Burnout is a Real Concern: A Self-care Plan is Vital

Burnout is a Real Concern: A self-care plan is Vital to Prevent Burnout in Human Service Professionals

Burnout within human service professionals, as with many other professions in today’s modern world is common. However, it is higher in human service profession due to the high levels of emotional, mental and physical stress this line of work exerts on practitioners. Burnout is defined in many ways, but a multifaceted definition accepted by pundits is that it encompasses three dimensions, which are “emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment” (Morse et al., 2012). All these characteristics lead to underperformance by the worker, and if there is no change, it can lead to other more serious mental issues including depression. For this reason, it has become necessary to figure out the place of self care for human service professionals as a way of ensuring that they maintain high performance levels in their careers. Therefore, this paper will illustrate why a self care plan is vital to prevent burnout among human service professionals, and include in its analysis some proper characteristics of a good self care plan. 

Burnout and the Human Service Profession

Burnout is a normal occurrence in all forms of occupation due to the energies and concentration required to achieve the set goals. However, the prevalence seems to be higher among workers in human service delivery. This is made clear in various research works that illustrates the stressful conditions under which human service professionals have to work. To measure the level of burnout, the best instrument used by researchers and counselors is the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which includes the three aforementioned components of burnout (Borritz, 2006). These are emotional exhaustion, which is defined as a drainage of emotional resources due to being overworked, depersonalization, which is having a negative attitude towards patients or those in need of care, and personal accomplishment that relates to feelings of increased incompetence at work (Borritz, 2006: Morse et al., 2012). There are many other burnout meters that an interested organization or individual can use to determine their levels of burnout. 

Human service work has been central in the study of burnout. Human service work entails dealing with another human on a face to face basis as a way of trying to enhance the well being of the client or patient (Borritz, 2006). According to Federico (2017), when stress at the work place is compounded through cumulative exposure to stressors, psychological as well as physiological symptoms related to stress may appear (Ibid.: Ramarajan, Barsade & Burack, 2006 ). In the human service profession, vicarious traumatization (VT) is common due to the nature of these professions (Visger and LLPC, 2016 ). In turn, VT leads to a physiological reaction known as secondary traumatic stress (STS) (Federico, 2017) as a result of working with trauma victims. However, even in situations where the burnout situation does not get to the point of VT and STS, compassion fatigue is a common component of burn out. Compassion fatigue is defined as “the overall experience of emotional and physical fatigue that social service professionals experience due to chronic use of empathy when treating patients who are suffering in some way” (Smullens, 2012).

For human service professionals, having to constantly deal with clients who suffer from traumatic experiences, and having to constantly be a witness to the intense and sometimes horrific experiences of these clients leads to an accruing of compassion fatigue (Visger and LLPC, 2016 ). According to research, a good way to ensure that the human service professional does not get to the point of stress, then self care is necessary, and that it should be a priority for those involved in these professions (Visger and LLPC, 2016: Monk, 2011 ). Without self care, as illustrated by Maslach, any stressful work place ends up becoming a mental health factory (Weekes, 2014).

Self Care

Essentially, a burnt out individual does not offer the level of quality work required of them since their work and the work place makes them lethargic, with a feeling of continued tiredness. This is where self care comes in; it is defined as the action of caring for oneself, or in detail as “the range of health related decision making and care undertaken by individuals on their own behalf” ( Weekes, 2014 ). It is the practice of engaging behaviors, feelings and thoughts in a manner that supports or promotes well being at a physical, emotional, social and emotional level (Tan & Castillo, 2014). Self care is not only necessary as an individual goal to ensure personal well being, it is also a necessity professionally and ethically due to the pressures that result from human service work (Monk, 2011: Tan & Castillo, 2014). This is because according to Monk, human service jobs such as social work often involve three elements, which are high stress, high trauma and high touch that refer to high emotions experienced in such lines of work. 

As a result, there is need to ensure self care as an imperative of the profession, and to do so would also call for a holistic self care plan that handles al dimensions of the individual. A good self care plan must have all the key facets of the individual, which is the physical, the emotional, the psychological and the spiritual (Monk, 2011: Visger and LLPC, 2016 ). 

The Physical

Physical self care calls for the individual to take up physical activity on a daily basis (Visger and LLPC, 2016 ). Such activities may include exercise or sports. These physical activities have a positive impact on the mental faculties of the individual, and they have also been shown to induce general wellness, including being physically well toned as well as reducing depression and anxiety, increasing quality of life due to healthy living and improving body functions (Visger and LLPC, 2016 ). 

Emotional

Emotional self care includes having clear boundaries on individual time and energy as well as engaging these emotional boundaries within the worker’s helping relationships (Monk, 2011). It also involves indulging with positive individuals and seeking affirming and inspiring messages, as well as addressing any underlying issues to make sure that there is no emotional clog as issues build up. 

Psychological

Psychological self care calls for personal and professional growth, as well as ensuring that there is time for personal reflection (Monk, 2011). Increasing self awareness through activities such as meditation is a good way to improve the psyche and make sure that there is no depletion of will power. 

Spiritual

The spiritual is largely ignored in the modern world, but it is necessary to have a purpose in life and supersedes the need to fulfill daily obligations such as paying bills. Spiritual self care thus involves activities such as prayer, nature walks, meditating and identifying the most important elements of one’s life as a way of ensuring mindfulness (Monk, 2011).

Apart from personal self care, it is important to note that there is a role to be played by the organizations within which these human service professionals work. According to Chemiss (1980), organizational design plays a critical role in determining the psyche of the individual in working there. Therefore, Chemiss talks of improving the formal properties of the organization design as well as monitoring to reduce job related stress (Chemiss, 1980). He furthermore talks of having proper role structures (that is reduced conflicts, ambiguity and increased autonomy of each job) as a way of ensuring that human service professions are not as stressful. Although the organization is independent of its employees, self care would also call for employees to approach the management within their organization to try and have them streamline job descriptions and work routines as a way of reducing stress. 

In conclusion, human service professions are high stress careers that often involve dealing with a lot of stressful and traumatic experiences. Due to the need to often shoulder other people’s problems as a way of helping them heal, most professionals end up burning out, and underperforming and even loathing their careers. Consequently, self care is pivotal to the success of a professional in these careers. It is not selfish, but rather ethical for them to seek self care as a means of maintaining their energies for professionalism. However, such self care has to be holistic. 

References

Borritz, M. (2006). Burnout in human service work-causes and consequences.  Ugeskrift For Laeger ,  168 (10), 1041.

Cherniss, C. (1980).  Staff burnout: Job stress in the human services . Beverly Hills: Sage.

Federico, D. R. (2017).  Identifying the Experiences of Secondary Traumatic Stress in Rural Child Welfare Workers: Action Research Study  (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).

Monk, L. (2011). Self Care: An Ethical Imperative. Perspectives , 33(1), 4.

Morse, G., Salyers, M. P., Rollins, A. L., Monroe-DeVita, M., & Pfahler, C. (2012). Burnout in mental health services: A review of the problem and its remediation.  Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research ,  39 (5), 341-352.

Ramarajan, L., Barsade, S. G., & Burack, O. R. (2006). What makes the job tough? The influence of organizational respect on burnout in the human services.  Organizational Respect and Burnout ,  12 (3), 1-32.

Smullens, S. (2012). What I wish I had known: Burnout and self-care in our social work profession.  The New Social Worker, Social Work E-news ,  143 .

Tan, S. Y., & Castillo, M. (2014). Self-care and beyond: A brief literature review from a Christian perspective.  Journal of Psychology and Christianity ,  33 (1), 90.

Visger, V. H., & LLPC, N. (2016). The Importance of Self-Care for Helping Professionals. All Things Possible Wellness Center. 

Weekes, J. D. (2014).  The relationship of self-care to burnout among social workers in health care settings  (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).