Burnout is the perpetuation of denied humanity

Burnout is not yet diagnosable, despite other controversial diagnoses within the realm of mental-behavioral health. Some of these include Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS), Attention-Deficit  Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Seasonal Affective Disorder (SADD) and the Adjustment Disorders, among others. Consider Fibromyalgia and Somatic Symptom Disorder–elusive medical terms used as a blanket to cover a series of otherwise unexplainable symptoms. Even “Phantom Pain” has a claim in medical literature and practice. (Mayo Clinic, 2021 & (Hanyu-Deutmeyer et al., 2022). The conceptualization of burnout has confounded several medical experts, including those employed by the World Health Organization (WHO), American Medical Association (AMA), and American Psychiatric Association (APA). What is burnout? What causes burnout? Who is most at risk for burnout? These are the questions the world continues to grapple with.

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“In my experience, my supervisors, colleagues, and I have rarely had deliberate, genuine discussions about trauma within our profession…This reluctance is not because science doesn’t recognize the role of the healer as potentially traumatic….Yet health care workforce wellness discussions tend to focus on burnout, along with other important topics such as depression and suicide, while trauma and PTSD are rarely discussed. The diagnostic criteria for PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), have even been expanded to include work-related traumatic stressors as qualifying exposures for the diagnosis. Still, in our national conversation about the burdens of our profession, we can’t find the words, “ (Vance, 2019, p. 868-871).

How Do We Currently Conceptualize Burnout?

The ICD is the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), which sets the global standard. And WHO has currently updated the standard to the 11th edition. (That’s not a question. Remember, WHO stands for World Health Organization.) At least 35 countries are using ICD-11 and in almost as many languages. About 900 proposals were processed based on input from early adopters, translators, scientists, clinicians, and partners. Burnout continues to be a topic of global proportions!

The ICD-11 (WHO, 2022) defines burnout as:

“A syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed," (WHO, 2022). The ICD-11 further explains the three dimensions of burnout:

1. feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion

2. increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job

3. reduced professional efficacy

In the U.S., medical providers follow another set of guidelines, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM–5 (APA. 2013). Burnout is not listed as a diagnosis in DSM-5.

Now, I’m not writing to critique WHO, AMA, APA, and the DSM-5, or any other professional who has contributed to the research and conceptualization of burnout. This post is merely a cry for help to more effectively conceptualize a prevalent and elusive occupational hazard.

According to the ICD-11, "Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life," (WHO, 2022).

“Burnout should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life? “ Gee. I didn’t know you could compartmentalize burnout and fatigue.

*eye roll*

So much for holistic health! For example, can we contain depression and anxiety within a locational context? (No.) Otherwise, a different diagnosis would be considered. This conceptualization of burnout is not an integrative, holistic health perspective. How does this make sense? Are we grasping at straws? (I guess you have to start somewhere.)

Yes, conceptualizing burnout within the workplace will yield better research results. I agree burnout can occur only when work is involved (work could possibly be ambiguous. Otherwise, without the “work-factor,” another term or diagnosis might be a better fit–like depression or grief, or laziness, depending upon the circumstances and the person.)

But are we splitting hairs? Are there no other ways to conceptualize burnout? Does the WHO’s conceptualization of burnout epidemiology free us to thoroughly study, research, and test potential solutions? Or is it lacking? Have we captured adequate data to support the claim of burnout epidemiology? Let alone a solution? Can we even come up with a better alternative?Is the epidemiology of burnout, as conceptualized by the WHO–the worldwide authority–the correct one?

Outside of diagnostic treatment, it is up to the individual to decide which term fits them best: burnout, compassion fatigue, grief; depression, anxiety, Secondary Traumatic Stress, PTSD… Leiter and Maslach (2016, p. 89-100), as well as, Schaufeli, Taris, & Van Rhenen (2008), have helped to better conceptualize burnout and contrast burnout and engagement with workaholism. This continues to suggest the need for further research and conceptual development.

“...Three concepts retained unique hypothesized patterns of relationships with variables from five clusters representing (1) long working hours, (2) job characteristics, (3) work outcomes, (4) quality of social relationships, and (5) perceived health, respectively. In sum, our analyses provided converging evidence that workaholism, burnout, and engagement are three different kinds of employee well-being rather than three of a kind,” (Schaufeli, Taris & Van Rhenen, 2008, p. 173-2003).

I agree there must be diagnostic standards. We don’t need more confusion and inconsistencies. Likewise, we cannot expect a simple list of symptoms will match perfectly polished diagnostic criteria. That would be too idealistic. But we ought to try. Challenge the status quo. Identify and address the gaps in medical research and treatment.  As we research more, we learn more. Then the diagnostic criteria evolves. Burnout may appear vague, yet the effects are clear. Burnout is a crippling contagion. Physicians and therapists can unofficially self-diagnose their own burnout—we generally know it when we see it. Yet, despite their extensive knowledge and experiences, they remain unsupported to fully pursue research and their own treatment to manage burnout or resolve it. It’s a little ironic. Or is it hypocritical? Isn’t it hypocritical for a profession of behavioral health workers to advocate for mental health awareness yet stigmatize burnout among therapists in the field?

Despite their best efforts, WHO’s conceptualization of burnout is insubstantial. Limiting. Obscure. Unpragmatic. It irritates me. Burnout is a MAJOR issue among professionals. We must find a way to medically conceptualize burnout. Or do we radically accept burnout as a medal of honor in the field? Do we celebrate that we “took one for the team” in an effort to restore humanity for everyone else, but ourselves? Is this the cycle for burnt out behavioral health professionals? One generation of professionals seeks the help of another generation of professionals, and on and on…

I’m only one mental health clinician among teams of more qualified scientists and professionals, asking this question of burnout epidemiology. Yet, I think there may be a more interesting question buried here. If burnout is our natural defense response to chronically unhealthy workplace circumstances, why doesn’t this defense response activate sooner? Why doesn’t our natural defense system activate sooner to protect us? Or, more likely, why don’t we listen to the warning of burnout sooner before we’re ensnared in its tangled web? 

At least with this question, we might be better positioned to make personal action steps towards healthier change and wellbeing. And the follow-up question is also very convicting. Do we negate and minimize our own suffering? Do we deny our own needs? Do we amplify and distort our ability to shoulder others’ burdens? 

“They say doctors are the worst patients. Many of us ignore or downplay our health problems. Too often, we are reluctant to admit we are ill. Next, we try to diagnose and treat ourselves. When these attempts fail, we are forced to acknowledge that we are no longer independent and in control. Then we have to entrust our health to our colleagues,” (Hudzik, 2019, p. 228-229).

But how can we entrust our health to our colleagues, when healthcare workers and mental health professionals are also plagued with burnout, Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and workaholism?

“Psychotherapist Carl Jung believed wounded healers developed insight and resilience from their own experience with illness, enabling better treatment of other patients’ illness,” (Hudzik, 2019). Empathy. Understanding. Connection. This applies to experiences of trauma in childhood and physical health as adults. In his published article, a doctor writes of his experience as a patient. 

“My advice to any doctor who has been unexpectedly diagnosed with a serious illness would be finding a balance—leave the medical degree at home (metaphorically speaking), take the advice that your specialist is giving you. But above all, feel free to be scared, feel exhausted or frustrated. Allow yourself to be a real patient. After all, you are not superhuman,” (Hudzik, 2019, p. 228-229). 

 Hudzik provides us insight and permission to be patients and clients. Our health has value. Has your health declined? Do you experience exhaustion, cynicism, numbness or pervasive frustration? Do you feel disconnected from others and your work? Lethargic? Imprisoned? Do you identify with the symptoms associated with burnout? Is burnout inevitable? Does it lie dormant until personal and professional variables line up?

How to Measure Burnout

Leiter and Maslach (2016) continue to inform our understanding of exhaustion, cynicism, and ineffectiveness at work–all symptoms of burnout.

“The three dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy do not always move in lock-step, which means that they are not so highly correlated as to constitute a single, one-dimensional phenomenon. The advantage of such distinct, but interrelated, burnout dimensions is that there could be several different patterns that are shown by people at varying times. In some instances, due to situational factors or personal qualities or their interaction, distinct patterns could emerge. Identifying these intermediate patterns would allow a clearer definition of the entire territory between the negative state of burnout and the positive state of engagement.”

Thomas Merton, American Catholic theologian, poet, author, and social activist once said in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,

Is Burnout an Elusive Threat?

It matters how we define and package burnout. As you’ve already read, this is no easy feat. But let’s consider another medical condition with more easily identifiable symptoms—spider bites. 

Burnout-epidemiology is a debacle that reminds me of the time a spider bit me. And not just any spider–-the rare brown recluse spider. Or Loxosceles reclusa, if you’re really cultured and educated, you can pronounce it (I can’t). If you think it’s not very threatening to equate burnout with a brown recluse spider, read on. 

“In the USA, the venom of the Loxosceles reclusa is the most potent among arachnids and most likely to cause dermonecrotic arachnidism,” (Anoka, Robb, Baker, 2022). If you’re geeky for Pathophysiology, Anoka, Robb, and Baker continue saying this:

“Within the venom, there are additional proteases that degrade collagen, fibronectin, fibrinogen, gelatin, elastin basement membranes that on their own may not be able to cause the local reaction seen with brown recluse bites but seem to have a synergistic effect with sphingomyelinase D leading to many of the cutaneous findings,” (2022). 

Yeah. Did you read it? The venom of a brown recluse spider degrades collagen and...stuff when certain variables are present. Its venom is a neurotoxin that accosts our flesh, decaying tissue. Gross.

Check it out for yourself. No, honestly. The pictures below were taken at my expense, so you might as well enjoy them.

So, for context, I was in my bed. I turned off the lights after reading and found a big dark spider above my bed. EWWW! I ended up enlisting the help of the miraculous Windex solvent and smashing the enemy with a fly-swatter. 

Spider swatter. 

Spider dead.

Great, now I can’t sleep.

Days pass. The wound left on my thigh felt significantly warmer than the rest of my leg. Heat radiated from my wound indicating an infection. Great. It needed to be treated sooner rather than later, although the discomfort was tolerable. After confiding in my nurse-friend, I used a pen to draw a perimeter around the current swelling. She told me I was going to monitor the swollen circumference over the next few days. The sensations were more noticeable as days passed. Feeling greater urgency, I escaped the work rush and drove to a local clinic.

As I’m sure you would have, I researched spider bites to better understand the–okay, no. I was essentially trying to self-diagnose. WebMD may or may not have been used. (haha)

“The bite site may initially have two small puncture wounds with surrounding erythema. From there, the center of the bite will become paler as the outer edge becomes red and edematous; this relates to vasospasm which will cause the pain to become more severe. Over the next few days, a blister will form, and the center of the ulcer will turn a blue/violet color with a hard, stellate, sunken center. After this step, skin sloughing can occur, and the wound will eventually heal by secondary intention, but this can take several weeks,” (Anoka, Robb & Baker, 2022).

If you’re SUPER into this, learn this acronym and maybe you can help prevent brown recluse bites! (Or at least, the misidentification or lack of identification of them.)

A helpful mnemonic to use is NOT RECLUSE, to help exclude the cause of bite from a brown recluse spider. 

• N (numerous) - only one lesion is usually present in a brown recluse spider bite. 

• O (occurrence) - A bite usually occurs when disturbing the spider. As the name suggests, they tend to avoid people, hiding in dark spaces like in a box or the attic. 

• T (timing) - Most bites occur between April and October. 

• R (red center) - characteristic bites will have a pale central area secondary to the capillary bed destruction causing ischemia.

• E (elevated) - Usually the bites are flat. If the area is elevated >1 cm, then this is most likely not a brown recluse spider bite.

• C (chronic)- bites from a brown recluse spider most commonly heal within 3 months. 

• L (large) - Rarely are these bites >10 cm.  

• U (Ulcerates too early) - If the bite is from a brown recluse spider, they do not ulcerate until 7-14 days. 

• S (swollen) - often brown recluse spider bites do not exhibit significant swelling unless they occur on the face or the feet

• E (exudative) - brown recluse spider bites do not cause exudative lesions

*Source: Stoecker WV, Vetter RS, Dyer JA. NOT RECLUSE-A Mnemonic Device to Avoid False Diagnoses of Brown Recluse Spider Bites. JAMA Dermatol. 2017 May 01;153(5):377-378. [PubMed]

Why am I including pictures of my spider bite? Because apparently, it is very difficult to meet the criteria for a brown recluse spider bite–annoyingly difficult. And I want to inform the internet so other people like me can find answers sooner to assist their own health and healing.

Bear with me for a moment longer.

According to a McLaren Provider Cultural Competency and Patient Engagement Training that I completed recently, “The average physician interrupts a patient within the first 20 seconds,” (ACME Insurance, 2023). My spider-bite-clinic-visit mirrored this very sad statistic. The doctor didn’t believe me. My conversations with the local clinic medical staff and Poison Control revoked my confidence in our diagnostic standards–or at least, in the execution of diagnosing spider bites. Despite being prescribed medication on my second visit, I felt invalidated throughout the diagnosis process.

You don’t meet the criteria. 

I’m open to the idea of being wrong. But really, I wasn’t wrong about this spider bite! I knew what I experienced was true! I’m positive it’s a brown recluse bit! I just know it!

The local clinic and Poison Control did not believe my spider-claims. I never got diagnosed with the appropriate ICD code, but I eventually got medicated for it weeks after (when they finally understood me). (And of course, within a week or two after calling in the Orkin man, he found a baby brown recluse spider, dead in a trap in the basement. Six months following our initial house assessment, he still fulfills his monthly defensive duties of spraying the house perimeter with insecticide and investigating the spider traps. As I am writing this, the Orkin Man found 9 more brown recluse spiders in the house. Disgusting.)

The bite and wound patterns weren't enough to convict the brown recluse spider. It was considered a typical spider bite, unless A) I saw the spider biting me or B) I caught the spider and C) it was identified by an entomologist. 

How absurd. Do they realize it’s called a brown recluse? It specifically likes to hide and they're nocturnal--I'm not. That kind of makes them difficult to capture. And even though I mentioned killing a spider just above my bed days prior–the bed where I was bitten–because I didn’t keep the dang creepy crawly carefully preserved in a plastic bag and sent in for someone to identify, I was out of luck. There’s nothing else the doctors could do for me. It’s really absurd. Understandable, yet there’s no way many people actually capture a brown recluse spider. It’s cunning. Which brings me back to our original point of this blog post. 

Burnout is Cunning

Burnout is very much conceptualized like a brown recluse spider bite. And it’s not working for us. We know it's there. But we don't really know what to do with it until after it's bitten us. We’re expected to heal quickly on our own. I do not accept this, because like spider bites–burnout rarely occurs only once and in a vacuum.

On a positive note, I can thankfully dwell on the three times I felt validated throughout this spider-bite-snafu:

1) The moment my nurse-friend hypothesized my infected wound, 

2) The moment the Orkin man trapped and identified brown recluse spiders in the traps (Hah! Proof!) and 

3) When my boss supported me when I left work to seek medical attention for the wound. 

I felt seen, heard, and cared for. Yeah, that feeling. It’s nice, isn’t it? I needed someone to believe me. “I SWEAR I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP OR EXAGGERATING!” Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel that way regarding burnout? By the way, you are not exaggerating. You are not a horrible person. You are not a hopeless cause. You won’t be stuck here forever. You deserve health and wholeness. You deserve health-investment. Address your burnout. You are worth it.

“...little is known regarding the clinical course of cutaneous-hemolytic loxoscelism,” (Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 2020). Which reminds me of the research mentioned earlier about burnout. We somehow don’t know enough!

You say you’re hurt, but you’re really not. Just keep going. 

• It’s just a little bit of pain. You’re fine.

• This is what it’s supposed to be like. 

• It’s normal. Stop worrying about nothing.

• You’ll be back to full health in no time. I wouldn’t worry about it.

• Everyone feels this way, you’re just the only one complaining about it.

• You’re the only one. No one else has complained about it.

• The problem must be you.

• You don’t meet the criteria.

When does the diagnostic criteria no longer serve the holistic health of the patient? When are the medical standards questioned and revised following new evidence and breakthrough in the epidemiological research of a medical symptom or condition?

By explicitly stating these things, we implicitly condone a culture of burnout, endorse workaholism, and invalidate any suffering related to burnout or compassion fatigue. (You can add Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) to that list too!) We mock self-care and self-compassion. We betray holistic, integrative health, while hypocritically preaching its value to our clients and patients. Is this an innate perspective, or have we internalized the corrosive values of a survival-based workplace? Invalidating the pain of others (and ourselves)  is often an attempt to counteract workplace burnout.

Invalidation is never advantageous. It seems like it is in the moment. It can appear to ourselves, as if we are protecting our fragile state and busy schedule from the unnecessary, trivial problems of others. We’ve hit our empathy-threshold. Invalidation can be a dismissive word, an unread text or a frustrated sigh. Invalidation dehumanizes. Invalidation is a subtle or bold discredit to our humanity. We need humanity. This nullification denies our humanity. We disconnect. We grow apart. It is a barrier to healing and growth. Invalidation isolates us. Invalidation is a shoddy survival-tactic for the burnt out professional. 

Burnout is the perpetuation of denied humanity. Workplace invalidation breeds burnout. When we discredit our needs, our pain, our suffering–and that of others–we negate humanity. Invalidation attempts to overrule our humanity–to shut it off–because we cannot bear what the truth may mean.

I could not believe how hurt and invalidated I felt over a misdiagnosis regarding my wound. I just wanted to be served and treated and be on my way back to my life. Surely, a spider bite wound would not take long to diagnose and prescribe an antibiotic. It is likely an everyday kind of issue clinics deal with. A slight nuisance. But that’s exactly the point. We’ve become a vicious corporate culture perpetuating the suffering of everyday kind of pain through invalidation.Misheard. Misunderstood. Misdiagnosed. 

To be honest, I have felt this in professional settings, too. Water cooler talk has become a moment of invalidating estrangement because providers are too burnt out to validate just one more person and “fix” just one more problem. We begin isolating in our offices. We avoid certain workspaces or colleagues. We tip-toe past the boss’ office. We hope we don’t have an additional project handed to us on our way to warm up leftovers for lunch. We find ourselves invalidating our coworkers suffering because we, ourselves, have not felt validated. Don’t tell me this isn’t also a workplace issue.

Disengaged. Detached. Dissociated. Disregarded. Reprimanded–by either self or workplace. Burnt out. It is a major problem. Whether your angle is medical, financial, social or spiritual–burnout ought to concern us all to take action.

Our type of work–assuming you, as the reader, are in one of the most at-risk professions for burnout–exposes us to greater risk of STS, PTSD, depression and other medical concerns just by work-type/work-place association. 

“In my experience, my supervisors, colleagues, and I have rarely had deliberate, genuine discussions about trauma within our profession…This reluctance is not because science doesn’t recognize the role of the healer as potentially traumatic….Yet health care workforce wellness discussions tend to focus on burnout, along with other important topics such as depression and suicide, while trauma and PTSD are rarely discussed. The diagnostic criteria for PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), have even been expanded to include work-related traumatic stressors as qualifying exposures for the diagnosis. Still, in our national conversation about the burdens of our profession, we can’t find the words, “ (Vance, 2019, p. 868-871).

Burnout and compassion fatigue may invalidate and cause harm, despite its potential to be a relatable, unstigmatized term for our workplace experiences.

The reluctance to discuss trauma in medicine is not because experiencing a traumatic event in our line of duty is rare, either…According to a 2004 article in Academic Psychiatry, in one residency program, half of psychiatrists and trainees experienced a patient’s suicide, and those who did were significantly more likely to report symptoms of PTSD. I’ve heard firsthand the stories of colleagues who simply walked away from clinical care after a patient died by suicide. The pain of it was just too much to bear, and too raw to risk experiencing again. To call that burnout, grief, or depression, but not trauma, is to deny that we health care professionals are just as vulnerable to experiencing posttraumatic reactions as other human beings are,” (Vance, 2019, p. 868-871). 

What Are Our Beliefs About Work and Rest?

There are a number of factors to consider regarding burnout. One element is work-mentality. What is your posture towards work and rest? Perhaps your default setting is a little faulty, if you will. You may have to unlearn a few things. For example, individual or cultural predispositions supported by experiences, trauma, values, beliefs, and internalized schemas. How are you possibly invalidating your humanity?

• Productivity + Me = A More Valuable Me 

• Unproductivity + Me = Laziness 

• Vulnerability + Me = Weak

• Numbing/Avoiding Emotions + Me = Strong

These are just a few examples. These schemas are not true in their entirety, yet feel real enough to us. Beliefs are programmed and reinforced in some capacity. What are yours? What else causes burnout?

Secondly, burnout lies beneath the structural integrity of an organization. It thrives among the convictions of those in leadership positions. What are the philosophical underpinnings of the organization? What values does your workplace magnify? Is it a healthy environment to work in? Why or why not? Are behavioral health workers supported at their workplace? Does organizational toxicity exist at any level within the agency or department? Are you expected to just push through the pain with an invalidating, "Hey, we all gotta do it" kind of attitude?

Thirdly, as we discussed in my last blog post, the type of work makes a difference. Read more about it here.

These factors combined really make a compelling discussion on the topic of burnout. What do you think? Are there any other factors we need to consider?

I agree with Dr. Mary C. Vance. There must be systemic change to address the occupational hazard that is burnout, compassion fatigue, STS, and trauma. True systemic change needs to affect education, research, policy, and programming (Vance, 2019, p. 868-871). Transparent disclosure among colleagues and workforce wellness programs must be at the forefront to maintain the longevity of our careers–let alone, the profession and health for all.

Is Humanity Instinctive?

A spider responds instinctively. It bites to protect, defend, and survive. That’s what spiders do. Similarity, burnout is an expected response to chronically unhealthy circumstances in the workplace. Burnout is the natural response for our mind, body, and soul. Burnout indicates the presence of a major threat to our survival. Our defenses kick in to protect us. Anger. Distance. Disconnection. Numbness. Indifference. Survival tactics.

It’s easy to focus on the headline threat—the spider. But when we solely focus on burnout–the natural response–we remain stuck in a webbed system riddled with the conundrums of disproportionate diagnostic requirements, unsupported mental health services and uncooperative workplaces. There must be another angle we can maneuver.

The pain of the bite or the wound is not something we fear. We don’t dread the pang of our trauma-saturated caseloads and work emergencies. Protecting, defending, and advocating is what we instinctively do. We fear getting caught in the web. Getting trapped with no one to help, no one to hear, and no hope of healing. No end in sight. It’s the familiar compounded with daily chronic wrestling that consumes our strength. Our hope. Our peace.

Burnout may be a natural defense response, but how do we break free from the web?

So what are we doing to address the deteriorating health of healthcare workers? If you fear you may be at risk of burnout from work-related pressures and personal stress, then take this brief 10 Question Quiz. Or better yet, sign up here to receive updates on our upcoming bundle, packaged with TONS of helpful information and tools to help you combat burnout in helping professions. It’s time to take your life back.

If you had all the answers, you wouldn’t be here reading this, would you? (Nope.) And what you’ve tried hasn’t worked? (Nope.) Join the club. (Try this, instead!) So, are you willing to make changes? Are you prepared to achieve success in both your personal and professional life? Are you prepared to confront any push-back or disparaging comments about your work ethic? Perhaps you’ll be a rebel against the status quo. Or Maybe misunderstood as a modern-day martyr. Yet you know the truth: you will no longer allow your job or anything else to steal your health, rest, time with loved ones, or sanity.

If you are in any of these helping professions, do you feel the effects of burnout? Have you noticed colleagues or loved ones suffering through compassion fatigue? What about secondary traumatic stress? What will you do? Seize the day! Your health and the health of others, depends on it.  

In our ongoing series, we’re going to continue this conversation of self-care and self-compassion within careers riddled with burnout and in a culture tormented by the ideal of productivity. Why wait to change? Do you believe anyone else can decide for you? (Nope.)

It’s time for a shift. Transformation. I know I need a win. It’s time to counter burnout and poor self-care. Take a step. For you, that might mean rest. For others, advocacy. It is likely drawing boundaries and saying no to some people. It might mean using your paid time off or taking an extended weekend to get out of town. Read a book. Get to the gym. Change any unhealthy rhythms. Soon you’ll experience strength and hope to allow you to tackle the issue on the front lines—in the workplace.

If you fear you may be burnt out from work-related pressures, magnified by personal stress, then take this brief 10 Question Quiz or better yet, sign up here to receive updates on our upcoming digital bundle, packaged with TONS of helpful information and tools to help you combat burnout in helping professions. It’s time to take your life back.

References

2023 ICD-10-CM diagnosis code T63.331A: Toxic effect of venom of Brown recluse spider, accidental (unintentional), initial encounter. (n.d.). The Web's Free 2023 ICD-10-CM/PCS Medical Coding Reference. https://www.icd10data.com/ICD10CM/Codes/S00-T88/T51-T65/T63/T63.3-/T63.331A

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