Play This Game on Your Android Mobile According to the World Health Organization (WHO), occupational burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterized by “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and reduced professional efficacy.”1 While burnout may influence health and can be a reason for people contacting health services, it is not itself classified by the WHO as a medical condition.1
In 1974, Herbert Freuden berger became the first researcher to publish in a psychology-related journal a paper that used the term “burnout.” The paper was based on his observations of the volunteer staff (including himself) at a free clinic for drug addicts.2 He characterized burnout by a set of symptoms that includes exhaustion resulting from work’s excessive demands as well as physical symptoms such as headaches and sleeplessness, “quickness to anger,” and closed thinking. He observed that the burned-out worker “looks, acts, and seems depressed.” After the publication of Freudenberger’s original paper, interest in occupational burnout grew. Because the phrase “burnt-out” was part of the title of a 1961 Graham Greene novel A Burnt-Out Case, which dealt with a doctor working in the Belgian Congo with patients who had leprosy, the phrase was likely in use outside the psychology literature before Freuden berger employed it.3 Wolfgang Kaskcha has written on the early documentation of the subject.4
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