A Thematic Inquiry into the Burnout Experience of Australian Solo-Practicing Clinical Psychologists

Abstract

Objective: Burnout is conceptualized as a syndrome that consists of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and decreased personal accomplishment. Despite the increased frequency and severity of burnout in the Western world, there is limited published research regarding the experiences of clinical psychologists who have had burnout. The present study examines clinical psychologists’ different experiences of burnout in Australia.Design and Methods: In the year 2015, six privately practicing and solo-employed clinical psychologists provided rich qualitative data by participating in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was the method used to analyze clinical psychologists’ natural accounts of their burnout experiences. Using NVivo, emerging themes were identified through coding ‘first order constructs’ and then axial code ‘second order constructs.’Findings: Clinical psychologists indicated that their roles are demanding and a diverse range of symptoms, including the enduring effects of burnout, mental stress, fatigue, decreased personal accomplishment, negative affect, depersonalization, reduced productivity and motivation, and insomnia. They identified precursors of burnout, including excessive workload and hours of work, life stresses, mismanaged workload, and transference. Clinical psychologists suggested that protective factors of burnout include knowledge and years worked in direct care, and trusting and long-term relationships. They indicated that the barriers to overcoming burnout include the fallacy that their clients’ expectations and needs are more important than their own, the financial cost of working in private practice, contemporary knowledge and inadequate education regarding self-care, and time constraints.Discussion and Conclusion: The findings presented in this study provide psychologists and other health professionals with an insight about the burnout experience and inform professionals of the mental shortcomings of working as a solo-practicing clinical psychologist. Findings from this study should lead to an increased understanding of the complexities of burnout, and ultimately reduced cases of burnout, absenteeism, and staff disengagement.

The Prevalence and Cause(s) of Burnout Among Applied Psychologists: A Systematic Review

“…The importance of social support in managing stress and burnout is well documented (Hobfoll, 1989 ; Halbesleben, 2006 ). Social support, work-based support and supervisor support have all been credited as a resource for reducing burnout in clinical psychologists (Hammond et al, 2017 ). Franco ( 2015 ) suggests that supervisors educate themselves and form open discussions with their clinicians, promoting self-awareness and self-care practices amongst those they supervise.…”

Burnout in psychological therapists: A cross‐sectional study investigating the role of supervisory relationship quality

“…We found that none of the three workload variables were associated with either burnout facet. This was surprising, as previous systematic reviews (Hannigan et al, 2004; McCormack et al, 2018) and recent studies have suggested that workload, contracted hours, and caseload are linked with burnout in psychological therapists (Hammond et al, 2018; Kim et al, 2018). However, these recent studies were conducted outside the United Kingdom, and the present findings could be due to the UK healthcare delivery context, studies of NHS‐based therapists are more consistent with our present findings.…”

“…Maslach et al (2001) suggests supervision is a key protective factor against burnout. A recent qualitative study in psychological therapists supports this, suggesting that the quality of the relationship in terms of trust and support was particularly important (Hammond, Crowther, & Drummond, 2018). However, few quantitative studies have investigated the links between supervision and burnout in psychological therapists.…”

Towards a better understanding of work participation among employees with common mental health problems: a systematic realist review

“…A possible program theory, based on CMO configurations, could be that experiencing low job demands and high job control helps an employee to exert control over one's own work, including adjustments that can be made (32,33,35,(37)(38)(39)(40). Heavy workload, overtime and high job strain reduce the chance for SAW, among employees with stress or depression (28,30,31,38). Job modifications help, however in a different way for white-versus blue-collar workers, due to the type of duties and work context (23,30,(41)(42)(43).…”

“…Heavy workload, overtime and high job strain reduce the chance for SAW, among employees with stress or depression (28,30,31,38). Job modifications help, however in a different way for white-versus blue-collar workers, due to the type of duties and work context (23,30,(41)(42)(43).…”