recordings. The analysis entailed an iterative process of inductively identifying Pijpker et al, 2021;Van Dam, 2021).…”

“…To develop the intervention and evaluation model of outdoor therapy, we build on the generic context, process, and outcome (CPO) evaluation model ( Fridrich et al, 2015 ) and the generic burnout recovery model (BRM; Pijpker et al, 2021 ; Van Dam, 2021 ) as an overarching frame. Based on this deductively derived generic frame, we then inductively specified the intervention and evaluation model of our exemplary outdoor therapy case in Netherlands, using both primary and secondary data.…”

“…To understand how outdoor therapy may facilitate the rehabilitation process after burnout among employees, we will use the generic BRM (Pijpker et al, 2021;Van Dam, 2021). This model is based on the theory of salutogenesis, originally proposed by Antonovsky (1979Antonovsky ( , 1987.…”

“…The so-called Dutch “rehabilitation guidelines” emphasize facilitating the return-to-work (RTW) process through reducing burnout complaints, using cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) and psychoeducation, combined, if possible, with intervening in the working context ( van Dam et al, 2017 ; Van Dam, 2021 ). However, evaluations of the effectiveness of such burnout rehabilitation interventions reveal suboptimal results in terms of both reducing burnout complaints and facilitating the RTW process ( Awa et al, 2010 ; Ahola et al, 2017 ; Perski et al, 2017 ; Pijpker et al, 2020 ); for example, Blonk et al (2006) showed that combining both CBT and a reduced workload only facilitated a partial RTW but did not fully alleviate burnout complaints.…”